Meet the Makers Handcrafting Dramatic Furniture and Accents Influenced by Nature
Tuell & Reynolds founders Randy Tuell and Victoria Reynolds create visually arresting cabinets, tables, lighting, and more from their studio in a former California feed store
The meticulously crafted pieces by Tuell and Reynolds emphasize form, surface, and texture. Drawing from the natural world, their lighting, mirrors, fire screens, tables, and sculptural cabinets begin as sketches, then evolve into three-dimensional models fashioned from a variety of materials, including wax and cardboard, before they are eventually cast in bronze or fabricated in metal.
The collaboration between studio founders Randy Tuell and Victoria Reynolds is fluid: “Randy doesn’t just think outside the box; sometimes with him it’s more like ‘what box?’” says Reynolds, describing her own role as rooted in the history of the decorative arts while Tuell “will soar free,” a combination she says “works really well.”
Neither has formal training in metalwork or product design, but, Tuell notes, “We’re always looking at historical precedent.” Tuell grew up in San Diego with an architect father and a painter grandfather. After studying architecture at Berkeley, he apprenticed with sculptor Aristides Demetrios, who was married to Lucia Eames (daughter of Charles and Ray Eames). “We were doing large public bronzes and fountains, and I did a lot of the water-related engineering,” Tuell recalls.
Valencia, California, raised Reynolds was studying mathematics at University of California, Los Angeles, before transferring to UC Berkeley’s architecture program. The duo launched Tuell & Reynolds in 1999 after Tuell’s split from a prior shop, starting with custom commissions in a low-ceilinged, dirt-floor basement beneath his San Francisco apartment. A small, early product line that Reynolds recalls as “pretty basic, more architectural than the sculptural work we do now” caught the discerning eye of Geoffrey De Sousa and Erik Hughes of renowned San Francisco showroom De Sousa Hughes. “Erik and Geoffrey picking us up changed everything,” she says. “Suddenly, we were taken much more seriously.”
Now based in an old feed store in Cloverdale, California, the pair specialize in hand-fabricated architectural metalwork, restoration, and bespoke furniture. They continue to hand-make each piece to order for an esteemed interior-design clientele that includes the likes of Nicole Hollis, Paul Wiseman, Douglas Durkin, Jay Jeffers, and Kelly Hohla.
Lead time for their exceptional works, like the Rorschach cabinet, a one-of-a-kind casegood swathed in an expressive batik-like pattern can, stretch to months. “We don’t have the kind of manufacturing facility where there is complicated tooling or investment in mass production,” says Reynolds. “It’s literally made the same way, when we make the 100th one, as when we made the first one. It’s extremely old fashioned and archaic.”
Recent projects include cast bronze frog and cabbage sculptures for a “romantic evening strolling garden,” and a potential 30-foot-long, 10,000-pound bronze fireplace wall inspired by their Panthalassa cabinet. “It is important to us that we like what we’re doing and that it has an elegance,” says Tuell. “I particularly love it when something is elegant but has a toughness, a little dash of Brutalism,” adds Reynolds. “That combination, for me, just sings.”