Amanda Yoder

Waynesville

NC

28786

I fell in love with a historic farmhouse in the mountains while on a journey of self-discovery away from my childhood comforts and adolescent ambitions. Soon after I settled into that house, the handcraft of woodworking found me, bringing with it a new language to explore what it means to be human - myself - in an embodied life. Scouring antique furniture in warehouses across the southeast, I feel myself in a present time and place reaching back across time and space to see who it was that used these pieces for furniture - why did they have this particular one and how did they find it delightful or useful? How can I identify with those why’s and how’s today? Designing and making home furnishings is now for me both a practice of embodied living - expressing myself in a way that unifies the physical and spiritual - and a study of people now and before. We still have so much in common with our collective ancestors, as much as we may protest our differences with them. Perhaps everyday objects and furniture in the home can show us how much our stories intertwine. I often use design to explore this bridge between past and present, placing traditional details on modern shapes, then bringing the designs to life with practices and materials that honor the wisdom of old.

I am the designer and builder of this object