Kevin Wiggers

The Guy
 

Born in 1990 his love for using tools and working with wood revealed itself at a very early age. As a young boy Kevin excelled at sports, especially the game of baseball.

At age 14 he was scouted by the Milwaukee Brewers professional baseball team and spent the next several years playing in the Ontario Blue Jays youth development program.  Kevin developed a costly habit of breaking bats, and one day asked his father how wooden bats were made. John explained that they were turned on a lathe similar to the one he had in the shop. This inevitably led to an informal apprenticeship with his grandfather Johan who taught Kevin how turn his own wooden bats on the lathe.  After graduating from high school, Kevin completed the Woodworking Technician Program at Conestoga College.  Since then Kevin has continued to spend time with his father and grandfather learning additional cabinet-making, veneering, marquetry, inlay, and finishing techniques including specialized work with unusual natural materials such as parchment, shagreen and mother-of-pearl.  In 2010 Kevin's Levee Table was selected by jury for exhibit in the "Faculty Selects" exhibition at MIT in Boston, MA. An image of this table was subsequently published in the book “Mind & Hand - Contemporary Studio Furniture" by The Furniture Society.  Now working in a studio space previously shared with his late father, Kevin has taken over all operations of Wiggers Custom Furniture.  Kevin decided to launch Vaalsberg & Groenlo as a way of showcasing his family’s long history of craftsmanship on new range of exquisitely detailed goods.