BEST MADE PROJECTS

Tools of My Father: by Kim Rilleau

My father was a fiercely creative, free-thinking individual from the North coast of France. He moved with his mother and siblings to New York after World War I. Though his artistic talents were considerable he also posessed an extremely sharp scientific bent and worked in the early days of radio developing vacuum tubes at Fairchild Aviation experimenting with sophisticated plywoods for use on aircraft. He moved to Provincetown, Massachusetts in the 30s where he began exploring leather as a new medium, creating dazzling pieces of functional leather art with my Mother. I was born in 1950 and learned what has become the family trade: hand-made leather work. 

This is a picture of my father’s nailing bench. As a tool it has served the shop well since before I was born.  Although many, many of the tools that I use on a daily basis were my father’s, I chose this one because it is a station of creative concentration and an expression of his borderless imagination. This bench had once been a piano, a baby grand I think. It had fallen into a dysfunctional state by the previous owner and deemed un-reclaimable as an instrument. With his typically out-of-box vision my father saw — not  a broken piano — but an extremely stable, impressively solid, perfectly sized, and superbly crafted workbench where he could set his anvil and comfortably nail his beautiful leather sandals. Reverently he set to work dismantleing the instrument and like an indiginous hunter he used all the components of this stately beast. He removed the beautifully wound and incredibly strong piano strings, coiled and stored them in the rafters for future use. All the ivory and ebony from the keys were set aside for projects as yet unknown, and the massive bronze (was it really bronze?) soundboard hung for years as detritus / art on the wall of the shop. After all this careful dissection there stood the nailing bench.  

It is too short a space here to fully express why this bench, and the many other components of the shop, reveal the often tumultuous relationship with my father. Maybe it was the many long hours that I saw as a young child: him at work with his careful focus, hammer in hand at this powerful and graceful station. How can I forget those early days sitting on the stool, hammer in my wobbly hand, trying to emulate his steady strike? Our relationship consisted of deep, deep unconditional love and support on his part, and often typical teeneage surliness and aloofness on mine. There was a lot of storminess on the surface but thankfully that was counterbalanced by a deep ballast of unspoken love on both our parts. There have been many occasions when I dropped my head in regret for the lost opportunities to have shown him thanks for the painful sacrifices he made on my behalf. It wasn’t until I began rearing my own four children that I came to understand what all that must have entailed for him. He died in 1977 when I was 27 years old. I miss him still. 

Kim Rilleau was born in Truro, Massachusetts in 1950 and moved to the neighboring ville of Provincetown when he was six months old. His parents were talented artists who found themselves in the New York/Provincetown art scene and began working in leather, finally settling on the Cape where they opened the Rilleau leather shop. As the first-born son he was raised in the leather trade and continues the tradition to this day, sometimes with the help of his son Ty. He and his wife Lynne have four children: two daughters Ember and Elena and two sons Guy and Ty. In 1997 he moved the family from Provincetown to Woodstock, Vermont where he proudly continues the Rilleau Leather tradition. Kim is also trained as a movement coach and myo-fascial therapist which came in handy with his design of the Best Made axe sling.