Article: The Vancouver Sun, October 29th, 1998

("Rear Window", Arts Section, full page with picture)

By Tim Carlson

The legacy of Vancouver's industrial past is quickly vanishing as the economy moves further into its high-tech retrofit. For the loft dweller inhabiting a former warehouse, the word industrial is more likely to bring to mind a design aesthetic than images of diesel engines.

That gap between past and present is one that Ross MacMillan, 30, former chef and now the imagination behind Industrial Artifacts, is interested in closing by recycling the ghosts of the industrial past for today's thoughtful interior. Those ghosts are preserv in one-of-a-k-kind wooden versions. After the engineer's conception and the draftsman's blueprints, but before iron and steel were shaped into the shafts and gears of industry, patternmakers carved the pieces from old-growth cedar, pine, maple, and fir. The cogged wheels of the winch used to load ships have a wooden counterpart that will soon be someone's unique dining room table.

Thousands of those wooden machine molds are crowded in the third-story loft at the former Progressive Engineering Works, an important manufacturer from 1916 until it closed shop this past spring.

MacMillan, 30, whose mother Audrey took ownership and ran the company after the death of her father, Walter W. Butler, in the early 80's, discovered the pattern shop and the collection of industrial curiosities when he was in his early teens. He couldn't bear to see it all trashed when the company closed - and then there was the idea for an industrial-themed restaurant (now on the back burner).

"I was worried that these patterns would be just thrown out." MacMillan said in an interview in the old pattern shop of the cavernous building on 1st Avenue near the Cambie Bridge, where he and his single employee, master woodworker Johann P. Wieghardt, are turning out lamps, tables, candelabra, treasure chests, humidors and the odd signature sculpture.

"I'm interested in making beautiful things that speak of Vancouver's history, it's former importance as an industrial center, and pay tribute to pattern makers who were, themselves, extremely talented artists".

MacMillan's Industrial Artifacts are for sale at his showroom at 360 W. 1st Ave, Vancouver, BC (604) 874-7797. They are currently on view at L'Espace Dubreuil (1435 Granville St. under the north end of the bridge) Friday, 5 to 9 p.m., Saturday 11a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Article: Business In Vancouver, October 27th, 1998 (Front Page with picture)

Metal Shop gets new life: Entrepreneur turns casting patterns in furniture.

By Amy Tyler Mair

A young entrepreneur is forging a career for himself by transforming metal casting patterns from his family's former industrial machine and repair shop into functional pieces of art.

For the past six months, Ross MacMillan has sanded, stained, waxed and joined the wooden templates into furniture and decorative accessories. Now he is prepping for his first professional show this week at the L'Espace Dubreuil on Granville Street and eyeing a retail location on South Granville.

MacMillan's aim is to put to use the hundreds of abandoned antique patterns from his family business, Progressive Engineering Works Ltd. (PEW), once run by his grandfather and later his mother, Audrey. According to MacMillan… "Progressive Engineering is an important symbol of Vancouver's past. Now the focus of the city has shifted from and industrial town to a high-tech city, but I wasn't ready for the business to die altogether."

MacMillan, 30, sells his finished pieces through his company Industrial Artifacts. "I thought to myself, What if I could turn these objects into something which is both beautiful and historical?" he said.

PEW, originally named the Fowler Machine Works, began in 1916 as a machine shop and foundry on the waterfront near the Current site of the BC Sugar Refinery Ltd. During its heyday, PEW made steam winches for Canada's version of the Second World War Liberty Ships, cranes for the building of the Lions Gate Bridge, and conveyor systems for the Britannia Mines…MacMillan designs the pieces and does the bulk of the refinishing himself. However, when it comes to the complex joinery he relies upon master woodworker and consultant Johann P. Wieghardt.

The end products sell for between $40 and $2500 with custom work available. On the technical side, MacMillan has a creative background and an interest in woodworking. After graduating from Simon Fraser University in 1991 with a degree in psychology, MacMillan traveled the world for most of the next year. After returning, he attended Dubruelle French Culinary School. For the next four years, he traveled Europe, Australia, and North America as a chef before returning to Vancouver in the summer of 1997. Originally, MacMillan returned with aspirations of opening an industrial-theme Restaurant filled with artifacts from the family business. But after he began working with the patterns, his plans changed.

"Ever since I was a teenager I have wanted to build things with the patterns. My chef's training has taught my to always keep your eyes open for a use for something and to not let anything go to waste. "There are just so many amazing shapes to build things with and to build the patterns into…I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to keep creating," he said.

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