RiverStyx Willow grows and cultivates materials for local and sustainable craft, with a focus on burial products and community deathcare.

But we also focus on the processes and connections that allow these products to be made. We grow many of the raw materials at River Styx Willow Farm, our 5+ acre farm in Northwest Central Indiana. this includes willow, gourds, and plants for natural dyes. We implement the practice of coppicing and pollarding as a sustainable approach to crop management, and allow space for native plants to flourish. For what we can’t grow, we then look to local saw mills and growers. And in some cases, we are able to partner with other craftspeople and builders to access unused off-cuts or salvaged/reclaimed wood.

In the most basic “what we do” statement,

RSW builds small watercraft AND sustainable burial products such as woven and wooden caskets, natural dyed shrouds, and urns.

With these practices, we offer goods for people seeking a more balanced approach to craft, commerce, and burial.

I believe that our choices in death should be allowed to reflect the principles by which we live; and that bodily autonomy is important in life, death, and our transition in between. I believe that at we can acknowledge and process our grief through a hands-on approach to deathcare and burial; and in doing so we can strike balance and understanding with ourselves, our community, and environments.

Who is RIVERSTYX WILLOW?

RIVERSTYX WILLOW IS:

India (Gilham)-West(erman)

boats for the living - boats for dead

I founded RIVERSTYX WILLOW in 2020, and I have been figuring out how to connect my two seemingly disjointed vocations: death care & boatbuilding since then. “Boats for the living, boats for the dead” has become a reverberation, guiding my understanding of humans as creators and how we create. Particularly how and why we create vessels to contain our bodies as we pass from one destination to another. Rooted in both utility and artistry, much like my beloved watercraft, I see the caskets I build as crafts, vessels that will carry us from our lives to the earth and beyond.