Andy Buck is a furni­ture maker, sculp­tor, and educa­tor. Currently a full profes­sor and program chair for the Furni­ture Design Program at the Rochester Insti­tute of Tech­nol­ogy, he has also taught at the Oregon College of Art & Craft, and given work­shops at Ander­son Ranch, Haystack, Penland, and Peters Valley. Andy Buck holds an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and BA from Virginia Common­wealth Univer­sity. His work has been included in exhi­bi­tions at the Museum of Art & Design, Museum of Applied Art, Frank­furt, and the Boston Museum of Fine Art. He has lectured at many univer­si­ties includ­ing San Diego State Univer­sity, RISD, Virginia Common­wealth Univer­sity, Univer­sity of Wiscon­sin, and venues such as the Renwick Gallery, as well as the Hui No’ Eau Visual Arts Center in Maui, HI. His color­ful work of furni­ture and sculp­ture is included in many private and public collections.

Kathryn Hall is Curator at Houston Center for Contem­po­rary Craft (HCCC) in Houston, Texas, where she is respon­si­ble for devel­op­ing and over­see­ing HCCC’s 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 and has contributed to Metal­smith, Studio Potter, and the Surface Design Journal. Kathryn currently serves on the Clay­Hous­ton board, an orga­ni­za­tion that supports ceramic artists working in Houston and the surrounding area.

Craig Nutt, 2018 Award of Distinc­tion Honoree, was paint­ing and playing free impro­vised music in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in 1972 when a job restor­ing antiques awak­ened an inter­est in furni­ture and crafts­man­ship. His early work in furni­ture catered to the tradi­tional tastes of his clients, and gave him the chance to assim­i­late period styles and furni­ture making tech­niques. In time, he found ways to combine his skills as a furni­ture maker with the impro­vi­sa­tional freedom he had applied to music and paint­ing. For a decade, Craig divided his time between his studio prac­tice and working for CERF+ (as Direc­tor of Programs) to build a better safety net for artists in the United States. Today he creates imag­i­na­tive furni­ture and sculp­ture in a studio he built, with help from his friends, hidden in the woods outside Nashville, Tennessee.