William
Laberge spent his childhood in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. He received a
B.A. in Mass Communications from the University of Vermont in 1982,
then moved on to New York city to pursue a career in fillmmaking. After
the fast pace of working on feature films for five years, and wanting
to return to more traditional values and a more tangible existence,
he moved back to Vermont to raise a family.
William
makes furniture and accessories in the Arts-and-Crafts and Shaker traditions,
colonial reproductions, and custom designs. He learned the craft by
spending several years as an apprentice under a master cabinetmaker.
He then set up his own workshop in 1990. He has exhibited at the Stratton
Arts Festival as well as Southern Vermont Art Center, the Helen Day
Art Center, the Brattleboro Museum, The Design Showcase in Madison,
CT, and Vermont State Craft Centers at Frog Hollow in Manchester, Middlebury
and Burlington and the Hawthorne Gallery in Woodstock, NY.
He
was commissioned by the Equinox Hotel to hand craft furniture in the
Arts-and-Crafts style for the Green Mountain Suite and several of his
pieces of furniture reside at Yale University. He made an ornament for
the White House Christmas tree and has recently built a Vestibule for
the Dominican Church of St. Vincent Ferrer, in New York City. "I
believe furniture ought to be made to last for generations. We must
live with it, therefore it must be designed and constructed so that
over the years it becomes a part of the family. After a long day, when
we sit on or next to a piece, we should relax as if we're with an old
friend. "With that in mind, my pieces are almost exclusively solid
hardwood, constructed with classic mortise and tenon joinery and designed
to account for expansion and contraction as the piece lives and breathes.
Each piece of wood is chosen and placed to create a quality piece of
furniture with subtle sophistication. There is something comforting
about a piece which has strength and which we know will outlast us all."