“It’s actually redwood,” said DeLisio. “Ordinarily we don’t touch redwood — who would want to cut down a redwood? — but this is reclaimed. The bowl Jonah carved out is a way of revealing the inside of the wood. You can put fruit in it, or checkers.”
One of several table styles — including mortise, spindle, turned-leg, trestle, and more — involves a base of laser-cut steel topped by long boards of quarter-sawn white oak, bought from a supplier in Margaretville. When knots and cracks must be removed, instead of shortening the boards or filling the gaps with epoxy, Meyer covers the spaces with patches of polished metal, shaped to fit and screwed flush with the table top. Each table in the line, therefore, is marked by its unique assortment of sleek patches.
Meyer grew up in “central nowhere, Pennsylvania. We used to vacation in the heart of the Catskills, with the gnomes and fairies.” In his last year at Rhode Island School of Design, where he majored in painting, Meyer made a chair, painted on it, and sold it. By the time he graduated, he had sold a dozen chairs. It was only natural that when he opened an art studio, he would make furniture on the side. He still finds time to sculpt and paint.
DeLisio had what she described as “a great childhood” in Woodstock. “But what do you do here when you’re in your twenties? There’s not a core group of young professionals.”
She followed a brother to college in New Mexico and majored in biology. “I was determined not to live like a Woodstock artist,” she recalled. Her father, Robert, was a builder, and her mother Jill worked in the local health food store, but many of their friends were artists, and she wanted something different. After living in California for a year, she connected with Meyer when she returned home for a wedding. He wanted to stay in Woodstock, and she said, “I was almost 30, when it’s not so daunting to live in your hometown any more.”
Now she is happy to be raising her own family in the place she grew up, with her mom, brothers, Damien, Shawn and Kriston and their families, and a sister, Sage, nearby. “It’s meaningful.”
Meyer acknowledged a strong Shaker influence on his work. “You can’t ignore the Shakers. They understood things so completely. They were only around for 100 years, but they conquered the territory, and people are still taking from that. The philosophy, the religion, and the lifestyle came to this pinnacle, never to be repeated.”
He said the perception of the Shakers as Luddites is inaccurate, since electricity was not yet in use when they were crafting their furniture. “They would see us as old-fashioned. They used water and wind power to run their shops. They’d be using computers now for sure, if they were still around.”
His visits to the Shaker Village in Chatham have convinced him that “to make this kind of furniture, you have to have a philosophy. You can’t just walk off the street and make it without knowing what you want to be.”
No, he’s not a Buddhist. If he has a spiritual practice, it’s the process of raising a family. During our interview, Indiana perched on stools, and Flint opened cabinet doors and crawled inside. On the new website, the kids feature prominently on the home page and appear fleetingly in some of the handsomely minimalist photos of the furniture.
And Meyer had no trouble describing his own philosophy: “To live simply, with objects around you that are really personal. They have meaning, they can be passed on. They are part of you, and you are part of them. It’s the Chinese and Japanese idea of improving your surroundings as you improve yourself.”
The Sawkille Co. showroom is located at 31 West Market Street in Rhinebeck. For more information, visit their website at https://www.sawkille.com/.
What a fantastic family!
Grounded, real, creative and very happy.
May they always twinkle with life’s joy!