The Sarcophagus bedside table by Jeff Martin Joinery looks like something excavated from an archaeological dig — its textured surface made from deeply worked ceramic, its form resembling an Egyptian reliquary more than a nightstand.
“The title Sarcophagus speaks to the mystery of what guides us in our life and what accompanies our spirit through our journey and beyond,” says the Canadian atelier’s eponymous founder. “It is simply the cabinet for these things and thoughts.”
The piece is part of Martin’s ongoing Sarcophagus collection, launched in 2021 and rooted in experimentation. Each piece begins with raw clay, expressively shaped by hand using custom tools.
“When I started making what became the Sarcophagus series, I was kind of just playing around with clay with a friend as part of a morning routine on my way into my studio,” Martin recalls. “It dawned on me that I wanted to marry this practice with my background in cabinetmaking prior to furniture design, and to make these gestural, wall-hung, mysterious cabinets for storing your most cherished items.”
The earliest Sarcophagus cabinet was acquired by collector and interior designer Ryan Lawson. Since then, the series has gained momentum.
Some pieces, including the nightstand, integrate unused tiles from custom creations. “These leftovers were from Kelly Wearstler’s orders for the Ulla Johnson retail experience in Los Angeles,” Martin says. “Occasionally, we have objects come out of our studio that are defined in size and scale by what is left over from a commission.”
Martin’s Vancouver workshop is known for its deep material practice and sculptural approach to furniture. After years working in carpentry and cabinetmaking, including a formative stint in Brooklyn, the largely self-taught maker slowly built up his own company over the past 15 years.
Today, he combines artful exploration, production rigor and sustainability in his practice, winning such accolades as Western Living magazine’s furniture designer of the year, in 2019. Several of his works, including a Sarcophagus console, were shown at the most recent Design Miami fair, in December.
Martin says he prefers to work with materials that embody “durability, across time frames, cultures and civilizations.” These include cast bronze, blown glass, carved stone, hewn wood and sculpted ceramics, as well as more modern eco-friendly substances like postconsumer plastics, regrowable cork and molded concrete.
His studio has also planted hundreds of thousands of trees on 132 acres of dense forestland in British Columbia to positively impact the future.
The bedside table distills Martin’s broader ambitions into a single, enigmatic object — rich in texture, grounded in craft and open to interpretation. “I love the mythmaking, ideas and intent behind the work,” he says, “which is poetic.”
