Jeff Mann

From a run-down Stable in the Italian Alps to a Fine Furniture Shop in Victoria BC
The Stables Woodshop is the realization of an idea born from a passion found in the midst of lockdown in small-town Italy. Jeff Mann, a former Red Seal Electrician, moved to Italy in the spring of 2019. He acquired a small set of hand tools with which he began learning the woodworking craft while living under lockdown in Valtellina in 2020.

The Coquitlam, BC native would never have imagined that the small boxes and trinkets he made in that dilapidated, 200-year-old horse stable would spark a passion that he would follow in the coming years. After spending 2 and a half years in Italy, he chased his passion to Victoria, BC and enrolled in the Fine Furniture Program at Camosun College, where he flourished, winning the Pat Lintaman Award for Design.

Awarded to a Fine Furniture Student who shows strength in the design component of the course and has worked to incorporate local, sustainable materials and environmentally friendly finishing products into their work.

“Jeff came into the Fine Furniture Program with no formal design training. He applied himself to the many design projects and worked hard to learn this skill. His persistence and a desire to create work of a high standard earned him this award, achieving the top combined mark for design projects.”