Meet the Family Behind Rubble Workshop, Queens (and King) of the Stone Age

Rubble Workshop is billed as a “modern stone-age family business”. Daughter Jerrie-Joy Redman-Lloyd acts as stylist and art director. Mum Gillian Redman-Lloyd manages operations and quality control. And dad Max Voss-Lloyd carves concrete blocks “using some of the oldest tools known to man”, he says.

Together they create Rubble’s cartoon-meets-classical-style lamps, candelabras, vases and “rubbleorahs” (aka menorahs) – decor based on a chic Flintstones aesthetic that champions quality, artisanship and more than a touch of the absurd. “The fact that we light people’s homes, it’s very special,” Max says.

Like so many recent artistic ventures, Rubble began during Covid. Jerrie-Joy had just moved to Sydney after a long stint in New York working on art direction for commercial and editorial projects, as well as films. Gillian (a high-profile architectural events coordinator) and Max (a long-time TV producer whose credits include Masterchef and Project Runway) were at home in Adelaide. Everyone was looking for a project. Jerrie-Joy was looking for a lamp.

“We’ve always had so many lamps as a family, we never used the ceiling lights,” Jerrie-Joy tells Broadsheet. “I mean, coming from Dad’s background in film and television, everything’s all about the lighting, right? It’s all about setting moods.”

And so the first Rubble prototype came together via interstate video meet-ups. “It did just start with me saying, ‘Hey, make me a lamp,’” Jerrie-Joy says. “Then it became a really organic conversation, with the three of us planning just one single lamp for me to have. We started sharing designs back and forth. We started workshopping cool shades. It became this extra-fun thing that we were talking about all together.”

That first lamp featured proudly in Jerrie-Joy’s Zoom background, and soon came requests from other friends and creatives for their own piece of Rubble. The name is inspired by Jerrie-Joy’s cockney slang-loving grandfather, whose favourite catchphrase was “What’s the rubble?” (meaning what’s the trouble). The moniker is also a nod to Barney Rubble, and “the fact that the lamps have this really naive, Flintstone-era energy about them”, she says.

“We were on the cusp of the Stone Age revival,” Gillian adds. “We were creating these Stone Age masterpieces and syncing up archaeology and all the pieces of the Grand Tour and we just went a little crazy.

“Also, we were in lockdown, so we couldn’t travel or see one another. We were creating these things to entertain each other.”

While all family members have a hand in the designs, Max is the one who crafts each piece, in his home studio in Adelaide. Lamp bases, candelabras and menorahs are carved from blocks of aerated concrete – similar in look and feel to natural stone. Each piece takes three or four days to make, and goes through “the drawing stage, the template stage, the dust stage, the water stage, and then the sealing stage”, Jerrie-Joy says.

Max works from a small number of templates, hand-carving forms with hammer and chisel till they’re ready for Gillian and Jerrie-Joy’s feedback. “And then it’s ‘More curves! I want more curves,’” he laughs. “‘Make it rounder!’ ‘Go back and do this!’ ‘Jerrie wants more scallops!’” Even with all the creative input, it’s a process he enjoys. “I have this sort of rough-and-ready thing that becomes more and more beautiful as I carve it and work it and refine it until it just takes on a life of its own. It becomes almost a cartoon character.”

When Rubble launched in earnest in 2021, the family’s witty little concrete cartoons were an instant hit worldwide. American design blog Sight Unseen championed the label, as did outlets like Architectural Digest, Wallpaper magazine and Curated Spaces. Rubble Workshop sold out of stock, then sold out again. “It just went bang, and we knew straight away that we’d hit onto something that people love,” Max says.

International demand has driven product innovation – there are plans this year to launch a new lightweight flat-pack lampshade (for cheaper shipping), modular bases and shades, and a new line of vases.

More valuable than that, Rubble has helped the family get to know each other in new ways, Gillian says. “We get to work together as a family and get to communicate on this level, rather than just daughter-father-mother. It’s really nice to move into the business world together and test each other’s mettle in this way, because we’ve come to know each other in a completely new light. It’s been challenging, and it’s also been absolutely great and wonderful.”

Right now, the family’s Rubble Workshop pieces are stocked in Sydney boutiques Peggy and The Kate Nixon Store, as well as the Sydney Jewish Museum. Plus, all designs can be handmade to order via the brand’s website. Current lead time is three weeks.

rubbleworkshop.com
@rubble.workshop