Instructors

Alex Yerks

Alex Yerks is a self-taught traditional wood carver focused on what he calls items of “kitchenalia” or “kitchen sloyd.” His wide range of expertise in making traditional craft objects includes hewn bowls, spoons & utensils, cups, shrink pots, wooden sculptures, forging his own carving tools, and helping other tool makers design long-lost tools – some…

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Alycen Brothen

Alycen Brothen is an embroidery and rug hooking artist from Minnesota.  She is a passionate learner of handcrafts who has been needleworking since childhood.  She believes in embracing the process, turning mistakes into happy accidents, and having fun. 

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Bart Dunning

Bart Dunning has been a woodworking hobbyist since he was in high school.  He has built furniture, rebuilt a couple of wooden boats and has done some 3-D and relief carving.  He has always enjoyed using woodworking hand tools because they are quieter and afford a more intimate sense of the wood being used for…

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Beth Mercer

Beth Mercer

Beth is largely self taught band weaver (using books and online videos) through she has benefited by taking classes from visiting instructors and participating in special interest groups at the Weavers Guild of Minnesota. She is a retired database administrator who has a passion for fiber arts including wool processing and spinning, weaving, knitting, sewing…pretty…

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Brennan Johnson

Brennan’s fascination with food culture and history was catalyzed by a trip to Western Europe in 2009 to study communal brick ovens. He began baking bread soon after, baking out of his father’s own brick oven and selling at local farmers markets during his high school summers. He has a degree from Whitman College in…

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Brian Keogh carves a spoon

Brian Keogh

Brian Keogh was first exposed to woodcarving from his dad, Bob Keogh. Funny thing was, Brian had no interest in carving when his dad was alive, but for the past 10 years he has been carving spoons from green birch. Brian enjoys cycling in the summer and nordic skiing and saunas in the winter.  He and…

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Bryce Johnson

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…

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Candace LaCosse

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…

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Cara Corey

Cara Corey

Cara Corey is a knit and crochet designer, based in St. Paul. She specializes in teaching beginners and helping them build confidence so they can move on to their next projects. Her favorite materials are wool roving, chunky yarns, and cotton rope. In the warmer months, she likes to head outside and work on Shibori-folded…

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Carl Wegener

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.

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Carol Stec

Carol Stec

Carol is a lifelong crafter. She learned to sew, knit, and crochet as a child and has shared her knowledgewith fortunate co-workers and friends for decades. In addition, Carol has developed and constructed herown patterns in all three categories. She has found her background in health care to be beneficial inteaching, as it cultivated patience,…

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Carson Gross

Carson is a wild-food enthusiast and educator. His fascination with fungi began in Western Pennsylvania, when a friend showed him a bright orange chicken-of-the-woods mushroom. He was immediately hooked and set out to learn everything he could about foraging for mushrooms, an obsession that continues to today. Carson joined the Western PA Mushroom Club in…

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Cathryn Peters

Cathryn Peters

Cathryn Peters, based in Hudson, WI, has been teaching chair caning and basketry for over 40 years across the country at basketry conventions, folk schools, woodworking schools and online. Peters enjoys passing on these heritage crafts and loves watching the creative juices flow with students in her classes. Cathryn is a founding member and two-term…

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Cathy & Mike Mackiewicz

Cathy and Mike Mackiewicz started Bone Lake Meadows Apiary, have been keeping bees forover 23 years and have hives in various locations along the St. Croix River Valley. “Our apiaryaims towards sustainable beekeeping. As beekeepers it’s our job to set up our bees to succeed.We do this by placing our bees on organically farmed land,…

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Charlie Prokop

Charlie has been making flutes for over 15 years. An avid woodturner, currently the President of the Minnesota Woodturners Association, he has demoed the making of flutes in multiple venues and taught many classes on how these beautiful instruments are constructed.

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Chiaki O’Brien

Chiaki O’Brien is a SAORI Leaders Committee Certificate recipient. She began SAORI Weaving in 1996 in Japan. She worked as an instructor for the SAORI head office/school in Japan before moving to Minnesota in 2004. She’s been teaching a variety of ages and abilities at schools (including special education classes), at facilities for people with…

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Christen Pentek

Christen (they/them) is a fiber artist creating practical pieces from the earth for over 25 years. Their art includes found and natural elements, nature, and sustainable methods. They work predominantly with wools and fibers made in Minnesota’s fibershed, including wolf; as part of the wolf pack, they’ve had the privilege of working with fiber shed…

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Dale Setterholm

Dale Setterholm

“My family grew up loving the outdoors, and we always took an interest in what it was we were seeing out there,” says Setterholm on his start in geology. He worked for the Minnesota Geological Survey for 40 years before retiring. “Geology is everywhere,” he says. “It’s the study of the earth, and we all…

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Diane Gamm

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…

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Emily Anderson

Emily Anderson leads workshops that help students create fresher and more intuitive paintings. A life-long artist, Emily recently picked up the paints again and has begun the joyful journey of creating playful and layered landscapes. Students will come away from the class feeling excited to know that often, the paintings that took the shortest amount…

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