STORY BY
BENJAMIN LERNER
PHOTOGRAPHY
COURTESY
SHACKLETONTHOMAS
From the earliest days of his childhood, Bridgewater, Vermont-based craftsman
Charles Shackleton’s lifelong journey of self-actualization has been inextricably
linked to his passion for furniture making. Charles’ great-uncle Sir Ernest
Shackleton was a celebrated explorer who made an indelible mark on world history
through his famed Antarctic expeditions. After spending years perfecting his woodworking
abilities and sharpening his business acumen, Charles has left a similarly influential
mark on the world of furniture craftsmanship through his work at ShackletonThomas.
Charles spent his early years living a stone’s throw from the verdant banks the river Liffey
outside of Dublin, Ireland. He first discovered his love for working with his hands when
he was four years old.
A prodigious maker, Charles quickly developed a deep sense of connection with the
hammers, saws, and chisels that he crafted his earliest pieces of homemade furniture
with. As he grew older and his skills progressed, he began to feel frustrated and
trapped by the nagging constraints of scholastic pressure and familial expectation.
Throughout his formative years as a student in England’s rigorously austere private
school system, his talent for detailed handwork was seldom recognized or encouraged
by his family. According to Charles, he “struggled with serious doubts about [his]
intelligence due to an inability to succeed academically. I felt like I was stupid.
It took me years to get over that feeling.”
Though his intellectual misgivings took a noticeable toll on his self-esteem as a young
man, his creative resolve was bolstered by an existential awakening when a near-fatal
car crash forced him to come face-to-face with his own mortality. In the aftermath of the
accident, he recalls thinking that he easily “could have been dead. I knew that I needed
to use every moment of my life to do something that mattered. I asked myself, ‘What do I
love to do the most?’ I realized that I loved to work with my hands more than
anything else. I came to see my ability to work with my hands as a true form of
intelligence.”
It was then that Charles decided to follow his passion. He enrolled at West Surrey
College of Arts and Design, where he honed his crafting skills and met his future wife and
business partner Miranda Thomas. While Miranda finished her ceramics degree, Charles
ventured stateside to work with Irish glassblower Simon Pearce at his workshop in
Quechee, Vermont in 1981.
Charles credits the time he spent at Simon’s glass blowing operation with “teaching
[him] how to run a handmade business. Marketing is important, as is knowing your
target market. When I decided that I wanted to branch out and run my own furniture
company, I was able to take what I had learned from working there and apply it to
developing my own business.”
While Charles was working with Simon, he reconnected with Miranda who had moved
to the United States. After she joined Charles in Central Vermont, the two of them
began to sell their furniture and pottery through Simon’s shop. This symbiotic
partnership both helped to grow Simon’s business and gave Charles and Miranda
access to a dedicated clientele base that became future customers.
Five years after he started working with Simon, Charles decided to branch out and
start his own furniture company. Charles says that the transition started with him
“working part-time for Simon and part-time for [himself]. I started selling my furniture
to my peers. It started selling really well. People really love a handmade simple
product.” After fifteen years of fruitful partnership at Simon Pearce, Charles and
Miranda amicably ended their business arrangement with Simon when he decided
to narrow his focus to meet the demands of his flourishing glassblowing operation.
Charles and Miranda got married, started a family together, and merged their furniture
and pottery businesses to form ShackletonThomas. According to Miranda, the secret to
her and Charles’ harmonious partnership lies in their ability to maintain complete artistic
autonomy while operating under the same corporate banner. Though they sell their
wares out of the same showroom, they maintain separate work environments that allow
them to fully manifest their creative visions through their respective mediums.