This summer, two CFC Alums—Robert Sukrachand and Christopher Merchant—launched the DIN Collection: a collaboration between Merchant’s ceramic practice and Sukrachand’s design business, Pern Baan. Pern Baan creates artisan made lighting and home décor in Thailand, while Christopher Merchant crafts lighting, furniture, and objects from his studio formerly in New York, and now in Minneapolis.
How did they both go from woodworking at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship, to where they are now? We sat down for an interview to find out.
DIN Side Table
DIN Pendant
When did you first come to the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship? Did you all meet here?
Robert Sukrachand: I did the 12-week Furniture Intensive about 15 years ago, and then moved back to New York to set up my studio. There was probably about 5 years between taking the Furniture Intensive and coming back to CFC to teach a few Workshops.
Christopher Merchant: Yes, you were teaching a Workshop when I was at CFC in the Nine-month Comprehensive, in 2018–2019. I saw your slide presentation during the Monday Night Slideshows, and it was really inspiring to see your work and how integrated you were in the New York design scene.
RS: My life changed significantly during early Covid when I decided to move here, to Thailand. But up until that point, my studio had been based in Brooklyn. My practice was primarily woodworking-based but I did all kinds of different stuff. A lot of my designs incorporated mirror, metal, and other materials. When I would come up to CFC to teach, I tried to offer a fresh perspective.
CM: Yes, exactly, seeing your presentation helped me conceptualize what a design studio could look like. After my time at CFC, I moved to Brooklyn.
RS: In New York, you bump into a lot of the same faces when going to openings or whatnot, and a lot of my good friends would be in the same shows or share studio space together. Someone happened to be showing work at the same space where Chris had some work up, and that’s how we connected, about four years ago.
CM: And I’ve now moved to Minneapolis! So neither of us are actually in New York anymore.
Christopher Merchant
Robert Sukrachand
Christopher Merchant in the 9-month Comprehensive, 2017–2018
Robert Sukrachand co-teaching Basic Woodworking, 2017
You just launched the DIN Collection this summer! How did you go about collaborating and making it happen?
RS: The nature of the work that we do at Pern Baan is to connect craft and design from the U.S. and Thailand. Typically, that means pairing a designer from the U.S. with the makers here. In working with Chris, we wanted to translate his ceramic vocabulary through our processes. DIN actually means earth or clay in Thai. Chris typically works creating ceramic extrusions, so here we’re translating his work through a different process called slip casting. It’s an evolution of his designs through another craftsperson’s hands. The beauty of the process is that through allowing others in, the end result evolves.
CM: First of all, I could never do this by myself. But Bobby’s able to hand-deliver something I made to the factory and has a personal relationship with everyone. There’s no language barrier for me, they can work from a real-life piece instead of drawings. It’s been amazing.
RS: The work we do is really relationship-based. I spend a lot of time with our collaborators here in Thailand. The dream I had when I started Pern Baan was to be able to invite friends to Thailand so they could have that exchange. We are far away, but we’re hoping Chris will be coming with friends in January.
CM: With the DIN Collection, we specifically wanted to offer items at a lower price point for the luxury market, despite the pieces being very well made and considered. We’d love to see the work in commercial applications, like hotels and restaurants. And I am so, so excited to visit Thailand.
Can you talk about making the transition from woodworking to an interdisciplinary design practice?
CM: I came out of my time at CFC hungry to keep learning, but open-minded in direction. I just knew I wanted to be in design. When I moved to New York, my first job was for a small lighting studio run by architects. They had their processes figured out, but I basically came in and started making all of their products for them: fabrication, wiring, finishing. I learned so much about lighting through that role, and then moved to an operations job at another lighting company where I was doing purchasing, buying inventory of parts, revising the design team’s drawings for manufacturers, and coordinating boat shipments. After those jobs, I realized I knew a ton about lighting and felt this immense sense of…freedom.
During that time I also got into ceramics, in a self-taught capacity. And that’s the work that started getting more attention, in terms of galleries and clients. So it all unspooled from there. Now, I have an in-house collection of ceramics and I work as a designer for a few other companies, on a royalties basis. I’m trying to balance those two things. When I was at CFC, my instructor Aled turned me onto the work of design, and he had a really broad approach that wasn’t solely craft-focused, which I appreciated. I’d say I learned the possibilities of an interdisciplinary skillset in Maine, as many people do many jobs there. So, I tried to figure out how to work in a way that combined many of my favorite things. It took a solid 8 years, but I made it happen eventually.
RS: I have a bit of a more winding trajectory than Chris. But the common theme is that CFC attracts a wide variety of people in different moments in their life. Chris and I were probably, in our individual journeys, at a similar place in life. We were really excited about building and making things with our hands, but we were both looking to have a life, a career and a business—and that’s honestly a very different undertaking than only being interested in the craft, or keeping the craft as a hobby, or only pursuing it after you’ve made your money in another industry.
CM: Yes, you’re designing your life, essentially. Also…the second job I had was paper pushing, but I learned way more than I would’ve if I was a designer, or builder. The company had a production team, and I happened to get this position doing more clerical work, and it offered me the opportunity to see how the whole business worked. I think woodworkers and designers can absolutely benefit from expanding their idea of what they might want to do, job-wise. I think a lot of people want to be on the design team, but there’s definitely valuable skills in other areas that could really propel your career forward as a maker, if you’re willing to stay open-minded.
RS: As business owners, we’re doing ten billion different things and it’s overwhelming 100% of the time. When I was woodworking in Brooklyn, I survived off of commissions, which then afforded me the ability to do a few pieces once in a while, in the style of fine woodworking I really wanted to be doing.
Chair by Christopher Merchant
Torus Coffee Table by Robert Sukrachand
Both of you, separately and together, are making lighting right now. Why lighting?
RS: Honestly, I came to the conclusion over my career that moving into lighting, for me, was a business decision. Anything that gets hard wired into a home can be part of the construction budget, it can be bought at high-volume for a larger project, or if someone wants a statement piece, I get to be more experimental with design. I’ve found that with lighting, I can design a system, and that system can be reproduced. I also know people who have had success doing this as chair makers, for example. But these processes require a level of discernment and a lot of trial and error.
CM: Yes, and I totally agree about designing systems. Once you create a system, then sales actually becomes the real challenge, and the real job.
RS: Lighting too, though, definitely has it’s own challenges. Something Chris and I learned is that with lighting, you have to deal with certifications like UL listing, which can get very expensive. For me, I started delving into lighting once I got to Thailand during Covid. Shipping was so absurdly expensive, that instead of focusing on solely the furniture pieces I was making, I began to think practically and wanted to find a way to make something that was smaller and lighter to ship. So, lighting became that solution for me.
Arbor Lamp Slim in Wax by Christopher Merchant
Silo Lamp 1 in Lagoon by Christopher Merchant
Hin Light Study 2 & 4 by Robert Sukrachand
Hin Light Study 2 by Robert Sukrachand
It sounds like you both pivoted to remain in the design industry and build lives around your work. Did CFC prepare you for that? How else did you learn?
CM: Well, the New York to midcoast Maine pipeline was really strong when I was at CFC, 8 years ago. I imagine it’s only getting stronger.
RS: Yes. I think there’s real opportunities for furniture makers to get their work shown in the New York design scene. I also think it’s really important for up-and-coming people to understand that there’s many different directions you can go in. Chris and I parallel each other a bit, but he’s more of a practitioner than I am. At this point, I’m primarily a business owner, with design and craft being the language of my work. I do think it’s a big benefit for CFC students to see that the possibilities are vast, and exposure to different makers can really help open your mind.
CM: To be a fine woodworker, or if you only want to make things with hand tools, it’s a niche pathway. That’s 100% where I was at when I started the 12-week Intensive at CFC. After seeing Bobby’s slideshow and experiencing perspectives from multiple instructors, I was able to walk out of my program with a more expansive mindset as I began to form my career. The other thing that people don’t often talk about, is the nature of high-end design industry. Which is, layers of middle men. I think people imagine they have to sell their items directly to end users, but if you can present yourself to some key middle people, like gallery owners, interior designers, sales platforms—then you can access a clientele much more efficiently. And that’s something that took years to learn.
RS: We all go to CFC because we want to make things. It’s so meditative to hand-cut dovetails. The furniture I made during my time at CFC, I still look back at those pieces and think, wow, this is gorgeous and incredibly made. I’m very lucky to have those years under my belt, and to be at the point of running a business. And as I’ve gotten older I’ve learned that there’s honestly so many other elements that go into making design work. Marketing is huge, sales is huge. If you want to do that type of work, I think in this day and age, one pathway could be, being an Instagram or Tiktok influencer making content about woodworking processes. It’s interesting seeing that in this moment, where it didn’t really exist before.
CM: I’m guessing influencers may spend a lot of time making videos, as well. So perhaps it’s a catch 22, like we experience. There’s always a secret job behind the job you imagine. I’ve spent so much time doing business administration, purchasing—luckily I get to still have fun, which I am super grateful for. But most of my labor, my time, goes to trying to make my life work.
DIN Side Table
DIN Pendant
Robert Sukrachand is an alum of the 12-week Furniture Intensive, 2012 and taught multiple CFC Workshops from 2016-2019. Christopher Merchant is an alum of the Nine-month Comprehensive, 2018 and was a CFC Fellow in 2019. Explore all learning opportunities at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship, here.
