His late wife’s gift helped this carpenter turn broken wood into family heirlooms [WATCH]

“I’M a carpenter-artist,” says Adrian Asir, without missing a beat. Standing in the middle of Subang Jaya’s busy industrial belt, the introduction feels unexpectedly bold.

Taman Perindustrian Subang in USJ1 is better known for its light industrial lots, warehouses and automotive workshops than artistry.

Rows of repair bays, spare parts stores and delivery trucks dominate the landscape, making Adrian’s little woodworking corner feel almost hidden in plain sight.

The afternoon heat hangs heavily in the air while a portable fan rattles noisily in one corner, pushing around warm air that offers little relief from the humidity.

Outside, discarded wooden pallets sit beside shuttered factory bays, giving the area a lonely, almost forgotten feel that makes it difficult to imagine handcrafted furniture emerging from this industrial corner.

Finding Adrian had felt like part of the adventure itself.

Waze first sent me into a nearby housing area, leaving me driving in circles.

“You’re in the wrong place!” exclaims Adrian, chuckling over the phone. After sending me a new location pin, I found myself heading deeper into the industrial zone where the roads gradually emptied out and most of the factory shutters remained pulled down.

Just as I began wondering if I had once again taken the wrong turn, a diminutive man dressed in black jeans and a black T-shirt emerged between the factory bays, waving both arms enthusiastically in the air with a wide grin across his face.

At that moment, I knew I’d found the right place.

Adrian leads me behind one of the workshop rows to his workspace, which is really half of a car repair bay rented from a friend. A large dining table dominates the cramped workshop, seeming almost out of place amid the clutter of timber slabs, scattered tools and half-finished benches surrounding it.

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Yet the table immediately commands attention. The natural grain of the wood flows beneath intricate fractal patterns resembling lightning frozen into timber, while sleek metal legs and hidden LED lights transform it from a dining table into something strikingly artistic.

The 52-year-old moves around the workshop with restless energy, his hands tracing across the polished surface while proudly explaining that the table was crafted from a merbau tree in Terengganu that had fallen during a storm.

He shares; “I don’t use logged trees. I work with discarded wood that I source from all over.”

Around him are slabs salvaged from uprooted trees, storm-damaged trunks and abandoned offcuts. Adrian studies each piece carefully, paying attention to the cracks, knots and uneven edges before deciding what it could eventually become.

“In fact, the bench you’re sitting on and the other bench over there are from the same tree,” he says, pointing around the workshop.

Both unfinished benches are part of the dining set he’s still completing, their surfaces still rough in places and waiting to be sanded and polished.

RESIDENT HANDYMAN

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The self-taught carpenter has always been the sort of person who instinctively reaches for a toolbox before calling for help. Long before he was crafting dining tables from fallen timber, Adrian had already earned a reputation in the family as the one capable of fixing almost anything around the house.

The eldest of three boys, Adrian grew up in Petaling Jaya in a household where practicality mattered. Both his parents worked at Assunta Hospital — his mother as a nurse and his father as a stock supervisor — while money was often tight enough that learning to make do became part of everyday life.

Much of that resourcefulness came from his father, who had once served with the British army and picked up practical skills along the way.

At home, repairing things yourself was simply normal.

“My father used to do things around the house himself and taught us boys how to use our hands,” Adrian recalls.

As a teenager, he had hoped to study computer science and his grades were good enough for college, but finances made that impossible.

“We just couldn’t afford it then,” he shares, shrugging his shoulders.

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Instead, Adrian entered the workforce early, first taking up a job as a printer before eventually gravitating towards classic car restoration, a field that combined his fascination with old cars and his natural ability to work with his hands.

Without formal training, Adrian learnt the trade through observation, trial and error. He spent hours studying repair manuals, especially the well-thumbed Haynes guides popular among DIY mechanics, while also learning from experienced friends willing to share their knowledge.

“There was no proper training. Everything was hands-on,” he says, laughing while recalling how he once opened a car radiator while it was still hot and ended up badly burnt.

LOVE AND CAMBODIA

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Adrian became deeply involved in community work through his church, which was where he met Jasmine, the woman he would later marry.

Chuckling, he recalls: “We got married in 1999. I would have been about 25.”

Over the years, the couple continued serving together through church and community work in Malaysia before eventually leaving for Cambodia in 2011 as missionaries, drawn by a shared desire to work with underprivileged communities and young people in need of support.

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Cambodia then felt very different from the tourist destination many know today. The country was still carrying the scars of decades of war and instability, with poverty widespread and parts of Phnom Penh often tense and unpredictable.

“It was really rough back then,” he recalls quietly, speaking of bodies by the roadside and shootings sparked by sudden disputes. Yet, despite the hardship, what stayed with him most was the warmth of the Cambodian people.

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Together, he and Jasmine worked with underprivileged youths, street children and factory workers, teaching English, music and practical life skills.

One boy they once mentored has since gone on to become a national tennis player in Cambodia, something Adrian mentions with unmistakable pride.

It was also in Cambodia that something creative quietly began taking root in him. Whenever he had free time, Adrian found himself drawn to local craftsmen, watching them carve wood, build furniture and shape things patiently by hand.

Looking back now, he realises those years in Cambodia were quietly laying the foundation for the carpenter-artist he would eventually become.

CHALLENGES AND HEARTBREAK

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After seven years in Cambodia, Adrian and Jasmine eventually returned to Malaysia carrying with them new experiences, difficult memories and a quieter appreciation for simple things. By then, his curiosity about making things by hand had already begun to grow, although he never imagined it would one day become such an important part of his life.

Ironically, the spark came from a Christmas present Jasmine bought for him — an electric driver that initially seemed like nothing more than a practical gift for someone who was always fixing things around the house.

“I didn’t really get into practical art until my wife gifted me that,” he recalls, glancing around the workshop where unfinished tables, timber slabs and tools now crowd almost every corner.

At first, Adrian simply used the tool to build shelves, cabinets and small pieces of furniture designed to fit the awkward spaces around their home. Yet the more time he spent working with wood, the more fascinated he became by the idea of combining craftsmanship with design.

“That gift got me thinking seriously about woodworking because I wanted to combine both art and practicality together,” he explains, adding: “A lot of times art is something people only look at. You get these beautifully crafted tables or slabs, but they’re not practical to use or comfortable to live with. I wanted to bring both together.”

Like everything else he had taught himself throughout his life, Adrian approached woodworking methodically and obsessively. He spent countless hours reading, researching techniques online, watching tutorials and speaking to experienced craftsmen because he wanted to understand every detail properly before attempting it himself.

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Then, in 2020, life suddenly shifted course.

What first seemed like a small health concern soon became something far more serious when Jasmine discovered a lump in her breast that later proved to be cancerous.

From that point onward, their lives gradually became shaped by hospital visits, treatments, medical appointments and the exhausting emotional balancing act of trying to hold onto hope while preparing for difficult possibilities.

Adrian continued working where he could while caring for the woman who had spent more than two decades beside him through every uncertain chapter of life — from their early years in Malaysia to the challenges they faced together in Cambodia.

Voice low, he shares: “It became a balancing act. You try to stay strong and just deal with one thing at a time.”

For a while, they believed the treatments were helping. But about a year later, Jasmine began suffering from persistent back pain that slowly worsened until she eventually struggled to walk. “That was when the doctors told us the cancer had spread to the bones,” he recalls.

The usually energetic Adrian grows noticeably subdued as he speaks about those final months, his eyes drifting briefly towards the workshop entrance before returning to the table in front of him.

Jasmine passed away in November 2022.

“Our whole life was really just each other,” he says softly, reflecting on a marriage shaped not only by love, but by years of shared hardship, travel, uncertainty and companionship.

PICKING UP THE PIECES

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After her passing, Adrian admits he struggled deeply with grief, withdrawing from family and friends while trying simply to get through each day.

“I kind of got lost and disappeared for a while,” he reveals, adding: “I was trying to function, but honestly, I wasn’t functioning very well.”

Woodworking became one of the few things keeping him occupied during that period, although even that came with risks. At the time, Adrian was heavily involved in fractal burning, a technique using high-voltage electricity to create lightning-like patterns across wood surfaces.

Beautiful as the finished pieces looked, the process carried serious dangers and had been linked to fatal accidents worldwide. In the emotional state he was in then, Adrian realised he could no longer safely continue doing that kind of work and decided to stop.

For a long time, even ordinary places and conversations became difficult because they carried memories of Jasmine.

“I started avoiding certain places because they became triggers,” he says quietly, adding: “Sometimes even conversations with family members could bring everything back.”

It was only sometime in 2024 that Adrian slowly began learning how to function again. He reflects: “The pain is still there. But you slowly learn how to live with it.”

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Just then, as if on cue, the skies finally break open and rain crashes heavily against the zinc roof above us, filling the workshop with a steady drumming sound while the smell of wet timber drifts through the cramped space.

Around us are slabs of wood stacked against walls and tucked into corners, many salvaged from uprooted trees, storm-fallen trunks and discarded pieces most people would have ignored.

Adrian explains that every piece of wood must first be left to air dry and season naturally, sometimes for years, before he can begin shaping it into furniture. This is because freshly cut timber still carries moisture and sap deep inside its fibres and may later crack or warp if worked on too early.

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“You have to let the wood rest first,” he explains over the sound of rain. “Otherwise later it will split because there’s still moisture trapped inside.”

Even after the timber is properly seasoned, Adrian rarely rushes into deciding what it should become. Some slabs remain untouched in the workshop for years while he studies the grain, cracks and uneven edges, waiting for inspiration to come naturally.

Laughing, he admits: “Even I don’t always know straight away what I want to make. I just wait and eventually the idea will come.”

What fascinates him most are imperfect pieces of timber marked by storms, age and decay because he believes flaws are what give wood its character.

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Later, he demonstrates how he creates his signature fractal burns by carefully guiding electricity across the wood surface using a method refined through years of experimentation. Dark branching patterns gradually spread across the timber like lightning frozen into place, weaving through cracks and scars instead of hiding them.

Watching him work in the dim workshop while rain hammers overhead and unfinished slabs surround him, it becomes difficult not to see the parallels between the carpenter-artist and the wood he chooses to work with.

Both have been shaped by storms. Both carry scars and imperfections.

And somehow, in this lonely industrial corner of Subang Jaya, Adrian continues patiently turning broken and discarded things, whether wood or grief, into something beautiful again.

elena@nst.com.my

To see more of Adrian Asir’s handcrafted heirloom pieces made from reclaimed Malaysian timber, visit www.instagram.com/es_kosmos_art.

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المصدر: New Straits Times