Steve formally trained as a sculptor in the ‘60s and taught for many years. He began to make furniture 12 years ago and has been working professionally for the past 8 years. Steve's fine art background enables him to approach furniture design and construction without the usual conventions of tradition and with a free spirit.

Much of Steve's inspiration comes from four main sources:- the agricultural past and rural debris; Irish country furniture; East European folk art; and things made by the ‘unskilled’ out of resourceful necessity. His strength as a maker is in the reinvention of uses for abandoned objects.

In Steve's core work he is a bucolic dreamer and visionary rooted in hedge bottoms, the forgotten corners of barns and lofts, the rising moon and the steaming nostrils of yarded beast in winter.

Each 'Steve Handley' piece is different, most say unusual and all are carefully handcrafted from old timber and much of the decoration added to his tables, chairs and cupboards are rare gems from a bygon age sourced over the years by Steve.

Although termed 'furniture' it is much more than that.

Steve is well known for his wit as many of you know from meeting him on his stand at the many fairs and exhibitions he has attended. His passion for the country and the old farming ways comes through in many of his pieces. They can be inscribed visibly with on of his own poetic rhymes or a special message straight from the heart maybe tucked away somewhere out of sight.