Rebecca Juli­ette-Duex was first intro­duced to the value of craft by her mater­nal grand­par­ents. As a child, she watched their hands sew, saw, and shape objects out of prac­ti­cal neces­sity. They inspired her to study fiber art and furni­ture making and to pursue craft as a personal necessity. 

A multi­dis­ci­pli­nary artist, Rebecca brings textiles and wood into conver­sa­tion to tell the story of her own creative heritage and inspire others to do the same. She places equal value on personal prac­tice, commu­nity engage­ment, and educa­tion. Rebecca volun­teers her time as chair of the Tools Commit­tee for The Chairmaker’s Toolbox, an orga­ni­za­tion commit­ted to equity in the field of green wood­work­ing. She has taught work­shops at craft schools and colleges and exhib­ited her own work region­ally and nationally.

Rebecca was the 2023 Gondring Artist-in-Resi­dence at Sawtooth School for Visual Art in Winston-Salem, NC. During her time as resi­dent, she forged a part­ner­ship with the SIDE Chair Library on the campus of Salem College that resulted the exhi­bi­tion Seating Assign­ment: Women in Contem­po­rary Chair­mak­ing and Craft Educa­tion which she curated.

Alexan­dra finished her MFA at San Diego State Univer­sity this past spring in Applied Design with a concen­tra­tion in Wood­work­ing and Furni­ture Design. Her work is and has always been very playful; it is most clearly recog­nized as and rooted to furni­ture found in the home but often with a twist. Its utility is not always straight­for­ward and is often meant to be a chal­lenge or heavily inter­ac­tive in some way. She loves the idea of being surrounded by objects in the home that bring joy, which is what she strives to do with each work.

Keenan Rowe’s work repre­sents imag­ined objects and land­scapes from worlds that don’t quite exist. He seeks the fuzzy line between art, craft, and design. With an MFA in 3D Design from Cran­brook Academy of the Arts and a BS in Archi­tec­ture from Ball State Univer­sity, Keenan creates furni­ture and sculp­tural objects for the inte­rior. He founded RVA Urban Wood, a Virginia-based collab­o­ra­tive group dedi­cated to educat­ing the commu­nity and divert­ing wood waste from local land­fills. His work has been show­cased nation­ally, includ­ing at events like NYCxDe­sign. Among his acco­lades is the Dorothy Liskey Wampler Distin­guished Profes­sor of Art Lecture Series Award, which supported his cura­to­r­ial research and exhi­bi­tion, Edge Walkers. Currently based in Little Rock, AR, Keenan serves as Assis­tant Profes­sor of Wood­work­ing at the Windgate School of Art and Design at the Univer­sity of Arkansas Little Rock.