B Is For Boss: Knife Maker Chelsea Miller

Chelsea Miller combines her natural creativity with her rural Vermont upbringing to make unique, hand-crafted knives from recycled materials.

“For me, making knives, my intention is to open your mind a little bit and to think bigger and dig deeper about all the things that are mundane,” she explained.

Miller grew up in the Northeast Kingdom in Vermont to a self-reliant family. Her father was a blacksmith and she apprenticed with him in his shop. She describes her upbringing as “lovely,” “creative,” and “free.”

Miller’s dad got sick in 2011, which caused him to become much more handicapped. She helped try to rehabilitate him in his shop and says knife making helped her process what was happening. She realized that she missed working with her hands and enjoyed expressing his emotions in her craft, so she began to do it more and more.

Miller describes the knives she makes as “very different” from the typical knife.

“They’re made entirely from recycled material,” she said. “I remind you that this piece came from somewhere else, that it had another life entirely before it became a knife.”

Despite there being people that Miller says don’t understand what she does, she says it also offers her an opportunity to explain herself better and hone her craft.

“It really gives me the ultimate freedom to be the best person that I can be and really learn about what it means to be alive,” she said.