Sylvain Tremblay is based in St. Columban, Quebec crafting the world’s most extensive line of handmade spice mills. His collection offers innovative and original shapes , contemporary colours, and uniquely mixed and matched wood types. Sylvain’s innovative designs allow owners to express their style, personality and image with each turn of fresh ground pepper or salt.
In 1982 Sylvain completed a one year woodworking course in Quebec at the encouragement of his father and went on to improve his woodworking techniques and design at Sheridan College in Oakville Ontario. He then moved back to Montreal to complete a three year degree in Design Art Concordia University.
Upon graduation Sylvain spent 10 years producing highly sought after commission furniture. Through this phase, Sylvain was strongly influenced by the Memphis Group founded by Ettore Sottsass in Milan, Italy in the early 1980s. The Memphis Group represented a reaction to the post-Bauhaus “black box designs of the 1970s offering bright, colourful, provocative, playful and humorous pieces.
Over time, Sylvain developed his own stylistic voice and pursued his love of woodturning in a more focused way. Fifteen years ago he developed a handful of peppermill designs and took them to a few trade shows as an experiment. Sylvan was thoroughly surprised by the fact that the peppermills sold out in no time at each show.
Encouraged by this market validation and highly satisfied by the challenge of expressing his dynamic creative vision through design of such functional art, Sylvain devoted himself to reinventing the peppermill as a common homeware. The result has been remarkable examples of original art including a Kayak Cresting A Wave, a Microphone, a Clarinet, a Contrabass and a Helicopter.
Sylvain’s pepper and salt mills have won numerous awards at the Salon International du Design de Montreal, the Salon des Metiers d’Arts de Montreal, the Circle Crafts Show and multiple One of Kind Shows.
His mills are now found in art galleries, restaurants and discerning kitchens throughout Canada, the United States, Europe and Asia including a 2004 Guinness record breaking 11 foot , 6 inch, 235 pound peppermill displayed at the Via Allegro restaurant in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Sylvain supports strongly all charities devoted to breast cancer research and related patient support.
