Alexan­dra Mavrikis is a multi­dis­ci­pli­nary artist, furni­ture maker, and visual arts educa­tor. She received her MFA in Wood­work­ing and Furni­ture Design at the San Diego State Univer­sity. Her work incor­po­rates mixed media, with a focus on wood and ceramic, and has been exhib­ited nation­ally. She addresses the body, gender, and spatial rela­tions while also ques­tion­ing the neces­sity of func­tion­al­ity for furni­ture objects in the home.

In John’s words: I’m a studio furni­ture maker and writer in Santa Barbara, CA, where I live with my ceramic sculp­tor wife. I started making furni­ture in 1958 in junior high and have loved hard­woods since that time. I received a degree in math then alter­nated teach­ing school with being a finish carpen­ter and cabi­net­maker, with some forays into making a little furni­ture. Twenty years ago, I serendip­i­tously ran into Sam Maloof, and the encounter made me realize that I had to jump into my dream of making furni­ture of my own design before it was too late.

Diana Beltran Mejia is an Indus­trial Design student with a Furni­ture Design concen­tra­tion at Appalachian State Univer­sity. In 2024 she made her first piece of furni­ture,​“Entre­Laza­dos,” a walnut coffee table, which got selected as final­ist for Atlanta’s IWF Design Empha­sis Student Furni­ture Compe­ti­tion. This year, her jewelry cabinet​“Monarca” will also be featured in the 2026 IWF show, as a final­ist for the case goods cate­gory. Her work ranges from wooden furni­ture pieces to concep­tual proto­types and visual art.

Wills is a North Carolina based furni­ture maker. Study­ing furni­ture design has allowed him the oppor­tu­nity to create furni­ture that inves­ti­gates personal rela­tion­ships through mate­r­ial, form and func­tion. Primar­ily working in wood and metal, this summer Wills is a wood and sculp­ture intern at Ander­son Ranch Arts Center.

Brian Millspaw is a self taught furni­ture maker whose work blends tradi­tional craft with contem­po­rary design. Based in rural south­west­ern New York, he has worked as a profes­sional wood­worker since 1996. Millspaw’s prac­tice reflects a life­long commit­ment to expand­ing the possi­bil­i­ties of func­tional wood furni­ture. This year Brian has two pieces of furni­ture juried into the Ohio Designer Craftsmen’s ​“Best of 2026” show, receiv­ing the Ed Honton Award of Excel­lence for his body of work. He has served as Artist in Resi­dence at The Wendell Castle Work­shop and been awarded an endowed fellow­ship at The Center for Furni­ture Crafts­man­ship. His NYSCA grant funded solo show ​“Bending Tradi­tion” : Windsor chair­mak­ing in the 21st century opens in November.

Sean McKen­zie is a wood­worker special­iz­ing in the produc­tion of hand­made luxury custom furni­ture for resi­den­tial and commer­cial use. He lives and works in Society Hill, SC.

Ernie Conover, who describes himself as a cabi­net­maker with a wood­turn­ing problem, is a veteran wood­work­ing author with 11 books, myriad videos, and hundreds of arti­cles to his credit. His most recent book is the 3rd Edition of The Lathe Book, published by Taunton Press in Febru­ary 2020. He served on the found­ing board of The Amer­i­can Asso­ci­a­tion of Wood­turn­ers and holds Member­ship Number 004. 

Nathaniel Newcomb is a wood­worker and current MFA student at Virginia Common­wealth Univer­sity. He lives and works in Rich­mond, VA.

Olivia Van Oot is a wood­worker based in Port­land, Maine. She grad­u­ated from Maine College of Art & Design in the Wood­work­ing and Furni­ture Design program, complet­ing her Bach­e­lors in Fine Arts in May, 2024. Her work is a re-contex­tu­al­iza­tion of the histor­i­cal conno­ta­tions of Amer­i­can Pieced Quilt patterns, center­ing around qual­i­ties of gendered mate­r­ial and craft prac­tices. The objects she makes evoke a feeling of comfort, safety and home. Van Oot’s work is driven by this research as well as a love of process, using wood veneers and parquetry tech­niques she adorns furni­ture, cabi­nets, and objects. Van Oot was awarded the Windgate-Lamar fellow­ship in 2024.

Sam Shippee is the owner and oper­a­tor of Small Goods Design — a furni­ture and turning studio based in Pine Plains, New York. When design­ing, Sam aims to find the areas between the mascu­line and femi­nine, under­state­ment and lavish­ness, the old and new, the simple and deco­ra­tive. Small Goods aims to inves­ti­gate the subtle nuances of beauty and create objects that are as durable and func­tional as they are intriguing.

Ana María Agüero Jahannes is a Colom­bian Amer­i­can inter­dis­ci­pli­nary artist based in New Orleans. She bridges contem­po­rary design with tradi­tional craft to create func­tional objects, furni­ture, and immer­sive envi­ron­ments using wood, clay, and textile fibers. Jahannes inves­ti­gates how every­day objects and spaces are made, by whom, and why their histo­ries of crafts­man­ship are often erased. Rooted in her iden­tity as a Black Mestiza with dual citi­zen­ship, she reclaims Black and Indige­nous tradi­tions of the Amer­i­cas to rede­fine home. Each work becomes a vessel for story­telling, linking personal expe­ri­ence to collec­tive memory and chal­leng­ing domi­nant design narra­tives through craft, care and cultural conti­nu­ity. Jahannes has presented commis­sioned work at The Shed NYC, held resi­den­cies at Penland School of Crafts, and received support from Haystack Moun­tain School of Craft and the City of Oakland’s Cultural Fund. She is a profes­sor at Louisiana State University’s College of Art and Design.

James Nelson has been prac­tic­ing his craft in wood­work­ing and furni­ture design for 9 years, and works out of his studio located in Wood­inville, Wash­ing­ton. His fine wood­work­ing pieces are created with the intent of holding the viewers gaze and engag­ing with their sense of touch.

Recently James received a BA in Applied Design — Furni­ture Design & Wood­work­ing, with a special­iza­tion in Inte­rior and Archi­tec­tural Design, from the School of Art + Design at San Diego State Univer­sity. Currently he is an instruc­tor of furni­ture design and wood­work­ing at Pratt Fine Arts in Seattle.

Michelle Halle Wong’s journey as a wood­worker began in earnest while reno­vat­ing older homes in the Boston area after leaving her career as an inter­nal medi­cine physi­cian to take care of her chil­dren. She found carpen­try so expen­sive and often poorly done that she started doing it herself. She worked on rough carpen­try, then finish carpen­try, and finally cabi­nets and complex built-ins. After complet­ing the last possi­ble elab­o­rate built in project in her current house, the logical progres­sion was to start build­ing free­stand­ing furni­ture. Although she consid­ers herself primar­ily self taught, she attended the North Bennett Street School Cabinet and Furni­ture Making program for a year where she built her first piece of free­stand­ing furni­ture in 2021. She has been produc­ing furni­ture inde­pen­dently since that time.

Taylor Landers is a furni­ture designer, maker, proud student at North Bennet Street School, and Student Repre­sen­ta­tive on The Furni­ture Society Board! Growing up in a family of wood­work­ers, she’s always had a deep love for crafts­man­ship, inspired by her late grand­fa­thers and her dad. Now, she’s on a journey to create custom furni­ture and art that honors their legacy, all while learn­ing new tech­niques and design skills at NBSS.

Nicholas Hall is an emerg­ing wood­worker based in Atlanta, GA. Orig­i­nally from Virginia, he majored in Studio Art with a concen­tra­tion in paint­ing at the Univer­sity of Virginia. His wood­work­ing journey began with pipe-making, where the sculp­tural details inspired his later explo­ration of furni­ture design. After relo­cat­ing to Atlanta in 2022, he started design­ing and creat­ing wooden works. His pieces reflect a commit­ment to inno­v­a­tive design and an ongoing inter­est in medium collab­o­ra­tion as a means of communication.

Jen Antonetz is an emerg­ing artist based in Little Rock, Arkansas. In May 2025, she earned a Bach­e­lor’s in Studio Art, empha­siz­ing in furni­ture design, from the School of Art and Design at The Univer­sity of Arkansas at Little Rock. Jen explores and reflects on her Mexican-Amer­i­­can iden­tity through collage, sculp­ture, and furni­ture. She uses collage processes and wood­work­ing tech­niques to develop and construct forms grounded in her cultural expe­ri­ences. Jen seeks to reach others with a multi­cul­tural longing by being an active partic­i­pant in the Little Rock art scene and growing new opportunities elsewhere.

Mark Tan is a first-gener­a­­tion Cana­dian born and raised in Toronto by Filipino immi­grants. He produces inter­ac­tive sculp­tures made from reclaimed solid wood, found mate­ri­als, and domes­tic construc­tion build­ing mate­ri­als at an archi­tec­tural scale. His work expresses the emotional value of precon­ceived notions, longing, and discon­nect­ed­ness in seeking accep­tance within a commu­nity. He received his MFA in Furni­ture Design & Wood­work­ing in the Craft/​Material Studies program at Virginia Common­wealth Univer­sity in Rich­mond, VA. His work has been exhib­ited inter­na­tion­ally at exhi­bi­tions such as the Mesa Contem­po­rary Arts Museum in Mesa, AZ., Hillyer Contem­po­rary in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., Messler Gallery in Rock­port, ME., Patter­­son-Apple­­ton Gallery in Denton, TX., Fuller Craft Museum in Brock­ton, MA., Wharton Esher­ick Museum in Malvern, PA., Aspen Art Museum in Aspen, CO., and the DeLeon White Gallery at the Glad­stone in Toronto, ON. He has partic­i­pated in resi­den­cies at Arrow­mont School of Arts & Crafts and the Windgate Artist in Resi­dence at San Diego State Univer­sity. He is currently an Assis­tant Profes­sor of Sculpture/​Wood at Arizona State University.

A Maine College of Art and Design student and the 2024 Anne Honey­well Orr scholar, Jillian is bring­ing joy to wood­work­ing and furni­ture by exper­i­ment­ing with shape, color, and mate­r­ial. She infuses her work with the playful and emotional parts of herself and the people she loves, creat­ing work that portrays life in her twenties.

Nathan Sheu is a furni­ture designer and fabri­ca­tor whose work inte­grates tradi­tional craft with digital fabri­ca­tion and ecolog­i­cal design. A grad­u­ate of Cali­for­nia College of the Arts with a BFA in Furni­ture Design and minors in Indus­trial Design, Ecolog­i­cal Prac­tices, and Compu­ta­tional Prac­tices, Nathan’s prac­tice is rooted in a deep respect for mate­ri­al­ity and the natural world. Whether through form, func­tion, or living systems, his work often invites inter­ac­tion with nature — reflect­ing a desire to blur the bound­ary between the built envi­ron­ment and organic life. He brings expe­ri­ence in shop fabri­ca­tion, CAD model­ing, and studio lead­er­ship to his thought­ful, hands-on approach to design.