Robell is a furniture maker, teacher, and researcher based in Atlanta, Georgia. His work aims to disrupt the normalization of whiteness in craft and the decorative arts through writing and object making that centers the histories and traditions of Black craftspeople. He has taught woodworking at The Center for Furniture Craftsmanship, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, and Mass Collective (a community makerspace in Atlanta).
Charlie Ryland is a chair maker, teacher, and researcher interested in working with pre-industrial tools, techniques, and styles to unpack their stories and adapt their forms to the modern context. First introduced to the trade in his father's cabinet shop in rural Idaho, and later trained in the North Bennet Street School's Fine Furniture and Cabinet program, his work is motivated by an interest in the overlap between class and craft consciousness, their respective roles in the systems of knowledge creation and dispersal, and the ways in which both can be used to build and shape community through the generation of history, meaning, and solidarity.
Working primarily in wood, Danielle blends traditional and modern methods with ample experimentation and a wide range of tools to make gradients of sculptural and functional objects.
She graduated in 2005 from College of the Atlantic, where she explored music and sound sculpture. While building her senior project, a handmade fiddle-ish instrument constructed from burn pile wood found on campus, she carved her first spoon.
For the following 15 years she worked in restaurants, gardened, managed a sled dog kennel and paid off student loans, all the while carrying around a cardboard box full of random woodworking tools, knowing they were important, but uncertain of where they fit in.
After years of trial and error learning about the craft, she now works as a full time carver and sculptor out of her studio in Bar Harbor, Maine.
She graduated in 2005 from College of the Atlantic, where she explored music and sound sculpture. While building her senior project, a handmade fiddle-ish instrument constructed from burn pile wood found on campus, she carved her first spoon.
For the following 15 years she worked in restaurants, gardened, managed a sled dog kennel and paid off student loans, all the while carrying around a cardboard box full of random woodworking tools, knowing they were important, but uncertain of where they fit in.
After years of trial and error learning about the craft, she now works as a full time carver and sculptor out of her studio in Bar Harbor, Maine.
Beth Ireland earned an Art Education degree as well as a masters degree in Sculpture and has over 40 years of woodworking experience. With articles published in Fine Woodworking and American Turner and work that has been exhibited all over the country, she is well known and loved. Although Ireland specializes in Woodturning, she is also an experienced stringed instrument Artist making incredible one-of-a-kind musical masterpieces. Her studio in Saint Petersburg, Florida is set up for architectural and Artistic woodturning allowing her to create work that exists in the intersection of Art and Craft.
Now the Head of Woodcraft at Berea College, Rob has been a studio furniture maker and teacher for the past 15 years. After moving from Pennsylvania to Kentucky, he now enjoys a creekside home where he spends most mornings and evenings enjoying the sounds of running water while trying to catch a glimpse of the beavers that make their home in its banks. Rob’s furniture has been wide and varied, but unique domestic materials and traditional joinery have always been at the heart of it. You can find him published in Woodcraft Magazine, Fine Woodworking and Furniture & Cabinetmaking. In 2020, he was awarded the Wharton Esherick Prize for Excellence in Wood at the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show.
Andy builds custom furniture and chairs from his Waldoboro, Maine shop. An ideal day in the shop involves the shave horse, fresh oak, and a sharp drawknife. Andy worked at Berea College in Woodcraft and at Pine Croft from 2017-21. His first book, Backwoods Chairmakers about ladderback chairmaking within Appalachia, was released in early 2024 (publisher Lost Art Press).
Thiago Endrigo Silva was born and still lives in São Paulo, Brazil, with his wife and daughter. After training to be a clinical psychologist he decided to change paths to become a craftsman, devoting himself to woodworking. This pursuit led him to work restoring historic pipe organs, building harpsichords, guitars, furniture and tools. A deep passion for traditional crafts led to the creation of Saber com as Mãos, an initiative concerned with investigating and promoting crafts in Brazil. When not teaching children or adults to work wood in his shop or schools around the country, he’ll be either making chairs or wooden hand planes.
Katie Bister joined the Pine Croft team as a recent graduate of Berea College and the Student Crafts Woodcraft program in the summer of 2023. As a student she designed the People Collection Active Rocker which is available for purchase through the Log House Craft Gallery store. Although she focuses on woodworking, she enjoys incorporating other materials into her designs. During her time as a student, she fell in love with teaching and introducing woodworking to others and strives to make it an accessible and approachable craft.
Amanda Lee Lazorchack of Please Send Word is a broom maker who is delighted by
traditional craft and botanical dyes. She creates unique sculptural home goods that
speak to the relationship between art, utility and the nature of domesticity. You can find
her work or strike up a conversation at pleasesendword.com.
traditional craft and botanical dyes. She creates unique sculptural home goods that
speak to the relationship between art, utility and the nature of domesticity. You can find
her work or strike up a conversation at pleasesendword.com.
Hunter Elliott is a broom maker, woodworker, and sculptor living and working in Berea,
KY.
KY.
Kelly Mehler’s professional woodworking career spans four decades of creating fine furniture as a business owner, teaching and speaking to woodworking enthusiasts at trade shows, guilds, and to classes at all skill levels and interests. Kelly built and headed the Kelly Mehler School of Woodworking (now called Pinecroft) for many years before retiring to a less scheduled lifestyle!
Kelly’s work is characterized by the use of classic designs that emphasize the inherent beauty of natural grain patterns and colors of hardwoods. Kelly’s trademark furniture pieces often feature strikingly figured and matched wood that has been carefully air dried and sawed from a single tree. Kelly’s teaching reflects his emphasis on the appreciation of the beauty of wood.
Kelly is the author of The Tablesaw Book (1992/2002, Taunton Press). He is featured in two Fine Woodworking video/DVDs: Build a Shaker Table With Kelly Mehler, and Mastering Your Tablesaw. Kelly has contributed numerous articles to Fine Woodworking magazine, Woodworkers Journal, Popular Woodworking, Woodworker West, American Woodworker, Time/Life woodworking book series, and in other woodworking publications.
Megan Fitzpatrick is a former editor of Popular Woodworking Magazine. She now makes custom furniture out of the Lost Art Press shop in Covington, Ky., edits various woodworking and tool-related books and magazines, and teaches hand-tool woodworking classes.
Aspen Golann is an artist & furniture maker blending early American furniture forms with sculpture and social practice.
Her artwork is exhibited nationally and is published in American Craft, Fine Woodworking Magazine, Architectural Digest, Popular Woodworking, Luxe Magazine, Lost Art Press Blog, American Period Furniture, and others. She serves on the board of A Workshop of Our Own and as an ambassador to the Board of Fine Woodworking Magazine. She has received support for her work from The Windgate Foundation, Winterthur Museum, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, The Center for Furniture Craftsmanship and others and is the recipient of the 2020 Mineck Furniture Fellowship from The Society of Arts & Crafts.
Her artwork is exhibited nationally and is published in American Craft, Fine Woodworking Magazine, Architectural Digest, Popular Woodworking, Luxe Magazine, Lost Art Press Blog, American Period Furniture, and others. She serves on the board of A Workshop of Our Own and as an ambassador to the Board of Fine Woodworking Magazine. She has received support for her work from The Windgate Foundation, Winterthur Museum, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, The Center for Furniture Craftsmanship and others and is the recipient of the 2020 Mineck Furniture Fellowship from The Society of Arts & Crafts.
Aspen maintains an active teaching practice and in 2020, with the help of the SA+C, founded The Chairmaker’s Toolbox—a project that provides free tools, education, and mentorship for BIPOC, Gender Nonconforming and female toolmakers seeking to build sustainable businesses. In support of the project, she has partnered with Winterthur Museum, Fine Woodworking Magazine, A Workshop of Our Own, The Furniture Society and chairmakers around the country.
Aspen does domestic and international commission work for designers such as Beata Heuman in the UK, The Harvard Design Project in Boston, MA and Building Preservation Associates in Nantucket, MA.
Most recently, Aspen has received a Windgate residency in the wood/furniture design program at San Diego State University and a Critical Craft Fellowship at Winterthur Museum to explore the physical and social history of the Windsor chair.
Kelly Harris is a studio furniture maker and educator. Located in Brooklyn, NY, she builds custom furniture, useful homegoods, and a Tenon Cutter Hand Tool for windsor chair making.
She is a graduate of the North Bennet Street School Cabinet and Furniture Making program, where she studied period furniture. Additionally, holding a BA in political science and gender studies, she ties in her decades long experience of working in the trades and the service industry, with her specialized study of both period furniture and critical thought.
She has taught woodworking classes nationwide at craft and trade schools including: North Bennet St School, Makeville, Fireweed Woodshop, A Workshop of Our Own (WOO) and has assisted classes at Lie-Nielsen and Penland School of Craft. She serves on both the Facilities Committee and the Education Committee at WOO. She received a Critical Craft Studies Fellowship from Winterthur Museum, Penland School of Craft Assistantships, the Future Craftsmen Scholarship from Oneida Air Systems, and the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts Summer Conference Scholarship. Her work has been exhibited at craft and furniture shows in the U.S and has been published in Wood Review Australia.
Kelly’s work is rooted in solid joinery and functionality, while reserving the space for a playful and nuanced design aesthetic that is both elegant and bold.
She is a graduate of the North Bennet Street School Cabinet and Furniture Making program, where she studied period furniture. Additionally, holding a BA in political science and gender studies, she ties in her decades long experience of working in the trades and the service industry, with her specialized study of both period furniture and critical thought.
She has taught woodworking classes nationwide at craft and trade schools including: North Bennet St School, Makeville, Fireweed Woodshop, A Workshop of Our Own (WOO) and has assisted classes at Lie-Nielsen and Penland School of Craft. She serves on both the Facilities Committee and the Education Committee at WOO. She received a Critical Craft Studies Fellowship from Winterthur Museum, Penland School of Craft Assistantships, the Future Craftsmen Scholarship from Oneida Air Systems, and the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts Summer Conference Scholarship. Her work has been exhibited at craft and furniture shows in the U.S and has been published in Wood Review Australia.
Kelly’s work is rooted in solid joinery and functionality, while reserving the space for a playful and nuanced design aesthetic that is both elegant and bold.
Dawson Moore lives and works on a sixth generation family farm in Harbor Springs, MI. After reestablishing roots at the farm in 2014, spoon carving became a full time obsession as he gained access to the native trees growing in the local forests. He spent the next several years harvesting his own wood, working it fresh from the log, and learning to use traditional hand tools and techniques to make a variety of spoons and other household items. More recently, he is focusing on designing and building stools and chairs. Even as he incorporates more modern working methods, he still feels a deep connection to the knowledge gained working directly from the woods with hand tools. Every chair still starts with a fresh log and an axe.
Larissa Huff is a self-employed furniture maker in Philadelphia, PA. From 2012-2021 she was part-owner of Lohr Woodworking, in Limerick, PA, where she designed and built furniture and taught classes. In recent years, Larissa has exhibited at the American Craft Show in Baltimore, the Philadelphia Furniture Show, the Philadelphia Museum of Art Contemporary Craft Show, and Philadelphia’s Center for Art in Wood. She was profiled in the May 2021 issue of Furniture & Cabinetmaking, and has written articles for Fine Woodworking and Woodcraft Magazine. In 2022, she was awarded a residency at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, in Gatlinburg, TN and a fellowship at the Center for Furniture Craftmanship, in Rockport, ME. Larissa’s website is larissahuff.com.
Will is a native of north western North Carolina. Woodworking in some way shape or form has been a lifelong hobby for him. Will is mostly a hand tool woodworker but does use the powered stuff for material prep and rough dimensioning of stock.
Measuring and documenting vintage furniture, then attempting to figure out the processes past makers used to build it is one of his favorite aspects of the craft. Then using the information and lesson learned from the old pieces to build new furniture.
Will teaches at several woodworking schools in the eastern US.
Measuring and documenting vintage furniture, then attempting to figure out the processes past makers used to build it is one of his favorite aspects of the craft. Then using the information and lesson learned from the old pieces to build new furniture.
Will teaches at several woodworking schools in the eastern US.
Erik Curtis is an American woodworker, sculptor, and television personality. He attended the nine-month comprehensive at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in 2012 and has taught at schools around the country. His creative practice combines the sculptural with the functional - in an attempt to blur the line between furniture and art. He also stars as the carpenter on Netflix’s Instant Dream Home.
Joshua Wetherington is a multidisciplinary artist, designer and craftsperson who lives and works in Central Kentucky. Originally from the deserts of Southern California, he finds Kentucky’s lush biodiversity a major source of inspiration. Joshua’s only formal woodworking training was a high school shop class that taught him the fundamentals of machine powered woodworking. This sparked an interest that has lived with him, and has only grown throughout the 20 years since he took that class. Joshua currently enjoys both machine powered and hand tool woodworking with an emphasis in manual wood carving. Most recently, he has ventured away from a more “traditional woodworking” path in an attempt to blur the line between art and craft.
Katie Hudnall received her BFA in Sculpture from the Corcoran College of Art & Design and her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in Furniture Design/Woodworking.
Her work has been included in many publications and exhibitions including Crafting A Continuum: Rethinking Contemporary Craft, Making A Seat at the Table: Women Transform Woodworking, and in American Craft Magazine’s February/March 2017 issue.
Hudnall lives in Madison, Wisconsin, where she runs the Woodworking and Furniture Program at the University of Madison, Wisconsin. When she’s not teaching she spends her time making tools for problems both real and imagined.
Terry has held tight to the traditional ways of chair making passed down by our Appalachian ancestors. As a child, his father and uncles guided him though the woods to learn the best use of each type of tree in these hills.
From the hand crafted log home he raised his children in, to the high chairs where they sat. On to the wooden horses they rocked upon and the hand woven baskets they collected their eggs in. Terry is a true workhorse who raised his family by the world of woodworking and shared his knowledge for all to gather.
Keeping our roots strong by using his master craftsmanship and passing down his skills to his kids and grandkids; He has dedicated his life to working the grain of the trees pulled down by his own two hands.
