The Story

Some names just fit.

Ember. Ridge. Two words that mean something to me before they mean anything to anyone else.

An ember is what’s left after the fire does its work. Not the flame. That’s the loud part, the part everyone watches. The ember is what stays. Quiet, warm, steady. It’s what you’re staring at when the night gets late and the conversation gets real. For me that’s a porch in the North Georgia mountains, a fire going, my wife Stacy beside me, our bloodhound Libby taking up more space than she should. The noise of the world doesn’t reach up here. That’s the point.

Ridge is the mountain itself. The ridgeline you can see from the porch on a clear morning, the one that was there before you arrived and will be there long after. Powerful without trying. Beautiful without asking for it. Built to last in a way that nothing manufactured ever quite manages.

That’s what I’m trying to put into the work.

Every piece that comes out of this shop started as a tree that spent decades, sometimes centuries, becoming what it is. The grain in a piece of black walnut didn’t happen overnight. Neither did the figure in a piece of spalted maple, or the fire in a fresh cut of padauk. I think about that when I’m working. I think about what had to happen for this particular board to end up on this particular bench, and what it deserves to become.

What it deserves is someone’s kitchen. Someone’s table. A home where people cook real food and eat together and use things that were built to be used. Not displayed behind glass. Not treated like they might break. Picked up, handled, oiled once in a while, handed down eventually.

I didn’t start Ember Ridge to build a business. I started it because I wanted a cutting board worthy of the knives I cook with, and once I built it I couldn’t stop. Then people started asking for them. Then more people. And somewhere in there things started to click.  A small batch shop in the mountains run by a guy who takes his time because the moment it starts feeling rushed or like a job, it stops being worth doing.

That’s what this is. Work done slowly, in a place that demands it, for people who can tell the difference.

Ember Ridge Studio — Blue Ridge, Georgia.