The company name Mara Made Designs announces the identity of Tamara Harding’s dream enterprise which, to her is more of a mission — to turn fallen wood into items of art, heart and desire.

Leveraging a professional background in business and project management, she has begun her new job of using “all the downed and felled trees across the island that would have otherwise ended up in the dump, burned or left to rot”, she told the Jamaica Observer.

Now the sole shareholder in Mara Made Designs, Harding was also previously head of her own advertising agency, which she ran until she decided to shutter that business.

The artist’s workshop is currently in Kingston, but she is expanding to the seaside town of Famouth in Trelawny, where she says, “I’m setting up a bigger space.”

Her company will celebrate its first year in November 2016, saluting a departure from the rough-and-tumble world of advertising to the even more challenging one of hammering the inanimate into new forms.

Her mission of turning wood into art began conclusively right after the businesswoman turned 40.

As outlined on her website: “In January 2015, I bought my first chainsaw and spent the first half of the year salvaging downed or felled trees. Then in mid-August I decided to put together my first collection and went straight to cutting, carving and sanding 7 days a week for 3 months.”

That surge of effort resulted in more than 100 pieces.

While discussing challenges experienced since start-up, Harding recalls, “…not having any training or knowledge with woodworking, almost everything I know now was self-taught with a lot of trial and error.

“Second to that, it’s having an idea and not knowing what the right tools are to properly execute it, or knowing what tools are needed but not having access to them.

“Truthfully, nothing I do is basic because so much detail goes into the making of every piece.

“So it could be something as small as a bracelet or as big as a 12-foot dining table, the wood is carefully selected after it’s been left to dry for a long period. Then I spend sometimes weeks deciding on the design, which is carved using different methods, but all by hand. After a piece is designed, there is a long process of sanding it both to accomplish the design as well as to complete the finish. All my pieces are then heat-treated for termites, then oil-rubbed.”

Pieces are priced depending on the cost of transporting the wood to the workshop, the time taken to debark and clean it up, the number of hours spent carving, sanding and finishing the piece.

After one year of operating, Harding says Mara Made Designs is yet to break even.

“Right now I’ve been putting all profits back into the business… purchasing supplies, tools and equipment,” she explained.

However, she notes that the enterprise is sending down roots and sending up new branches as time goes by, as evidenced by “feedback and comments I get wherever I go; the number of orders I receive monthly; the number of requests for interviews; and the best part for me…being asked to tell my story and help motivate others”.

Mara Made Designs is already into export, with Harding noting that her work is marketed to the diaspora and other international art lovers: “…100 per cent through social media and word of mouth.”

In the current year, Harding hopes to receive revenue that will be sufficient to cover payments for “a proper workshop”.

“My one-year target is making enough to invest back into the business so I can have a proper workshop with the tools I’ve identified as critical for the success of the business. Yes, I’m on track,” she shared with the Caribbean Business Report.

The enterprise she has created currently employs three full-time staff on the mission of wooden regeneration.