Today we’d like to introduce you to Tyrel Bleifus.
Hi Tyrel, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I grew up in a family of doers – tradesmen who made things and rolled up their sleeves whenever anything needed doing. I built a three story treehouse with my brother when I was 10. I had a passion for the arts. It was mostly painting and sketching. I did well in school and, as such, felt compelled to follow the ‘successful’ path to go to a four-year university. I did well there and after school, I worked in marketing analytics and user experience which is just some gobbledy gook to say that I studied how people used websites/software and then designed things to get folks to purchase.
A not-so-unfamiliar story was the existential angst of this millennial working at a desk job and yearning for something else. Growing up and through school, I worked in kitchens, carpentry, painting, solar installation, stump grinding, and generally laborious jobs. I missed working with my hands and producing something tangible.
I had made a few pieces of furniture for my wife, and something just clicked. Furniture allowed me to pore over design, rack my brain on the engineering, and craft something with my hands. I found an opening at a local furniture shop and left my desk behind. In 2020, we moved back to Minnesota from Denver. That move allowed me to build out a shop at our home in Afton, and I have been creating good furniture for good people since.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has been far from smooth. COVID all but shut down production, and my work with the furniture shop in Denver, which is a large part of why we moved back home. It took 8 months to build out the shop while working drywall and handyman jobs to get by.
Since then, it’s been the general plight of the artist that isn’t at all unique to me. You craft something in the right way that you think is worth it, and try to convince people that it is.
Last year, I was dealt the largest blow. In July, just as everything was moving towards an inflection point with my work, I had a nearly fatal injury with a chainsaw while doing tree removal. I was 50′ up in the lift when the chainsaw kicked back and caught my dominant forearm. Thankfully, the ambulance arrived quickly, and I remarkably have full use of my hand. It’s almost enough to bring me to tears, considering I craft things with hand tools all day.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I design heirloom-quality, sustainably sourced, handcrafted wood furniture using traditional joinery. Every log and board is riven and shaped by hand to craft the parts for my designs. I love making chairs. They are so human in their form, and I think that’s why we can connect to them. I see wood not as some inanimate object to simply be. The material is meant to be regarded as something alive and breathing. It is the job of the craftsman to move in concert with the tree.
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
My father deserves a lot of credit – letting me run out into the woods with his leftover plywood and 2x4s to build whatever I could imagine. Every book or article that I’ve read has been my teacher. Each of those great makers/authors has inspired and instructed me. The most notable are Chris Schwartz, Peter Galbert, Jennie Alexander, and John Brown. I also need to mention my north star in furniture design and the man responsible for inspiring my love for furniture and wood is George Nakashima.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.tystimberworks.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tystimberworks/
