Sun At Six founder, Antares Yee, recalls his earliest memory playing in a furniture warehouse that foreshadowed his career path.

Furniture designer Antares Yee was born in California, but his family came to the US in the 1980s ? and his mother brought with her a lifetime of knowledge and practice in traditional Chinese joinery. ?I grew up in a warehouse, because my mom was a furniture designer,? says Yee, the creative director and founder of the Sun at Six brand, which produces beautiful contemporary furniture with a focus on traditional joinery and woodworking. ?She learned from a master in Beijing, forty-something years ago.? Yee?s own apprenticeship wouldn?t begin until later in life: ?The majority of my earliest memories in the warehouse have to do with a guy named Tom, who worked with my mom and did a lot of the furniture touch-ups and repairs. We were young, so my little sister and I would run around the warehouse, bothering him ? when you’re a kid, you don’t care about furniture. What you do care about is so many rolls of tape, the forklift ? I just remember running around in these rolls of cardboard, messing it all up, climbing all the boxes like a jungle gym ? having fun with Tom and everyone else just making a big mess.? ?
A sense of play and lightness is evident in Yee?s current work, a counterbalance to the seriousness of purpose that underpins the brand?s commitment to sustainable practices engrained in each piece. Using traditional Chinese...