Today we’d like to introduce you to Eric Clem.
Eric, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
My dad taught me the basics of woodworking when I was a kid. His approach to the craft was almost entirely utilitarian–wood, screws, nails, and occasionally glue, i.e., no frills. When we needed a shelf, he made a handsome but very basic shelf.
When we needed an end-table, he made a pine tabletop with four legs and hit it lightly with sandpaper and a coat of poly. That particular piece now receives quite a bit of praise, as that style seems to have come into fashion. While he didn’t put much energy into aesthetics, he made things to last, and that was my biggest takeaway from the time I spend with him in our garage, watching him and eventually helping him work.
I spend quite a bit of time working on theater sets in college and eventually worked as a carpenter for the Public Theater in NYC for a few years, but it was only something I did for money, never something I actively pursued. It was my love of archery that eventually landed me in a woodshop full-time. I had been shooting traditional archery for years when a friend of mine asked me to be on her archery team.
One of her clients was a furniture design company in SOHO that turned it’s gallery into an after-hours underground archery tournament a couple of times a month, complete with hay bales, wooden arrows, and kegs of local beer. I absolutely loved these tournaments, but being the archery snob that I was, I hated their bows.
Their rule was this: you could use your own bow, but you had to make it yourself. So I thought, “Why not!?” I read up on bow-making and eventually made our team a bow. Not only did we clean up at the tournaments, but I then became hooked on bowyering (bow-making) and continued to do it as a hobby on the terrace of my Brooklyn apartment.
People took notice of our bow and asked me to make them one as well, so I eventually started selling bows to pay for the habit of making them. Soon I outgrew the space and capabilities of my terrace and started renting space in a woodshop. From there, I began teaching myself the finer points of furniture making, and I’ve been making bows and furniture ever since.
A year and a half ago, I moved to LA (for love) and started working out of Allied Woodshop and am still here today. The move for love paid off as I’m now engaged.
Brooklyn Bowyer is what I named my company while working out of Greenpoint, Brooklyn. I kept the name once I moved to LA because it’s a reminder of where I started.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Two years ago, in a perfect storm of doing dumb things in the woodshop, I partially cut off four fingers on my left hand. That’s hands down (excuse the expression) the biggest struggle and setback I’ve had so far. In all honesty, after the first few months of recovery, life went back surprisingly close to normal. I got back in the woodshop as soon as I was able, made my peace with the machine that bit me, and didn’t look back.
Other than that, I had the luxury of not trying to support myself while starting a business from scratch. Woodworking and bowyering were my hobbies while I supported myself as an actor, and only became a more full-time sustaining gig organically,
We’d love to hear more about your business.
While I make a number of wood-related products, custom furniture, household and sundry items like live-edge magnetic knife blocks, and, weirdly, props for magicians, my specialty (and what I enjoy making the most) is traditional wooden bows and arrows. It’s a very niche market and a very niche group of makers. What’s even more exclusive is the group of people who still make custom bows on a client-to-client commission.
That’s what I enjoy the most and where I thrive–talking to a client about what they’re looking for in a bow and making something for them specially fitted and entirely unique. I believe that every archery lover out there should have a bow as individual as they are.
What were you like growing up?
As a kid, growing up in the suburbs of Houston my interests were as scattered as my ADD mind, though what remained constant was my love of science, movies, and being outdoors. While I loved making things, my real passion was taking things apart — a pastime that got me into trouble more than once.
It got so that my parents started taking me to flea markets to let me choose things to disassemble. I remember once, I bought an old broken phone as a kid, took it apart, put it back together and it magically started working. That was how I got my first phone, though I never enjoyed using it. I still don’t.
Contact Info:
- Address: 407 E Pico Blvd, Suite 1004
Los Angeles, CA 90015 - Website: brooklynbowyer.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @brooklynbowyer
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