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THEOFANI PITSIAVAS
Artistry in Wood & Metal

While I will work with both old and new materials, it's the  possibilities offered through unlikely sources of forgotten and found materials that fascinate me most. When working with reclaimed materials, my goal as a craftsperson is to elevate everyday furnishings to extraordinary yet functional art pieces. Each piece has its own story, rooted in its materials' origins. The wood is sourced from older structures such as centenarian homes and barns, and shipping pallets. Douglas fir, pine, and spruce were traditionally milled from mature trees and boast a tightness of grain unmatched in today's immature building lumber. 

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Shipping pallets are made from a variety of wood species including, perhaps surprisingly, hard woods. It amazed me to learn that an estimated 500 million are manufactured each year in the U.S., and that an estimated 50% of them are single use. I became intrigued by their potential. Reclaiming the wood from pallets is labour-intensive; dismantling them, selecting the best pieces, and then milling the wood. But the labour exposes the beauty and character in the marks rendered by the life the pallet has lived- its original rough manufacturing process, the load carried, its exposure to the elements.

 

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I am a trained, experienced furniture and cabinet maker who approaches each piece with imagination and meticulousness. I work out of my woodworking shop (my "laboratory") overlooking the ocean in Portuguese Cove, Nova Scotia where it is hard not to be inspired by the beauty of the constantly changing sea.

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Theofani Pitsiavas

(Curious how to say it? "Thay-o-fa-knee Pit-saw-vas")

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