Monica Hampton has had a life­long inter­est in the arts and educa­tion. Her back­ground is a combi­na­tion of fine arts, art history, educa­tion, and public outreach, with an empha­sis on program devel­op­ment for museums and orga­ni­za­tions special­iz­ing in history, fine art, craft, and design. 

As an inde­pen­dent consul­tant, she produced the Amer­i­can Craft Coun­cil’s 2016 confer­ence. Monica served as the Direc­tor of Educa­tion at The Society of North Amer­i­can Gold­smiths (SNAG) and was formerly the Direc­tor of Educa­tion at the Amer­i­can Craft Council (ACC).

Past posi­tions include working with the Society for Envi­ron­men­tal Graphic Design (SEGD), Metrop­o­lis Maga­zine, and the Cooper-Hewitt.

She studied fine arts and art history at Bard College, received a dual fine arts/​art history BA degree from George Wash­ing­ton Univer­sity, and holds an MS in Museum Educa­tion from Bank Street.

Pam Robin­son is a Chicago-based jeweler, artist, educa­tor, arts admin­is­tra­tor and hockey fan! Since 1992, she has been with Lill­street Art Center where she teaches classes and is the Direc­tor of the Metal­smithing, Jewelry & Glass depart­ment. Pam was their Direc­tor of Educa­tion from 2011 – 2019.

She is a member of The Society of North Amer­i­can Gold­smiths (SNAG) and served on their Board of Direc­tors. As their confer­ence liaison, she was instru­men­tal in orga­niz­ing, plan­ning and sched­ul­ing confer­ences. She helped imple­ment changes to the struc­ture and sched­ules within the confer­ences and created poli­cies and contracts to stream­line these complex events. In addi­tion, she managed the Educa­tion Dialogue, the Trunk Show, work­shops, and tire­lessly edited the confer­ence brochures. In 2019 she received the SNAG Volun­teer Recog­ni­tion Award for her service. 

She is currently on the board of the Women’s Jeweler’s Asso­ci­a­tion (WJA) — Chicago chapter as their Member­ship VP and was a found­ing member of The Chicago Metals Art Guild (CMAG).

Pam earned her BFA from The School of the Art Insti­tute of Chicago, minored in art history, and studied at The Gemo­log­i­cal Insti­tute of America. She is proud of her commu­nity outreach work, has exhib­ited her work nation­wide, published in books and maga­zines, and is happi­est when she’s in her studio creat­ing and sharing her passion with others.

German-born and the daugh­ter of two ballet dancers, Erika Diamond is a textile artist, curator, and arts admin­is­tra­tor. She received a BFA in Sculp­ture from RISD and an MFA in Fiber from Virginia Common­wealth Univer­sity. She has exhib­ited nation­ally and inter­na­tion­ally and her costumes have been commis­sioned by Char­lotte Ballet. Resi­den­cies include McColl Center for Visual Art (NC); STAR­works (NC); ABK Weaving Center (WI); and Platte Forum (CO). She received a Regional Artist Project Grant in 2015 from the Arts & Science Council of NC and a recent Adjunct Faculty Grant from VCU Arts to create new work using bullet­proof Kevlar fabric. Diamond has taught at Virginia Common­wealth Univer­sity (VA) in the Craft/​Material Studies Depart­ment and Rocky Moun­tain College of Art and Design (CO). She spends her summers as Assis­tant Direc­tor of Galleries at Chau­tauqua Insti­tu­tion (NY). www​.erika​di​a​mond​.com

Katrina (Duperree)Carlson is a Western Penn­syl­va­nia based artist and furni­ture maker. She received a BFA from Edin­boro Univer­sity in 2016 and appren­ticed in Egg Collective’s Brook­lyn based studio the follow­ing year. She is a recip­i­ent of the Windgate Fellow­ship and Ruth Clark Schol­ar­ship for furni­ture design. She currently spends the major­ity of her creative prac­tice build­ing a tiny house with her husband. 

Lori James is an indus­trial designer and musi­cian that hails from South Texas. She is currently working on an M.F.A. in furni­ture design at Savan­nah College of Art and Design while learn­ing a few tricks of the trade as an intern at Williams Uphol­stery in Savan­nah, GA.