![]() We make pieces that we would want to own ourselves and accentuate our customers’ homes,’ says Michael. ‘Life and other past and present designs inspire us. ’Together, we create original, quality furniture handcrafted with passion, care and love.’ The brand has slowly grown its collection, with clean lines and simple designs a dominant theme throughout. Kipekee, meaning “unique” in Swahili, started almost exactly four years ago and is built on our passions, talents and callings.’ Picture: Kipekee Studio co-founder Kylie Bornman. ![]() ‘Our workshop is situated on the beautiful east coast of South Africa. You may also enjoy “ Rhode Island’s O&G Studio Puts a Modern Twist on Traditional New England Craft.‘Both of us have always had a creative side, and Kipekee studios is a family adventure,’ says Kylie Bornman, who founded the design studio in Ballito in 2017 with her husband Michael (a former teacher and quantity surveyor, respectively). The effect is elegant, functional, and most importantly for a table weighing hundreds of pounds, sturdy. “I don’t like it when you’ve got this really rigid square thing matched with a very organic shape on top.” Most recently, she has designed cast metal legs that bite into the sides of their slabs. “I treat metal a little bit more delicately than most,” she says. Siosi herself designs and fabricates fittings that complement the organic geometries of the studio’s tables. Virtually all of the work is made to order, and much of it is custom designed as well. In addition to its large, live-edge tables, SIOSI offers more traditional furnishings, including sideboards, beds, side tables, and a butcher block–topped kitchen island. Then we add more until we’re happy with the overall composition of the piece,” says Culver. “They cover up these little ugly bits in the slab that may also have structural issues, so they start as something practical. While the process begins as a way to mend any natural imperfections in the trunk, the mosaic of different grains becomes a work of art in itself. SIOSI’s delicate, hand-chiseled inlay technique adds a touch of refinement to the raw look (and colossal size) of the wood. The designers pair live-edge slabs with fittings that Siosi, a metalworker, fabricates in the couple’s Bloomington, Indiana, studio. For their slab tables-in the George Nakashima lineage-they often choose claro walnut, a species from Northern California with a particularly dramatic grain. “I’m pretty obsessed with getting them just perfect.” The pair prefers to work with sustainably sourced domestic hardwoods from a local supplier. “Now it’s kind of all I want to do,” says Culver. For these pieces, the women transform a piece of lumber, sometimes as long as 11 feet and weighing several hundred pounds, into a tabletop that highlights the wood’s grain and the tree’s natural contours. Culver, who was completing an MFA at the time, explains, “We made the frames for my thesis show together and we realized that we both could see that as a future-making stuff together.”Īnd so the two set out to make furniture in a craft-focused Danish Modern idiom, finding success particularly with their organic, live-edge tables. For a couple of creatives, furniture seemed a way to make both art and a living. The creative partnership behind the studio is also a romantic one, which began when metalworker and artist Ivy Siosi and photographer Audi Culver met. Produced in Bloomington, Indiana, SIOSI’s pieces pair wooden slabs-each one marked with labyrinthine grain patterns and the scars from branches and burls-with elegant, handmade metal fittings, resulting in a contemporary rustic style that celebrates the natural features of the source material. Courtesy Anna PowellĮach piece of furniture from the studio SIOSI is as unique as the tree that supplied its wood. ![]() Founded by Ivy Siosi and Audi Culver (left to right), SIOSI produces furniture that celebrates the natural properties of wood.
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