Adam John Manley is currently Assis­tant Profes­sor of Furni­ture Design and Wood­work­ing at San Diego State Univer­sity, and has taught full time at Maine College of Art and UMass Dart­mouth, and as adjunct at Univer­sity of New Hamp­shire. He has also taught exten­sively at Haystack Moun­tain School of Craft and in the summer of 2019 at Penland School of Craft. Adam has done resi­den­cies at UW Madison, where he was the Windgate Artist in Resi­dence, the Haystack Open studio Resi­dency, and the Lanes­boro resi­dency in South­ern Minnesota. He is looking forward to an upcom­ing resi­dency at the Center For Art in Wood as a summer 2021 ITE fellow. Adam was born and raised in the Adiron­dack moun­tains of New York State, and attended the SUNY New Paltz, receiv­ing a degree in Polit­i­cal science and Inter­na­tional rela­tions. During this time, Adam fell in love with wood­work­ing, found­ing a coop­er­a­tive studio and gallery with a group of friends in Kingston, in New York’s Mid-Hudson Valley. Having been Raised by a weaver and a boat builder/​carpenter, working with one’s hands came natu­rally to Adam. After working for several years as a furni­ture maker, and hoping to deepen his connec­tions between making and ideas, Adam moved to San Diego Cali­for­nia, where he received his MFA in Furni­ture Design and Wood­work­ing. In grad­u­ate school, Adam devel­oped a unique voice that blended func­tional construc­tion method­olo­gies, mate­r­ial explo­ration, and a focus on the concep­tual poten­tial embod­ied within craft, furni­ture, and func­tional famil­iar objects. Since grad­u­ate school, Adam has taught at numer­ous insti­tu­tions, from colleges to craft schools, and contin­ued to develop his ideas and work in an ever-evolv­ing way. Adam’s work has addressed issues relat­ing to our unique sense of place and how famil­iar func­tional objects link us to that sense, humor, indi­vid­ual and univer­sal rela­tion­ships to furni­ture, and, more recently, the rela­tion­ship between furni­ture and the histor­i­cal objects used to inflict violence on others through­out time. This work is currently Adam’s focus and is expand­ing from an initial small solo exhi­bi­tion at the Indi­anapo­lis Art Center. Adam is the co-founder, along with colleague Keri­anne Quick, of the contem­po­rary craft zine/​journal, CRAFT DESERT.

Karen Ernst is a Profes­sor in the Art Depart­ment at Edin­boro Univer­sity of Penn­syl­va­nia, where she has been teach­ing wood­work­ing and furni­ture design since 2004. Orig­i­nally from East Aurora, NY, she received a B.A. in Studio Art from SUNY Geneseo, and her M.F.A in Furni­ture Design from the Rhode Island School of Design. She main­tains an active studio prac­tice, exhibit­ing the furni­ture and sculp­tural objects she makes across the U.S. She has been a member of the Furni­ture Society since 2002.

Meg Bye (She/​Her) is an artist based in Seattle, WA. Bye’s inter­est in fine art and wood­work­ing started at an early age even­tu­ally leading her to study sculp­ture, conser­va­tion and busi­ness. With her early career balanced between museum collec­tions and arts fabri­ca­tion Bye even­tu­ally accu­mu­lated her knowl­edge to strike out on her own. In 2014, Bye founded Knot & Burl Studios, a sculp­ture and fine furnish­ings company in Seattle, WA. At Knot & Burl Studios (KBS), Bye works collab­o­ra­tively with design­ers, archi­tects and patrons to create one of a kind art pieces, each tailored to the philos­o­phy and needs of the location.

Bye’s large scale, site specific instal­la­tions blend tradi­tional craft knowl­edge with modern refine­ment to create contem­po­rary, sculp­tural envi­ron­ments. Bye consid­ers herself a link in the lineage of tradi­tional heritage makers and strives to carry and share the skills and knowl­edge passed to her through the work teach­ing and creat­ing. Working in wood, metal, leather, glass and organ­i­cally sourced mate­ri­als, Bye describes her work as living in the space where archi­tec­ture and sculp­ture meet. Her work can be found in public and private collec­tions through­out the United States. Bye is an advo­cate for cultural growth that empow­ers artists within the maker/​arts fields. knotand​burl​stu​dios​.com

Kathy Sharp is owner of Keystone Profes­sional Solu­tions and a long­time volun­teer with the Furni­ture Society. She is married to Alf Sharp, a furni­ture maker, former board member, and past pres­i­dent. Many will know Kathy from her activ­i­ties orga­niz­ing the Silent Auction at conferences.

Bart Niswonger is a furni­ture maker in western Mass­a­chu­setts. His work explores complex surface pattern and texture, employ­ing tech­niques from hand carving to computer controlled routing as well as a broad range of mate­ri­als. He received the John D. Mineck Furni­ture Fellow­ship in 2011, and has been a member of The Furni­ture Society since 2004.

Reuben is a passion­ate object maker and has taught at art/​craft centers across the country. These schools include the Center for Furni­ture Crafts­man­ship, Ander­son Ranch Arts Center, Haystack Moun­tain School of Crafts, and Penland School of Crafts. He has been a lecturer at the Univer­sity of Mass­a­chu­setts Dart­mouth, San Diego State Univer­sity, and Cuya­maca College in Cali­for­nia. He currently teaches full-time and is the Chair of the Wood­work­ing Manu­fac­tur­ing Tech­nolo­gies Depart­ment at Cerri­tos College, the largest wood­work­ing career tech­ni­cal educa­tion facil­ity on the West Coast. He main­tains a studio prac­tice as one of the makers at Allied Wood­shop in the Fashion District of Los Angeles.

https://​www​.reuben​foat​.com/

Kathryn Hall is Curator at Houston Center for Contem­po­rary Craft (HCCC) in Houston, Texas, where she is respon­si­ble for devel­op­ing and over­see­ing exhi­bi­tions and related program­ming. She previ­ously served as the Windgate Cura­to­r­ial Fellow at HCCC from 2012 to 2015. Kathryn received a BA in Art History from Wofford College and an MA in Art History from the Univer­sity of Georgia. She is a scholar of contem­po­rary craft and material culture.

https://​kathrynfhall​.com/

Sarah Marriage lives and works in Balti­more, MD where she is the founder and direc­tor of A Work­shop of Our Own, a non-profit educa­tional wood­shop created by and for women and gender non-conform­ing indi­vid­u­als, with a mission to provide train­ing, advo­cacy and oppor­tu­nity for people under­rep­re­sented by gender in the field of furni­ture making and wood­work­ing. Sarah studied archi­tec­ture at Prince­ton Univer­sity and fine wood­work­ing at The College of the Redwoods (now The Krenov School). She is a member of the Board of Trustees of The Furni­ture Society. She has been a visit­ing artist at Herron School of Art & Design, a studio fellow at the Center for Furni­ture Crafts­man­ship, and a John D Mineck furni­ture fellow. She has taught at The Krenov School, Penland School of Craft, Ander­son Ranch Arts Center, and Haystack Moun­tain School of Craft. Sarah’s­work has shown at galleries and trade shows across the US, includ­ing juried exhi­bi­tions within Dwell on Design (CA), ICFF (NY), the Amer­i­can Craft Council Show (MD), and Pritam & Eames Gallery (NY).

awork​shopo​fourown​.com

sarah​mar​riage​.com

Head of the Wood/​Furniture Design Area and an Assis­tant Profes­sor in the Depart­ment of Craft/​Material Studies, at Virginia Common­wealth University’s School of the Arts (VCUarts) from 2012 – 2019, Heath Matysek-Snyder is an object maker whose multi-faceted studio prac­tice
incor­po­rates wood­work­ing, furni­ture, design and sculp­ture. Earning his BFA from VCUarts in 2000 and his MFA from the Univer­sity of Wiscon­sin-Madison in 2004, Heath has been an Artist-in-Resi­dence at San Diego State Univer­sity, Designed Objects Tasma­nia; Hobart, Australia, the College of Design and Inno­va­tion at Tongji Univer­sity; Shang­hai, China, and has partic­i­pated at the Emma Inter­na­tional Collab­o­ra­tion, in Ness Creek, Saskatchewan.

Jennifer-Navva Milliken is the Artis­tic Direc­tor for The Center for Art in Wood. Prior to her arrival at the Center, she served as an embed­ded staff member in inter­na­tional art museums, as an inde­pen­dent curator, and as the founder of a cross-disci­pli­nary art space. Her exhi­bi­tions have been presented in museums, art fairs, galleries, and uncon­ven­tional spaces, and her writ­ings have been seen in exhi­bi­tion cata­logues, antholo­gies, and publi­ca­tions that inves­ti­gate and critique the inter­sect­ing fields of art, craft, and design. With a global perspec­tive, honed through a life split between two conti­nents, she is driven by the extra­or­di­nary power of the arts to chal­lenge precon­cep­tions and bridge divides.

Norman Teague is a Chicago based artist, designer and educa­tor who focuses on the complex­ity of urban­ism and the culture of commu­ni­ties. Teague prides himself for working within commu­ni­ties that offer ethical returns and human centered exchanges. Teague has worked on exhi­bi­tions at The Depart­ment of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, Docu­menta 13, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago Archi­tec­ture Center & Harvard Grad­u­ate School of Design. 

Teague holds an MFA in Designed Objects from the School of the Art Insti­tute of Chicago (SAIC) and a BA in Product Design from Colum­bia College Chicago. He was awarded the Claire Rosen and Samuel Edes Foun­da­tion Prize for Emerg­ing Artists in 2015 and is presently a creative collab­o­ra­tor in asso­ci­a­tion with the exhi­bi­tion design team of Ralph Apple­baum & Asso­ciates (NY) and Civic Projects for the Obama Presidential Center. 

Aside from his normal making prac­tice, he and Fo Wilson, his partner in blkHaUS studios, work on collab­o­ra­tive projects in the South Shore area of Chicago. Teague works with part­ners to high­light careers in design, arts and crafts and peda­gogy within the south side to increase the popu­la­tions of color to have access to the design indus­try, while creat­ing viable outlets for making in all capacities.

http://​www​.plank22b​.com/

https://​blkhausstu​dios​.com/

Sarah Turner is an artist and educa­tor trained in the North­west, refined in the Midwest and now based in Boston. She is the Pres­i­dent of North Bennet Street School.

As an educa­tor, working from both the office and the studio, Sarah has also worked at the Cran­brook Academy of Art, the Rhode Island School of Design, the Oregon College of Art and Craft, and the State Univer­sity of New York at New Paltz. As the Dean at Cran­brook, Sarah directed the Acad­e­mic Programs of the Academy and estab­lished a Crit­i­cal Studies + Human­i­ties resi­den­tial teach­ing fellow­ship. She has lectured widely, regu­larly serves as a guest critic, and has orga­nized exhi­bi­tions on contem­po­rary applied art in the US and abroad. In 2005, Sarah was awarded a Fulbright Fellow­ship to the Nether­lands to research Dutch contem­po­rary applied art.

In addi­tion to her work in educa­tion, Sarah main­tains a low-produc­tion studio. Her work has been included in exhi­bi­tions nation­ally and internationally. 

Sarah has been a volun­teer and advisor for a variety of orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing the South­east Michi­gan Fulbright Asso­ci­a­tion, the Vermont YWCA, the Art Jewelry Forum, the Society of North Amer­i­can Gold­smiths, and the Inter­na­tional (dis)Organization of Recent Art-Grad­u­ates Apply­ing for Teach­ing and Grants [I(d)RAGTAG].

https://​www​.sarah​turn​er​pro​jects​.com/

https://​www​.nbss​.edu/

Esther Cho (She/​Her) received her dual BFA in Inte­rior Design and Craft/​Material Studies (with a concen­trat­ing in wood­work­ing) from the Virginia Common­wealth Univer­sity in 2017 and is expected to receive her MFA from the Univer­sity of Wiscon­sin – Madison in 2022. She employs a disci­pline in wood­work­ing and paper­mak­ing to seek a place where Korean and Western craft tradi­tions merge to commu­ni­cate the concepts of self-iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, cultural discon­nect, and the loss of lineage. She has been awarded the 2017 Windgate Fellow­ship Award and trav­eled to South Korea to study tradi­tional Korean paper­mak­ing tech­niques and its related arts. Insta­gram: estherjihyecho

Ryan Zimmer­man is a second-year grad­u­ate student at the Rochester Insti­tute of
Tech­nol­ogy, in the Furni­ture Design program. Born and raised in Erie, Penn­syl­va­nia, he
received his BFA from Edin­boro Univer­sity of Penn­syl­va­nia in 2017, with a
concen­tra­tion in Wood/​Furniture Design and minors in print­mak­ing and sculp­ture.
Leaving under­grad, he completed an intern­ship at Ander­son Ranch Arts Center in the
furni­ture program. His work explores the arche­type of furni­ture, while ques­tion­ing its
func­tion­al­ity. Currently working with both wood and clay, the forms he gener­ates are
designed and built consid­er­ing systems of repe­ti­tion and progres­sion, as well as
mate­r­ial limi­ta­tions and ambi­gu­ity. rzim​mer​man​wood​work​.com