Instructors

Twin Cities-based glass artist, Susan Tracy, uses the beauty of her natural surroundings and Scandinavian heritage as inspiration for her art. She uses color and design to represent nature and often embeds natural elements like real leaves and silver in her glass art. Her holiday art features a modern twist on traditional ornaments and decorations.

Ross Safford is a master baker. He has worked largely with at-risk youth and families, getting food to those in need. He currently works with at-risk youth in schools. He is a huge Boston Red Sox fan and loves to sing.  At MMFS, you can often find him teaching with Bryce Johnson, another community-focused baker.

Karen Rognsvoog has been teaching fiber art  classes for over twenty years, including Natural Plant Dyeing, Japanese  Shibori, Silk Painting and Block Printing on Fabric.  She is also an instructor of Watercolor Painting and Printmaking.  Karen teaches at several locations, including  North House Folk School, the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival, and the Hopkins Center…

Fred Livesay is a crafts instructor and restoration carpenter residing in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is a founding instructor of North House Folk School.  He teaches various crafts at folk schools, art centers, museums, and gatherings in the five-state area, and is a frequent guest instructor at Spoonfest, Edale, England. Primarily a woodworker, he is…

A retired architect, Jim Lammers brings many years of drawing experience as he trained when freehand sketching was integral to the study of architecture. Jim had his own architecture and planning practice for 25 years.  He taught for many years at the University of Minnesota School of Architecture and currently is a guest lecturer at…

Mary Jo Harris lives in the knitting mecca of Madison, WI. She has been a teacher all of her adult life and has formally taught knitting for about 15 years at various Sheep and Wool Festivals, Fiber Festivals, Knit-In’s, and teaches locally for Madison College, Olbrich Gardens, and Sunset Yarns. In the last several years,…

I took early retirement from 9-5 jobs to pursue my creative interests: pottery, photography and more recently, botanical printing and natural dyes. My art studio is a converted ice fishing house on wheels I moved into my backyard in Minneapolis, to be close to my garden plants for natural dyes and botanical printing. Along with…

Peter Juhl has been balancing stones for twenty-five years. He creates and photographs the work along the North Shore of Lake Superior, where the spectacular beaches provide ideal raw materials as well as a clean and colorful backdrop. In 2013 he published the first widely available guidebook on the art form: Center of Gravity: A…

Bryce Johnson has been baking bread since he was a teenager and has been teaching bread classes for 10 years. In 2010, he guided the church where he served as pastor, White Bear Lake United Methodist Church, to build a community bread oven.  In retirement he has been making and selling bread at the Scandia…

Molly Sanford advocates for reuse and repair by spreading hands-on skills like sewing, welding, woodworking, and general troubleshooting. Molly believes that extending the lifespan of our belongings can be a joyful way to combat consumerism and climate change. She has taught a variety of hands-on classes at Fireweed Community Workshop (formerly Women’s Woodshop), Leonardo’s Basement, and the University…

Kirsten Skoglund is a fixture in the Twin Cities knitting and yarn world. She has always known how to knit, as far as she can remember, and loves the whole creative process. In fact, she describes herself as compelled to knit and can’t imagine her life without knitting. Kirsten was co-owner of Lila and Claudine’s,…

Kim is a fine artist, graphic designer, illustrator and teacher. She attended the University of Wisconsin- Madison where she received a BS in Art Education. She has received additional training at the University of Minnesota, The Center for Book Arts and Minnetonka Center for the Arts. She has participated in many group, juried and one-person…

When Libby Pomroy joined a folk-art class at her daughters’ Korean Saturday school, she was quickly hooked on hanji, Korea’s unique, strong-fibered paper that lends itself beautifully to intricate paper cutting. She shared the craft with friend Kat Wesley, who found it irresistible. Together, they created the Hanji Crew, a small business that teaches hanji…

Leslie Granbeck is a feltmaker and instructor born and raised in Minneapolis. Since 2007, Leslie has been sharing her knowledge of fibers and their magical transformation into felt. She teaches traditional wet felting, nuno felting, and her favorite – sculptural seamless felting. Her classes are full of color, creativity and adventure. They also include a…

Judy Sell has been creating dishes and vintage jewelry for over 25 years. She has been on HGTV: Crafters Coast-to-Coast and has been a Minnesota State Fair, Fine Arts, Blue Ribbon winner. She teaches mosaic art and our vintage jewelry tree classes.

Wayne Manthey is a nationally known drum maker and teacher of drum making.  His approach is spiritual, honoring the animals who provided the hides and the trees who donated the wood. “As I started making drums, I was especially interested in the vibration of rawhide and the sound it makes.  Once I was able to…

Originally from North Dakota, Greg worked as a prison therapist while pursuing art, carving and sculpture using a variety of different materials including ice (first place co-winner in the 1998 Winter Carnival Ice Sculpture-Amateur Contest!), silver, antler, wood, leather and scrimshaw.  Now a full-time artist, Greg makes sculptures by inviting nature to steel.

Minnesota is the home of many outstanding artists of the Somali diaspora. MMFS is pleased to be welcoming Ardho Ismail, Hawa Aden, Halwa Daud, and Amina Shire to teach Finger Weaving! The Somali Museum’s mission is to celebrate and promote Somali culture and art, and they accomplish this mission in part by supporting the new…

Carl Wegener is a photographer from the St. Croix River Valley. He has taught photography to children for 4-H and the Wilder Foundation. His passion is empowering children with photographic knowledge so they can see the world through a different lens which will last a lifetime.

Stephanie Thurow is a Certified Master Food Preservationist, with special interest in water bath canning and vegetable fermentation. She is a Minnesota native and the cookbook author of Can It & Ferment It (2017), WECK Small-Batch Preserving (2018) and WECK Home Preserving (fall 2020). Stephanie enjoys being in nature, organic gardening, spending time with family,…

With an eclectic professional background in journalism, education, and art, Candace fell in love with shoemaking several years ago and has been making them and other leather accessories since. After apprenticing with shoemakers around the country, she opened her shop, Hemlocks Leatherworks, in the Lincoln Park Craft District in Duluth, Minnesota. She currently teaches and…

At age four Patti would stand on a stool in the kitchen “helping” her mother to bake cookies and prepare mid century standards like Rice A Roni and tuna noodle hot dish. But even in the Midwest of the 1960s, she knew there were other ways to eat. Through her father, raised in an Orthodox…