Vermont-based furniture maker Charles Shackleton's inspired table making idea is taking root here, writes DEIRDRE MCQUILLAN
‘FOOD AND SEX are the centre of the furniture business,” smiles furniture designer Charles Shackleton on a visit home from the US to Dublin. Based in Bridgewater, Vermont, in an area he describes as “like Kerry or the west of Ireland”, he is co-founder with his wife, the potter Miranda Thomas, of the Shackleton Thomas furniture/pottery company known for its high-quality workmanship.
Every piece is handmade from start to finish. It’s been the fulfilment of a dream for a couple whose customers come from all over the world and have included the White House, as well as luxury hotels and restaurants. “I was a kid who loved to do things with my hands and I had a dream of teaching people how to make things with their hands and that is what I do now,” says Shackleton.
Charles Shackleton is a descendant of the famous explorer Ernest, and he grew up in Dublin where his family operated the Shackleton flour mills in Lucan. After school at Stowe in Buckinghamshire, Charles decided to become a glass blower and headed to Kilkenny to work with Simon Pearce. When Pearce emigrated to the US in 1981, Shackleton went with him. After five years of blowing glass for Pearce, he started his own business making furniture.
“As a child I always made things out of wood and I reckoned that I had only one life and I wanted to try it on my own. Simon bought my first bed and for 15 years he sold my furniture until one day he decided to have his own range. I will never forget the day he told me he was not going to stock mine any more. We had just bought a new house and taken on a mortgage.”
That was 10 years ago and he has never looked back. Today they employ six furniture makers and three potters and sell from a lovely old mill building in Bridgewater which is both a shop and workshop. The styles are simple and classic. Made from cherry, walnut or American maple and ash, many are interpretations of historic styles. The Anna Liffey forkback chair was based on a piece of furniture from the Lucan mill. Prices range from $190 for a wooden tray up to $16,800 for a Samuel Pepys dresser.
Last year he initiated a project called the Naked Table as a way of connecting people to each other and the environment by making things by hand. “We got local people to go into the forest to choose a sugar maple and plant a replacement sapling. The tree is cut and the wood is transported to a local saw mill where it is cut and kiln dried. When it is ready, usually about three months later, we get a group of locals to come and make 16 simple tables in our workshops.”
When the tables are made, all those involved, from the table-makers to the foresters, loggers, truck drivers and sawyers, are invited to come and feast at a 23m-long conjoined table on locally grown organic food.
“It was mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, everybody at a big community table.” Afterwards the tables are taken home by their makers.
The project has become so popular that seven more have been staged since and the plan next year is to do one in Ireland with a beech tree at Fruitlawn, his brother Arthur’s house in Abbeyleix.
“People are really interested in going back to doing things for themselves, like growing their vegetables or making a table. It has touched a lot of passions. It is not just about the furniture. People have been brought home in a lot of different ways and closer to the soil.”
See shackletonthomas.com; nakedtable.com
