Wilkinson & Rivera Use Traditional Craft Techniques to Create Contemporary Furnishings

Partners in both life and work, Grant Wilkinson and Teresa Rivera of Wilkinson & Rivera reimagine English furniture while adhering to traditional woodworking practices, using locally sourced ash and walnut in their East London studio. Their Windsor chair skews from the classic with its squiggly stretchers. The tripod Penny Petal stool makes a feature of its rippled edges. Caned Sun, a playful take on the old-time milking stool, has a seat hand-caned in a six-way weave. “By weaving our work by hand,” Rivera says, “we preserve a technique pushed aside by modernization.”