Libby Schrum is a designer-maker based in Camden, Maine. She studied at the Center for Furni­ture Crafts­man­ship and earned an MFA in furni­ture design from RISD. Her furni­ture designs are inspired by the simplic­ity and func­tion of both the Early Amer­i­can antique furni­ture she grew up with and the Mid-Century Modern aesthetic she has come to appre­ci­ate. Libby devel­ops unique and artful design solu­tions that address func­tional requests; quiet and sophis­ti­cated objects that repre­sent the sensi­bil­i­ties and soul of the designer and equally satisfy the dreams and vision of the client.

Find Libby on the web: http://​www​.libbyschrum​.com/

Paul Tanaka is a self-taught designer-maker working and living in Ames, Iowa. After thirty-two years of prac­tic­ing law he retired in 2016 to expand his skills in design­ing and crafting furniture.

Paul’s design sensi­bil­ity derives from family and history — a combi­na­tion of mid-century modern, Pacific North­west craft furni­ture, and the Japanese aesthetic.

Mid-century modern prin­ci­ples of ratio­nal­ity, utility and func­tion remain core values. However, in the past several years recent inter­ests in carving, bending and light­ing design have resulted in greater freedom of form and a migra­tion to a broader sense of function.

Find Paul on the web: https://​www​.flickr​.com/​p​h​otos/…

Chelsea Witt is an artist living and working out of mid-coast Maine. Chelsea is a wood­worker, furni­ture maker, and illus­tra­tor.​After grad­u­at­ing from the Univer­sity of South Florida with a BFA they have worked and taken oppor­tu­ni­ties up and down the east coast seeking growth in furni­ture making specif­i­cally. Chelsea has worked for and or studied under artists such as Alexis Dold, Tyler Hays (BDDW), Christina Boy, Aaron Fedarko, and David Upfill-Brown. When it comes to wood­work­ing Chelsea focuses on bring­ing 2 dimen­sional shapes into the 3 dimen­sion, all the while putting the impor­tance onto the process and details. 

Currently Chelsea is working for the Center for Furni­ture Crafts­man­ship and will be teach­ing or assist­ing classes coming up there, as well as at Penland School of Crafts and Haystack Moun­tain school of Crafts.

Find Chelsea on the Web: http://​www​.chelseacari​nawitt​.com

Founded in 2000, Scott McGlas­son’s studio, Wood­sport, has been creat­ing fine furni­ture and light­ing pieces for resi­den­tial, corpo­rate, and hospi­tal­ity clients, mixing tradi­tional tech­niques with an exper­i­men­tal approach. His work has been exhib­ited at trade shows such as the Archi­tec­tural Digest Design Show and ICFF, and top flight craft fairs such as the Smith­son­ian Craft Show and Amer­i­can Craft Council Shows.

Find Scott on Insta­gram: @woodsport
Find Scott on the Web: https://​wood​sport​.net/

Jordan Poirier is a designer and maker study­ing for his Bach­e­lors of Craft and Design — furni­ture design, at Sheri­dan College, in Oakville Ontario. Prior to attend­ing Sheri­dan, Jordan worked as a luthier, build­ing and repair­ing elec­tric and acoustic guitars for multi­ple years. Jordan’s work primar­ily focuses on creat­ing lasting objects inspired by the natural mate­ri­als they are created from.

Find Jordan on Insta­gram: @jordanpoirierfurniture
Find Jordan on the Web: http://​www​.jordan​poiri​er​fur​ni​ture​.com

Audrey Assad is a designer currently study­ing furni­ture in the Craft & Design program at Sheri­dan College. Before pursu­ing an educa­tion in design, Audrey completed her Bach­e­lor of Fine Arts in paint­ing. Her back­ground as a painter contributes to her inter­est in explor­ing uncon­ven­tional furni­ture forms. Audrey is drawn to shapes, tech­niques and mate­ri­als that she feels relate to her body and is inter­ested in design­ing objects that reflect her physicality.

Find Audrey on Insta­gram: @audreyeassad
Find Audrey on the Web: http://​audreye​as​sad​.com/

David Lewis is a designer and maker currently study­ing at the Sheri­dan College Craft & Design program outside of Toronto. His work is informed by studies in archi­tec­ture and music and focuses on creat­ing bold forms with tech­ni­cal and gestural qual­i­ties. David hopes to start his own busi­ness to create small lines of furni­ture and also apply his skills to larger works such as public instal­la­tion and sculpture.

Gwynne Allan­ford a designer and maker from Toronto, currently enrolled in the Craft and Design program at Sheri­dan College. Her work is influ­enced by nostal­gia and merging tradi­tion­ally oppos­ing concepts and visual forms. She is inter­ested in exper­i­ment­ing with mate­ri­als and design processes that aren’t commonly repre­sented in furniture.

Find Gwynne on Insta­gram: @gcobjects

Sam Ladwig was a profes­sional musi­cian, video producer, hi-tech project manager, graphic designer and even an ice sculp­tor before receiv­ing an MFA in furni­ture design from the Herron School of Art and Design. Currently teach­ing and making work in Okla­homa, he contin­ues to be focused on the design and fabri­ca­tion of afford­able furni­ture. Learn more about Sam at samlad​wig​.com

Julie Morringello is and inde­pen­dent designer and maker. In 2011, she founded Modernmaine,a company focused on the creation of contem­po­rary artist-made light­ing. Julie’s work blends her knowl­edge of func­tional design and manu­fac­tur­ing processes with a love of mate­ri­als, self-expres­­sion and expert craft­man­ship. Every­thing at Modern­maine is created in her studio on Deer Isle and neces­sary compo­nents are sourced as close to home as possi­ble. Learn more about Julie at modern​maine​.com

Blaise Gaston earned a BFA from TheSchool for Amer­i­can Crafts in Rochester NY in 1975, study­ing under Bill Keyser, Jere Osgood, Jim Krenov, Jon Brooks, Ian Kirby, andothers. He went on to create his own busi­ness in archi­tec­tural­wood­work­ing, furni­ture making, and histor­i­cal restora­tion. He iscur­rently making art furni­ture and unique cabi­netry at his home inEarlysville, VA. Learn more about Blaise at blaisegas​ton​.com

Aspen Golann is a 17th & 18th century furni­ture maker whose work explores gender and power through the manip­u­la­tion of classic Amer­i­can furni­ture forms. She holds a degree in Fine Furni­ture from The North Bennet Street School in Boston, MA and is currently the Wood Shop Coor­di­na­tor of The Penland School of Crafts in Penland, NC. Learn more at her website: aspen​golann​.com.

Matthew Gram­ling designs and fabri­cates furni­ture in his Milwau­kee, WI work­shop using locally sourced, sustain­able woods. Gram­ling is also one half of the design collab­o­ra­tion Persis­tent Object. Matthew was part of the local commit­tee for FS19: Ground­work and orga­nized the exhi­bi­tion crawl. Learn more at his websites: matthew​gram​ling​wood​works​.com and persis​tent​-object​.com

Heide Martin is a Maine-based designer-maker and our featured member this month! Coming from land­scape archi­tec­ture and urban plan­ning in the Pacific North­west, Heide creates furni­ture and house­wares with simple, high quality mate­ri­als and a Shaker-esque dedi­ca­tion to honest func­tion­al­ity. Learn more on her website: heide​martin​.com

Rachel David works primar­ily in steel and non ferrous metals. — ​“I think of furni­ture with a wide inter­pre­tive allowance, some­times I call my work concep­tual furni­ture or art furni­ture. I have a multi faceted prac­tice but the angles divid­ing them are not crisp, furni­ture bleeds into sculp­ture and vica-versa up and upcom­ing archi­tec­tural elements grow seats and tables.”