1931 — 2009
Mykhailo Savchuk
A joiner who made half the furniture in his village and never once signed a piece of his own work.
The workshop
The workshop was an extension built onto the house — four metres by three, with a single window facing north, because, as he put it, light from the north is even and does not lie to you.
He worked standing, almost always in silence, and disliked anyone standing behind him. He took commissions on a word and never took money up front.
The bench he built for himself in 1958
The work
Over fifty years he made, by the family’s rough count, something close to four hundred pieces — from stools to wardrobes that still stand in the houses next door.
Furniture ought to outlive the person who ordered it. Otherwise it is not work, it is a favour.