Peter Bollington came to furniture making by a circuitous route. Initially he studied interior design before realising his interest lay in designing and making furniture. He studied at the ANU School of Art before taking time off to travel and gain experience working in an interior design company in London. He has now come back to Canberra to live. Bollington writes that having studied both furniture and interior design his practice now focuses on creating a harmony between the object and the environment. His furniture demonstrates his appreciation of the qualities of both the colour and grain of the wood, as well as his desire to make well-designed and original furniture that is also practical and useful.

Among the several pieces on display is a very elegant desk, somewhat like the one he designed which was a finalist in the 2015 Victorian Craft Awards. Unlike a lot of desks that are clumsy and merely utilitarian, Bollington's desk is a pleasing object in its own right but is practical as well – the raised book shelf on the desk top provides the desk with its own individual profile. Among the other pieces on display is a free standing and sturdy set of open bookshelves. This could also be used as a room divider; the kind that was popular in the 1950s as it could also be used to define living areas in small spaces. Bollington's attractive planter boxes with their faceted and often painted sides work particularly well with this versatile book shelf. All Bollington's furniture is designed to harmoniously fit together. An attention to detail, an appreciation of interior design together with skilled workmanship make Bollington's furniture the kind that would constitute an investment for the future.

Also at the ACT Craft gallery is the Artist-in-Residence exhibition that celebrates 10 years of this very successful program, an initiative originally begun in collaboration with the ACT Parks and Conservation Service. The residency in the Gudgenby Ready-Cut Cottage in the Namadgi National Park also includes two weeks of research at a Canberra institution. The artists-in-residence from the past 10 years were invited back to Namadgi for a day and the new work they have presented in this exhibition relates in a personal way to this experience.

Cathy Franzi was artist-in-residence in 2016. Her series of ceramics are a direct reflection of her surroundings. Franzi surveyed the flora from three areas of the park including the cottage garden. She recorded this flora in a series of images drawn on small ceramic cylinders that together make up a ceramic meadow. The images are clear and precise, providing a botanical record of the area yet are also a vibrant and poetic reflection of place. The cottage garden flora is used as decoration on a ceramic tea set, a reminder of the former inhabitants of the cottage.

Joanne Searle's Soundscape series are tall porcelain cylinders. Their bands of heavily encrusted decoration reflect the textures and colours of the bush. Searle, like Franzi, has a graphic designer's eye for pattern, colour and textures.

Marion Hosking also finds her inspiration in the forms of nature. Cut-out shapes of trees pierce the form of her elegant Mount Tennant silver vessel that sits on a Casuarina wood base. Her silver brooches seem to be ghostly echoes of the discarded twigs and leaves of the bush floor.

Kirstie Rea's work Gudgenby Thistle is a clever creation that joins a utilitarian garden rake with a fanfare of glass spokes to a make a hybrid object that is beautiful but impractical – perhaps a comment on the futility of trying to remove the ubiquitous thistle from the Park.

Ruth Hingston never fails to surprise with her inventive use of embroidery. Although in miniature (10 centimetres by 62 centimetres), her very small seven-panelled embroidered screen narrates a vision of a monumental landscape that unfolds in all its delicate and detailed complexity. It is a reminder perhaps of the Japanese aesthetic of suggesting the majesty of nature through a miniature landscape in rocks and sand.

Christine Atkins' glass wall piece Traces investigates the patterns made by light on the river and Marily Cintra's two bell jars are filled with Christmas beetles now recreated as wax-like flowers – a poignant memento mori indeed.

Sally Blake's large wall piece Flow loops copper and aluminium wire together to suggest the eddying life flow of nature. This same eddying flow surrounds her beautifully crafted basket which complements 2016 artist-in-residence Sione Maileseni's finely woven basket that uses traditional weaving techniques in a contemporary manner. Annee Miron's forms are similarly woven but from recycled cardboard. They were used in a performance by Zsuzsi Soboslay at the exhibition opening. Folded on the floor they seem alive with the expectation that they will be inhabited again.