TutupListen to Life
I wanted to make things
that are beautiful and healthy –
and that my kids would really love.
Jocelyn and Robert Rahm,
Co-managers of Beam and Anchor.
Their twins are the epicentre of their lives and everything revolves around them.
Furniture upstairs is based on the excitement I had of having kids.
Robert : A lot of when I started making furniture which was connected to the kids – was with the beginning things. So, their dressers were designed to start as changing tables when they were little babies, and then transition to being what they are now. So those were the changing tables we used to change diapers – like a million diapers – and then they transitioned to now, that each has a dresser, that I hope they keep.
Their beds, the same thing. I just really wanted them to have something that I made that they slept in, so like with their stuff, everything is very natural. So like their beds don't have any plywood in it, because I didn't want any glue like that and it's also finished. This is a very traditional Scandinavian finish, so there's no oil finishes or anything on there, because I wanted it to be really clean for them and healthy.
I just wanted to give something of myself that I was good at, to them.
Robert : I think that's kind of (the essential part of) it as I just wanted to be able to give something that was part of me – like my thoughts, skills, and philosophy, to them. You know pre-them even understanding what that means, but it means a lot to me, and I think that's primarily it.
Jocelyn : You know it's one of those long-view things where the hope – there's so much investment in our children as they grow up – and the hope is that with something that's made with love that we've created that someday they'll have the wisdom and the awareness to appreciate that. But of course, you know, you don't know but you do it and you hope that it'll be something that they'll take with them.
We love to eat local, seasonal food that we know is organically grown or humanely raised.
Robert : Well, the only thing that I would say is our kids became more important once they came along. It was always important to both of us, but it became that much more important once they were born. For me, like wanting them to have very healthy options to eat was very important to me. That always costs a little more to do that, but it's worth it, as far as those two are concerned.
Jocelyn : We spend a lot of money on our food to ensure it's nurturing the growing bodies of our kids and our own ageing bodies and hasn't caused harm to our planet by how it was grown or produced. We feel extremely lucky to have the resources to afford to feed ourselves in this way.
The opportunity to enjoy food that has been grown and raised in a way that it's healthy for us, but it's also healthy for the planet. Obviously, we're kind of getting to this point where it's becoming increasingly obvious – blaringly obvious – that we've got the sort of potentially irreversible problem with the warming of the planet, and the impact on…
Robert : the Ocean!
