Spectrum Woodwright is my independent hardwood craft business, founded in Stockport following a period of significant personal and professional difficulty. After experiencing ableism and discrimination while working as an educator.

 

I made the challenging decision to channel my skills, my values, and my identity into something I could build on my own terms with wellbeing and neurodivergent inclusivity at its core. (Please see my principles tab.) 

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The name carries deliberate dual meaning: the spectrum of hardwood species and natural colour I work with, and my identity as an Autistic, ADHD maker. The logo, a rainbow combined with tree rings, holds both of those things at once. Spectrum Woodwright is not a brand that wears its founder's neurodivergence as a footnote; it is foundational to why the business exists and what it is working toward.

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My craft

I work exclusively in solid exotic and domestic hardwoods. No veneers, no dyes, no stains, no imitation materials. Every piece is finished to reveal exactly what it is.

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My current stock spans over 76 species, giving me a genuinely exceptional colour palette to draw from. From the deep violet of purpleheart and arterial red of padauk, through the amber-rose of black cherry and soft pink of eucalyptus, to the stark contrast of wenge against pale maple.

 

This breadth of material is not decorative background; it is the active creative resource from which new products and artworks develop.

Current and developing product ranges include:

• Kitchen and serveware  (end grain chopping boards, exotic hardwood coasters, serving boards; these form the commercial foundation of the brand and fund its growth)

• Wall art and installation pieces (currently in active development, using inlay techniques and the full species palette to move the work beyond functional objects into decorative and collectible territory)

• Personalised and engraved pieces  (produced using laser engraving, integrated into the serveware range and available for custom orders) 

 

The community behind the work

I work from Hackspace Manchester, a community workshop space where I have been a member, volunteer trainer and volunteer workshop technician for several years, and where until recently I served as Infrastructure Director; stepping back from that role to focus on Spectrum Woodwright full time.

 

Hackspace has been central to my own journey of unmasking and genuinely accepting my disabilities, and it remains somewhere I am deeply connected to. The Hackspace community is heavily neurodivergent, and that has shaped how I understand accommodation, belonging and what it actually means to be supported rather than tolerated. That understanding now runs through how I operate at every level.

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Trading at artisan markets across Greater Manchester, Stockport and Cheshire has extended that community further. Being openly Autistic at a market stall is its own kind of quiet visibility, and consistently, it draws people in. Neurodivergent customers, makers and visitors find their way to the stall and share things they would not share elsewhere. That matters to me and reinforces what the business is for.

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My Brands Future

The kitchen and serveware ranges exist to establish the brand commercially and generate the stability to grow into larger, more ambitious work. As that foundation builds, the plan is to take on custom commissions and larger installation projects, hiring freelance neurodivergent collaborators for those commissions and creating genuine paid opportunities within my community as the business scales.

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The longer ambition is for Spectrum Woodwright to establish a Community Interest Company: a dedicated workshop space, designed by and actively for neurodivergent people, offering:

• Woodworking apprenticeships and structured employment pathways

• A launchpad and accelerator for neurodivergent makers wanting to work in hardwood professionally

• A space where accommodation is built in rather than negotiated for, and where the community shapes what the workshop becomes