GRANT
DOUGLAS
CUNNINGHAM
"to give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift" - Steve Prefontaine
photo courtesy of Chris Chapman, @northland.studio
I was born in Auburn, Washington in 1990, but grew up in the countryside a little bit west of Eugene, Oregon in a small town called Veneta. My childhood was spent on a few acres near a lake that backed up to a ripe forest where I would explore with the dogs, build hideouts, shoot birds, and try to make the DIY fishing hooks my brother and I had read about in My Side of the Mountain.
Just a few months after moving to Missoula, Montana in 2012, I began working for James Behring at Behring Made Knives. For the next decade I worked closely with Behring, learning the dynamic nuances of making, using, and selling high echelon custom cutlery. Beyond the shop, it was in those formative years that I would further develop an understanding, love and respect for the outdoors by way of bowhunting for elk, fly fishing, backpacking, and one hundred mile ultramarathon trail races through the mountains.
At the 2019 Blade Show, I met "HEPK" (High Endurance Performance Knife) master smiths Jason Keen and Chris Amos. After late night discussions about good knives and bad tattoos, my visits to their central Wyoming compound began where Jason would cover up my old ugly tattoos with beautiful new pieces, all the while teaching me a thing or two about making and using knives in ways I'd not previously thought possible. On these visits, I was fortunate to meet Chris and Jason's mentor and legendary blade smith, Ed Fowler, at his revered knife shop on the Willow Bow Ranch.
In winter 2023 I left Behring to try my hand in other industries, and while I enjoyed brief corporate success in Seattle it was not long before I craved the freedom, joy and challenges of making knives again. I rang up Amos in January 2024 and before the call was over my life was in a storage locker and I was on my way to Wyoming. What was intended to be three weeks turned into six months of sharing esoteric craftsmanship, introspect and philosophical insight under tutelage of the ways of the HEPK.
Twelve years after leaving Oregon, I returned home in the Summer of 2024 with able hands, a head full of ideas and a plan to make my name worth something. It is a strange thing to look at more than a decade of experience only to feel like it was just the beginning- but that is the truth: those ten years were training and this journey has only just begun.
The Cunningham Custom Shop is me, fusing the diverse methodologies and experiences of my self and my mentors. From the knives I make to the miles I run and everything in between, I believe that endurance, toughness and resilience are a choice and achieved only through consistency and strictly applied fundamentals. I believe the easy route is for the weak-minded and want nothing to do with that school of thought. I represent optimization and through every step of my process you'll have the best of my knowledge and practice, mindfully crafting the knife I make for you. From the tip to the sheath, I guarantee my work yields an exceptional performance for even the most discerning user, for life.
My shop is on a ranch just a few hundred yards from the foot of the Cascade Mountains in between Coburg and Eugene, OR. With some advance notice, I welcome and encourage scheduled visits and am flexible to fit your schedule.
