William Neville
Influences: Constantine Brancusi / Louis Majorelle
Four Decades
Caseworks has been fabricating furniture pieces as a business for four decades. We take pride in the fact that we are furniture maker. I am always amazed by the materials we have the opportunity to work with and often humbled by their beauty. Presently I am enjoying working with my son, John Neville, you can find him @nevillefabrication.com. We find a great synergy in this.
John Taj Neville
In 2006 I began working in the shop with my father while on summer break from college. The collaborative and artistic nature of the work inspired a newfound passion and I began my apprenticeship as a furniture maker. After several years with Caseworks, I took a job at Skram Furniture Company (Burlington, NC), where I built my first chair. This began an ongoing inquiry into the practice of chair making. At Woodpecker Enterprises (Apex, NC), I was part of a team that fabricated and installed a large-scale millwork project to beautify a historic performance space on Duke University’s campus. Working on this project, I experienced first-hand the truth of the proverb, “if you want to go far, go together.” In 2014, I opened my own business, Neville Fabrication. Since my father’s return from retirement we have maintained both Caseworks and Neville Fabrication in the same space, joining forces to serve clients both in our local community and as far afield as Colorado and Missouri.
We hold longevity and beauty as core principles. We work with a respect for our natural materials, recognizing that they are both precious and renewable. We focus deeply on the processes and methods of our craft, in order to produce enduring and beautiful furniture that will last generations. Using modern tooling and traditional methods of hand-work, we aim to reveal the wonder of nature encased in mature hardwoods. As dad likes to say, “You can’t beat the tree.”
More images of my work can be found on Neville Fabrication’s website portfolio, here.
Philosophy
We believe wood is a precious and beautiful material. We always try to use it with this in mind. We attempt to source our materials locally using domestic hard woods cut and processed as near to our location as possible. However, we will at times use what are known as exotics: Sapelle, South America Rose Wood, known as Santos, and similar hardwoods at the client’s request. Still, our focus is on materials grown close to home. We believe even the most common species hold many possibilities.
