Kiya Vega-Hutchens

Kiya Vega-Hutchens is an artist based in the North­east Kingdom of Vermont. She was raised in Alpha­bet City on the Lower East Side of Manhat­tan. She first came to Vermont to attend Middle­bury College as a Posse Scholar, where she studied Envi­ron­men­tal Chem­istry. After expe­ri­enc­ing multi­ple extreme weather events while working as a climate justice orga­nizer in NYC, she was drawn to learn­ing carpen­try as a paral­lel to her orga­niz­ing. Through carpen­try, she fell in love with wood­work­ing and has been devoted to devel­op­ing in the craft. As a builder, she assisted in teach­ing Natural Build­ing at Yester­mor­row Design/​Build and is currently attend­ing the Vermont Wood­work­ing School. One of her student pieces, a wall-hung cabinet based on the tene­ment build­ing where she grew up, recently won the Student Design Cate­gory in Wood­work­ing Network’s Veneer Tech Craftsman Challenge.