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.

Maggie Sasso received her BFA in wood­work­ing and metal­smithing from Murray State Univer­sity in 2006. During this time she served as Student Repre­sen­ta­tive on the Board of Trustees for the Furni­ture Society. In 2010 she received her MFA from the Univer­sity of Wiscon­sin — Madison where she made many bodies of work, includ­ing the Mobile Museum of Mate­r­ial Culture, a collab­o­ra­tive grant funded project featured in a docu­men­tary. In Fall 2010 she taught at the Oregon College of Art and Craft for one semes­ter in the wood­work­ing depart­ment, and worked as a visit­ing artist. In 2011 she moved to Milwau­kee, WI where she received a Mary L. Nohl Fellow­ship and works at the Milwau­kee Insti­tute of Art and Design where she is the Sewing Lab Tech­ni­cian and teaches adjunct in the foun­da­tions, new studio prac­tice and indus­trial design departments.

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

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.

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

Michael Jean Cooper was born in Rich­mond, Cali­for­nia in 1943 and grew up in Lodi, Cali­for­nia. Mike holds a B.A. in Commer­cial Art and M.A. in Sculp­ture from San Jose State College, as well as a M.F.A in Sculp­ture from U.C. Berke­ley. He taught Furni­ture Design, Sculp­ture, and 3D Design as an Instruc­tor of Art for 34 years at Foothill-DeAnza College in Cuper­tino, CA, retir­ing in 2004.

During his profes­sional career Michael has been honored with numer­ous awards and fellow­ships. Michael has partic­i­pated in multi­ple one-man and group shows and is repre­sented in various publi­ca­tions as well as private and public collec­tions. He currently lives in Sebastopol, Cali­for­nia where he works daily in his studio adja­cent to his home. He typi­cally works in wood and metal or a combi­na­tion of both, combin­ing organic and geomet­ric forms with kinetic elements.

Forest Dickey initially came to the Board as the Student Repre­sen­ta­tive, and also served as the Vice Pres­i­dent of the Board.

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.

Adam John Manley was born and raised in the Adiron­dacks of Upstate New York. His Father was a carpen­ter and boat builder, and his mother a weaver. After attend­ing SUNY New Paltz, in New York’s Hudson Valley, where he received a BA in Inter­na­tional Rela­tions and Polit­i­cal Science, Adam fell in love with wood­work­ing and furni­ture making. After college, he and a small group of craft-based artists started a small gallery and coop­er­a­tive studio, in Kingston New York called ​“the Fire­house”. Adam Received his MFA in Furni­ture and Wood­work­ing from San Diego State Univer­sity in 2012, where he focused his work on sculp­tural objects using furni­ture as a point of depar­ture. The work explores the rela­tion­ship between people, places, and objects. Since receiv­ing his MFA, Adam has exhib­ited nation­ally from San Diego to Maine, includ­ing shows at Space Gallery in Port­land Maine, The Hunter­don Museum in Clinton New Jersey, The Ocean­side Museum in Ocean­side Cali­for­nia, UW Madison’s galleries, and the Kipp Gallery in Indiana Pennsylvania.

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. Special­iz­ing in custom furni­ture design and designed objects that deliver a personal touch or func­tion to a specific user and unique aesthetic detail. Teague’s past projects have included consumer prod­ucts, public sculp­ture, perfor­mances and designed spaces. 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. Aside from his normal making prac­tice he and Fo Wilson partner in blkHaUS studios to work on collab­o­ra­tive projects like Sound­ing Bronzevile, Connect Hyde Park and South Shore and Back Alley Jazz In South Shore. 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. 

Teague is a lover of indus­try and 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.

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