2025 Renegade Craft Tour! →

Renegade Craft Fair

June 22, 2015

Ironwood Design

unnamed

We’ve had such a pleasure hanging out with makers every Saturday this month, and it’s sad to think we won’t be meeting with our friends in Brooklyn for awhile after our final Pop-Up. We’ve loved getting to know Ironwood, as they’ve set up shop each weekend, and this Saturday with be their (and our) final Pop-Up with RCF!

IMG_2274Ironwood creates beautiful, functional homeware and furniture inspired by innovative simplicity and daily use. Their commitment is to design and build vibrant, useful pieces of art that can be passed down in families for generations.

ironwood3

Designers Bay and Josiah Jackson founded Ironwood Designs in 2012. Their studio and workshop are located in Bristol, Vermont where they design and build all of their furniture and homeware collections.

IMG_0702

From an early age, Bay was immersed in many facets of Danforth Pewter, her family business. This gave her both a sense of appreciation for handcrafted works of art that could be broadly available as well as a desire to make handmade goods. With a fine arts degree, Bay gained exposure to a variety of media and opportunities to discover her true creative inspiration, the juxtaposition of elements worn by age and the simplicity of modern lines.

IMG_1218

Josiah was raised in and around a family of fine artists. He started traveling the world in search of beautiful places, inspiration that has given him the motivation to design and build in a way that brings the natural world into daily life. His ability to observe the material world through sculpture and home building has refined Ironwood’s handmade aesthetic and craftsmanship.

ironwood1

Bay and Josiah’s process is very collaborative. Bay will come up with the design concepts, paints or sketches them out and then we meet up and go over the ideas, Jo will contribute to the design and come up with the proportions and general size.  Jo is a very skilled woodworker and takes the design concepts from the paper sketch to reality.  Bay then will help with the sanding, painting and finishing aspects.  Being located in rural Vermont near two wonderful saw mills has made Jo’s love of wood very attainable.  The duo enjoys the synergistic balance between honoring the beauty of the wood and their obsession with color and the design element that brings to the piece.

IMG_2924

Both Bay and Josiah come from families of artists and makers and have been making with their hands for as long as they can remember. Their work is strongly influenced by their travels throughout the years to New Zealand, Australia, Ghana, Sweden in their aesthetic visions as well as their style of a simple life.
ironwood2

One of the best parts of getting to know these makers is how they go about their daily life. In 2006 they built their house in Vermont. It’s a small off the grid home where raising chickens, sheep and pigs is an every day part of life. With their 3 kids, they run an Art and Adventure summer camp at their house and studio called Apple Yard Arts. How amazing is that?!
unnamed-5We’ve loved having Ironwood join us all these Pop-Up weekends. Be sure to say hello to them one last time at the East River State Park! If you haven’t yet, check them out online:

Website

Instagram