Our Instructors

Teresa Audet is an artist and furniture maker based in Northeast Minneapolis. Audet holds a BFA in Furniture Design from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and has studied at the Mount Fuji School of Fine Woodworking in Yamanashi, Japan. She has been awarded several grants including a 2019 Artist Initiative Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. A full-time Artist, she participates in artist residencies and exhibits artwork nationwide. Audet serves as the Arts and Program Manager for the Minneapolis Art Lending Library and teaches furniture and art making in several spaces in the twin cities, including the Women’s Woodshop.

Maddy Bartsch is a artist, educator and organizer of decentralized textile economies based in Minneapolis. She is a co-founder and Executive Director of the Three Rivers Fibershed, an affiliate branch of Fibershed, and is President of the Weavers Guild of Minnesota. Maddy has past experience as a project manager for the Minnesota Hemp Wool Project, research assistance for the National Mill Survey, and recently created an online tool to help fiber producers navigate domestic milling. She speaks regularly and moderates panels on sustainable textiles with recent appearance at ASI’s Great Makers Exchange and UMN film screening of RiverBlue. Maddy grows everything from Japanese Indigo to Eastern Prickly Pear Cactus and is always on the lookout for new dye plants to try. You can find out more about Maddy HERE!

Julie Reneé Benda is an interdisciplinary artist with a practice in print, illustration and sculpture. She earned her BA in biology and studio art at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and her Master of Fine Arts at Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Her abstracted prints of plants, animals and landscape animate modern and historical narratives of how humans relate to the world they inhabit. Benda is the recipient of the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council Next Step Grant, Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant and the Jerome/MCBA Mentorship. She currently resides in Minneapolis, MN. Learn more about Julie HERE!

Chelsea Bowen is an arts administrator and handcrafter based in Minneapolis, MN. She grew up in the magical woods of northern Minnesota. Over the years, she has experimented in fiber, glass, clay and wood arts. Woodcarving is her big passion, as well as music and organic food. See more of her adventures in handcraft HERE.

Clark took his first timber framing class in 1997, and was instantly hooked.  He was a professional timber framer for 10 years, and served on the board of the Timber Framers Guild. A former computer programmer and researcher at Bell Labs, he now designs timber frames when he's not teaching and leading workshops.  Clark lives in NE Minneapolis with his wife Mia.

Josie is enamored with all things craft since childhood, when she attended programs at the local nature center making sumacade and wild blackberry jam with churn butter. In her twenties, an inordinate amount of time was spent in the pursuit of wild edibles and wild wine making, joined shortly thereafter by an insatiable interest for all things baskets. Throughout this, fiber has been the constant companion, a compendium of knowledge and experience on a slow boil. In backwards fashion, from knitting to fiber studies, to growing her own flax, the journey continues. Craft in all forms is the path to a greater connection with the earth, ourselves, and each other, all of which could use greater unity.

Each year she teaches at the Lake Superior Traditional Ways Gathering, and taught/assisted classes as an intern at North House Folk School. Currently, she occasionally renovates turn of the century houses and endeavors to have a life full of learning, teaching, and creating craft.

Mary Hark is the proprietor of HARK! Handmade Paper Studio in St. Paul, Minnesota. She produces limited editions of flax and linen handmade papers in collaboration with book designers and artists, as well as unique paper artworks that have been exhibited internationally. Hark leads an initiative in Kumasi, Ghana, building the first hand papermill in West Africa capable of producing high-quality papers using local botanicals and textile waste. An artist committed to sustainable practice and community, Mary has collaborated with neighbors to produce public artworks that are installed locally; her work can also be found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Smithsonian Museum of African Art, the Ginsberg Book Arts Collection in Johannesburg, South Africa, and in many university special collections. Mary is a recipient of a 2021-22 McKnight Fellowship in the Book Arts. Hark is regularly invited to lecture and conduct workshops on papermaking at art centers nationally and is a Professor in the Design Studies Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  www.maryhark.com / www.theghanapaperproject.com

Skyler fell in love with the world of craft while working and learning on farms. From woodworking on farms in New Zealand, making raw goat cheese in the olive groves of Catalonia, or shearing sheep in northern Minnesota, his inspiration is drawn from people who make what they need with the materials that surround them.

While taking part in an internship at North House Folk School he was able to dive deeper into bookbinding and green woodcarving, eventually bringing these practices back home with him to the Twin Cities to teach and produce work. A farmer by day, and book binder by night, he aims to share with others how empowering and exciting the act of making can be.me. It's easy. Find Skyler on Instagram.

Beth Homa Kraus uses sustainably harvested and hand processed bark from White Paper Birch tree to make woven items that can be used in everyday life, as well as in a gallery.  By teaching classes and facilitating other learning opportunities in this handcraft, Beth focuses on building communities and celebrating the weaving traditions rooted many different cultures.

After studying painting at Hamline University and working as a caseworker for the homeless in Baltimore Maryland, Beth became an intern at the North House Folk School in Grand Marais, Minnesota.  There they learned many traditional crafts including many styles of boat building, but their focus shifted to basketry and their obsession with birch bark was sparked. Birch bark quickly became Beth’s principal medium.  

Beth has taught birch basketry classes at North House Folk School, the American Swedish Institute, the Weavers’ Guild, and many special engagements. Through communal learning, public demonstrations, and facilitating harvests, they share their love for this durable and beautiful material with everyone with a desire to learn. Check out Beth’s work HERE!

Dan, the master mind behind Merchant Leather, is a completely self taught leatherworker. Drawing from traditional techniques as well as trial and error, Dan has developed his own unique style of designing and building high quality leather goods. 

Merchant Leather is a designer and producer of classically styled, handmade leather goods. Merchant Leather goods are simply, yet timelessly designed and built for everyday use, for generations to come. Merchant Leather bags and accessories are made one at a time, entirely without machines, and proudly carried around the world. 

Merchant Leather works to pass on the tradition of working with leather by teaching students of all ages the basics of hand-sewing and design in classes throughout the Midwest. Check out Dan's work HERE!

For me, timber framing is a fascinating blend of right and left brain, of structure and form. Whether I am sharing information in a class, designing a frame and producing shop drawings for an owner-builder, or cutting joinery myself, I'm always focused on creating a structure of lasting beauty.

Jess Hirsch is a sculptor and craftsperson living in Minneapolis. For the past 10 years she has studied Sloyd, Scandinavian handcraft focusing on hand carved objects and turned bowls. They are the recipient of the MN State Arts Board Folk and Traditional Craft Grant, the American Scandinavian. Fellowship, and has studied under Swedish rockstar carver Beth Moen. During the day she now works as a carpenter at Terra Firma, but still wields an axe on the weekend. They are also the founder of Fireweed Community Woodshop, a space that empowers women and non-binary makers through the art of woodcraft.

Greta Jaeger has been studying birch bark weaving over the past couple of years with experienced weaver and teacher, Beth Homa. Through exposure to the full process of harvesting, processing, weaving, and teaching birch bark, Greta has developed an appreciation for the texture and durability of the bark. Greta is also developing a passion for green wood carving, and educates youth audiences in Nordic culture and handcraft full time at the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis, where she also lives, breathes, eats, and swims. Check out her work on Instagram.

Leathercraftsman Kyle Jameson started working with leather in 2005 as a way to replace low quality mass produced goods with unique handmade items that will last a lifetime. Kyle and his family are also involved in Viking Age re-enactment where they practice leather and fiber craft as it was done in 10th century Scandinavia. The Jamesons ride bicycles and live in Moorhead, MN. Check out Kyle's work HERE!

I deeply believe that working with native clay, cultivates conversations and relationships between the material and others. I strive in my process to understand the material for what it is through its strengths and limitations. There are stones, feldspar, and other minerals in the clays that make themselves known through the making and firing process, which I believe adds beauty. My work is often a reflection of the source material. The true beauty is the clay itself, unglazed and raw interacting with fire, charcoal, and atmosphere in the kiln. Learn more about JD HERE!

In college, Shane began taking hands-on courses. He discovered a passion for making. It changed his life. He loves it. He wants others to also.

Motivated by this, he creates and provides hands-on STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) learning experiences. By doing this, he harnesses the teaching power of direct experience.

His making skills are plentiful. He’s done many forms of metal work. Primarily, he studied silversmithing and fabrication. For several years he taught at the Reno Gem and Mineral Society.

As an artist, he focuses on found object sculpture, interactive art and automata.

April Stone, an Ojibwe Black Ash basket maker from the Bad River reservation in northern WI, has been working with black ash since 1998. She spent one year studying a basket in use before attempting to weave her first basket in the spring of 1999 and ended up falling in love with all things connected to this craft including live harvest and log processing of raw material into usable splint for weaving. Since 2000, she has researched and traveled extensively, sharing her skills with young and old.

April harvests all of her raw materials for her own basket making and for various programming from the ceded territory swamps and forests of northern WI. and processes all of this material by hand. She has received much recognition for her working knowledge of Black Ash basketry, while being thought of as a patient and gentle educator.