Author: Gazwareen Driftwood Furniture

I'm currently a wood artist making driftwood furniture which is what i wanted to do all my life. I hand craft new but rustic looking artistic furniture from old driftwood that washes out on the shores of the Egyptian beaches. I aim to reach higher levels of precision and artistic taste in my work and teach and inspire people as much as i can. The Artist: The brand Gazwareen was created by Dr Shahir Maged (2010) for his high-end, handcrafted Driftwood furniture. The furniture pieces he makes are targeted to be exquisite pieces of functional art. Dr Shahir is a well established artist, popular for his fine original work. He developed a great passion for wood from childhood, influenced by his father’s (Prof.Dr Maged Mikhail) love for woodwork. He is also a fully certified bone surgeon who chose to take his wood-art as a profession and you can watch a documentary about his story and several interviews talking about his unique work, all provided in the links below. Being a coastal resident, he was fascinated from a young age by the beauty of the driftwood he found on the beach and started experimenting using it to build functional furniture. After learning traditional carpentry from his avid father, he started developing his own techniques over the years to deal with the un-uniformity of the driftwood and make it possible to utilize such irregular wood and yet produce a straight and sturdy structure. Dr Shahir believes in continuous skill development and until this day he is in a continuous process of developing his skills and techniques. The product: Gazwareen is special in many ways: The wood: This is Green furniture, made from high-strength upcycled driftwood originating from fishing boats used in the Mediterranean sea around the city of Alexandria, Egypt. Most of the woods used in these boats are very durable dark hard oaks from Africa. Dr Shahir gathers the wood piece by piece from the beaches around his coastal town,Agami, usually in very stormy conditions because that’s when the driftwood comes out of the sea, after big winter storms. After the wood hunt, he performs a meticulous process of restoration to fix any structural or cosmetic defects and imperfections while preserving, addition to being durable and beautiful, driftwood that has been soaked in sea water andas much as possible, the original colors and inspiring forms of the driftwood which give it a big part of its charm. In sun dried, develops chemical compounds inside it that render it bug resistant. The Design process: Originality and slow design: each design is unique and is conceived and inspired from the shapes and forms of the driftwood which makes each piece of furniture completely unique. After having an initial design, the piece is built bit by bit in conversation with the random shapes and sizes of the driftwood which makes the process slow but yields a very original and aesthetically pleasing product. The furniture pieces which are more like functional sculptures and are designed and made entirely from start to finish by Dr Shahir himself; that's why the work is so fine with obsessive attention to detail and durability. Faithful function is another important aspect of Gazwareen that Dr Shahir takes very seriously, he tries and tests the furniture in all possible scenarios of use to ensure optimal function and ergonomics, so that you love the furniture when you use it because it functions properly. For example, when designing and testing a chair, being an orthopedic surgeon, he is well aware of the correct body posture one should have while sitting and he makes sure that is what the chair provides. Durability: In terms of durability Dr Shahir has invented his own bonding paste that he developed and tested over the years. He makes it from wood dust, wood ash and wood glue. This paste is much superior in strength to just using wood glue due to the fact that wood ash particles have very rough serrated edges under the microscope and that strengthens the bonding power of the glue while also filling any dead spaces that might be there. It is basically like a wood weld. The paste is applied to all wood joints and connections firmly bonding every piece of wood to the structure, creating a super durable piece of furniture. Add that to the massive screws he uses for assembly and you have yourself a structure that is really built to last.
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Gazwareen exhibition 2013 at Tunis village, Fayoum, Egypt

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Alia Askalany my marketing manager
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The famous Ahmed Abou Zeid, well known pottery artist, his son and myself.

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The Peace Bench

A community bench made with a lot of dear friends at Nuweiba, Sinai, Egypt on a lovely beach just after hotel Bawaki from a beautiful huge trunk of wood that has been lying there on the beach for years. It was never used during that time but was elegantly polished by the sun rays and the sea breeze to a beautiful tinge. We dug it up, leveled it on rocks, cleaned it, protected it with a coat of olive oil and finally transformed it into a peace sign. So next time you are there, go visit the bench and enjoy a very peaceful view.1175282_10153673821635257_1096837308_n 1513207_232416380262667_1379305000_n 1522808_10152178982719859_385765008_o 1525211_232416343596004_1497375620_n 1526961_232416403595998_1437622382_n 1535500_10153673820680257_1214298767_n 1537588_10152178967229859_195385600_o 1545186_232416473595991_174793257_n

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Shoe Closet

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Gazwareen workshop, Agami
Gazwareen workshop, Agami

A new project i’m working on. It’s a shoe cupboard that will go in the music recording studio of an artist friend. It’s all made of drift wood and the top used to be the hull of a fishing boat that ended it’s service. It can hold ten big shoes comfortably and is readily ariated all around. It’s gonna have two cute doors made from thin gazwareen slabs.
Continue reading “Shoe Closet”

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Baby changing table

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Table for changing dippers with style. I made it for a friend as a special request. Very simple design, measurements were made with functionality in mind and i must say i’m very pleased with the outcome. A lot of people have given me good comments about the arched piece at the top which is part of a boat and it was friend that picked this piece when we were doing the wood selection for the piece from the drift wood stock