MDG Artist Profiles: Kate and Barret Roebuck
Roebuck Studio is the brilliant collaboration of husband and wife team Kate and Barret Roebuck, both talented designers and landscape architects. We so enjoy working with this creative team and love that their furniture is not only beautiful, functional, affordable, and durable but also created in an environmentally responsible way. Based in historic Chelsea, Michigan, the Roebucks manufacture locally, buy materials from local sources and have complete control over the fabrication process. As part of our on-going series of mini artist profiles, we appreciate Kate and Barret taking the time to offer us a glimpse into their life. Thanks you two!
1. Were you interested in arts and crafts as a kid? What’s the first thing you remember creating?
Of course there were the popsicle stick buildings, Christmas ornaments with white cotton for the beard, but I think the thing that stands out most to me is building birdhouses with my mom, who is a serious bird watcher. Kate has always been interested in the arts. Whether it was painting, drawing or sculpting. There was a school project where you had to design and build something from a book you had read. She chose to build the Swiss Family Robinson tree house out of pretzel sticks.
2. Tell us about your home life.
We live in Chelsea, Michigan, which is near Ann Arbor, and about an hour away from Detroit. Visiting our small town is like stepping back in time; there are a couple stop lights, a beautiful main street, several barbershops, a few great restaurants, some galleries, and an excellent theater started by Jeff Daniels, (the actor from Dumb and Dumber and Gettysburg). Most of the housing stock here was built about 1900, we are restoring a working class Victorian from the 1880’s. We are currently teaching ourselves how to tile in the upstairs bathroom.
3. When and where do you craft/create/design?
We have a small barn/carriage house behind our house that we use to build our furniture. Our workshop is on the second floor. It is a very utilitarian, functional, space with only the essentials. We also use one room of our home as a design studio/office. This is where we sketch our ideas and make scale models before heading out to the barn to do prototyping. Kate works as a Landscape Architect. She works for a firm in downtown Ann Arbor that specializes in park and campus design.
4. Did you collect anything as a kid? Do you collect anything now as an adult?
As a kid I collected legos, tinker toys, matchbox cars. As adults, we collect modern furniture, and old house parts.
5. What were your favorite toy and your favorite book when you were a kid?
I had a favorite glow worm. My favorite book was 2000 Leagues Under the Sea, or anything by Jules Verne. Kate’s favorite toy was her dollhouse that her grandfather made for her. Her favorite book was The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. It is such a heartfelt story showing how someone/something could care so much for another human being.
6. Who encourages you in your artistic pursuits? Who or what inspires you to continue creating?
We encourage each other. Through our travels, our love for the outdoors and many visits to art museums and galleries, we continue to find art and design that provides inspiration for our own work. We enjoy other forms of art which we believe also challenges and inspire us in our design pursuits, Kate with her painting and pottery and I with my love of photography.
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[...] Roebuck Studio is the shining partnership of father and mother group Kate and Barret Roebuck . Their seat is pleasing, organic, permanent, and combined in an environmentally obliged approach . Based in ancestral Chelsea, Michigan, the Roebucks have locally, buy materials from internal sources and have finish carry out over the phony routine, to safeguard which usually the most appropriate and safest products will reach your doorstep. [...]
Pingback by All About Designer » Giveaway — Chick Chair from Mahar Drygoods — March 25, 2009 @ 7:43 am
Browsing Mahar website because I was watching Martha Stewart today. He was on making a skeleton. Browsing his website. Saw an adorable seat. Looked you up and you are from my home state. How cool. Awesome furniture!
Comment by Michelle Kellar — October 14, 2009 @ 5:12 pm