September, 2021 – After founding Peg Woodworking in 2014, Kate Casey realized she wanted to bring her technical understanding of woodworking up to par with her skills in sculpture and other forms of fabrication. The following summer she enrolled in our twelve-week Furniture Intensive. “I chose CFC,” Kate says, “because the curriculum combines a strong design component with rigorous craftsmanship.”
Today, Kate’s Brooklyn, NY-based company makes sculptural furniture with handwoven detailing. The work pays tribute to the clean lines of Shaker and Scandinavian design, while incorporating woven elements inspired by Nordic, Peruvian, and American Indian traditions. PEG’s designs have been featured in Architectural Digest, Luxe, Elle Décor, and The New York Times and its collections may be seen in showrooms from Belfast, ME, to Nashville, TN, to West Hollywood, CA.
With a successful business underway, Kate finds her greatest joy in experimenting with sculptural forms from which she can pull ideas for functional work. Meanwhile, she says, her greatest challenge continues to be molding creative practice into a legitimate business. “There is an incredible amount of information to be learned, and the realization that creativity alone cannot sustain a career in woodworking is a hard lesson. I now tackle things with a broader lens, having to look at my work from a marketability standpoint rather than just a creative impulse. I am very proud of how far I’ve come in that regard, and I am regularly encountering new aspects of the job that challenge me.”
