The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play
it's always twenty to twelve
Returning home to Zimbabwe, Adam tried his hand at strawberry farming & marketing, whilst he continued to build & restore old furniture in his spare time, often making pieces for friends & family as presents. His first commercial piece was an old hay rake that he transformed into a giant rocking bench, which he left at the bottom of the family home driveway with an ON SALE sign attached. When this bench was accidently reversed into, Adam realized he needed to take his business to the next level and so began a period of growth based from a studio on his parent’s property, where he started to take furniture design & restoration more seriously.
Through initial contacts in the industry (he had done some freelance work for furniture shops in Harare), regular exhibitions & craft fair displays, as well as word-of-mouth referrals, Adam has built up a strong reputation for his craftsmanship & creativity within Zimbabwe. He now boasts a unique & impressive collection of work. One day Adam will return to his farming roots, but for now he can be found happily in his Harare-based studio, creating pieces of magic with wood and steel.
On the wall of his studio, Adam Seager has a giant clock that is stuck at 11h41. What significance does this have in his life? Not a whole lot it would seem, he just likes the curiousness of it. And it is exactly this innate curiosity, blended with an acute sense of creativity, that defines Adam Seager & his unique pieces of restored furniture.
Adam was raised on a farm in Zimbabwe, where he spent his free time in the farm workshops tinkering away with the local carpenters. His father & mother (herself an established artist) collected antique furniture pieces as a hobby, & whilst the farm carpenters were restoring these, Adam would work alongside them building all sorts of childhood creations like bow & arrows. Two of these local carpenters, Gordie & Bengai, were influential in Adam’s early understanding of the crafts of carpentry & furniture restoration. Many of the antique pieces he worked with them on back in those early days on the farm are still around in Adam’s parents’ kitchen & sitting room today.
After school, Adam studied a Business Management degree at Rhodes University in South Africa, a fun time in which, despite his ‘serious’ degree, Adam spent much time in the company of the arty crowd & during which he again spent much of his free time in the university workshops building bits & pieces for his digs & for friends. A couple of years of travel & seasonal harvest work in the UK followed university. During trips to Europe, Asia & America, Adam noticed & was inspired by a distinct return to fashion of vintage & antique furniture & restored pieces, often with retro design elements.