Kevin Reiswig

Kevin Reiswig is a furni­ture maker and wood sculp­tor whose work focuses on exper­i­men­ta­tion with mate­ri­als, forms, and a diverse range of processes. His working style can be both freeform and incred­i­bly metic­u­lous, depend­ing on the piece or the stage of a given project. Kevin makes deci­sions based on feeling and intu­ition, reach­ing into a life­time of expe­ri­ences to inspire and inform his work.

Kevin loves explor­ing nature, and his work contains many refer­ences to the living world, such as the shapes and connec­tions of branches and seed­pods, the eyestalks of a snail, the ready stance of an animal, or the curves of the human body. Elemen­tal forces such as flowing water or the radial geom­e­try of sunlight also inspire his work. Kevin believes his work will help bring natural connec­tions back into homes of people living in urban environments.

Speak­ing about his process, Kevin says: ​“I think of making as a way to use my hands and mind as an inter­face with mate­r­ial reality or ​‘the mystery of exis­tence.’ That is to say, part of the way I explore nature is by explor­ing the capa­bil­i­ties and limi­ta­tions of mate­ri­als, my body, and my mind. This atti­tude towards making exposes an under­ly­ing paradox of my prac­tice: I admire the natural world, and yet I consume its resources. I there­fore feel an incred­i­ble respon­si­bil­ity to incor­po­rate healthy conser­va­tion behav­iors into my life and work. I use as much found scraps and reclaimed wood as possi­ble, I primar­ily use earth-friendly finishes, and I have commit­ted myself to plant­ing many more trees every year than I cut up. I also teach wood­work­ing so that I can share these ideas with more and more people. These actions help ease my conscience slightly, and allow me to demon­strate that human activ­ity and the built envi­ron­ment can exist as a part of nature as opposed to ​‘apart from’ nature.”

Kevin Reiswig grew up in rural Ohio and attended The College of Wooster, where he grad­u­ated with a BA in studio art, focus­ing on wood sculp­ture. He is an Ander­son Ranch Arts Center alumnus, having worked there as a summer work­shop intern (in 2010) and again as artist-in-resi­dence (in 2013). Kevin lived in Chicago from 2010 to 2017, where he worked as an art fabri­ca­tor, furni­ture maker, and finish carpen­ter for Theaster Gates (2011 – 2015), John Preus (Dilet­tante Studios), Rebuild Foun­da­tion, and others. He has exhib­ited his creations since 2010, both domes­ti­cally and abroad. Kevin currently oper­ates his own studio in Port Townsend, Wash­ing­ton, is a faculty instruc­tor at the Port Townsend School of Wood­work­ing, and a member of The Furniture Society.