ARBUTUS FOLK SCHOOL - Key Persons
Alex Hill has been woodworking for 13 years. He's made everything from small boxes and bottle openers to furniture and tiny houses. While studying architecture at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, his passion for design really sparked. Since moving back home to Washington in 2016, he has became proficient in designing and building floating docks as well as continuing building and studying woodworking.
Born and raised on the mountains and shores of the Pacific Northwest, Allie Robins has been exploring various art forms since her youth. Her longtime passion for woodworking was further fueled by studying sculpture in Europe, and establishing a tree farm in western Washington.
After a 10-year career managing projects with the Department of Defense, Allie finally made her long-awaited career shift into full-time woodworking. Today, she designs and builds original and custom furniture, art, and other pieces inspired by the natural beauty of her home region. facebook.com/contornowooddesignstudio
Her curiosity, independence, and passion for learning inspire her to further explore different materials and art forms, including welding, sculpting concrete, and more. Intentionality, precision, and experimentation are key themes of her work and teaching style.
Outside of the studio, Allie can be found backpacking, skiing, playing the guitar, and loving life.
Self-employed wellness coach and yoga instructor, supporter of traditional music and community arts.
Ben Luca Robertson is a composer, experimental luthier, and co-founder of the independent record label, Aphonia Recordings. Growing up in Eastern Washington, impressions of Ponderosa pine trees, channeled scablands, and relics of boomtown decay bear a haunting influence upon his music. Therein, his creative approach reflects an interest in landscape and biological systems-often supplanting narrative structure with an emphasis on the physicality of sound and place. Recently, Ben collaborated with regional biologists to convey scientific data from migrating Chinook salmon using sound (sonification) and has composed chamber music based upon data from rare snake species'. In addition to composing for acoustic and electronic ensembles, Ben designs and constructs his own bespoke instruments and microtonal scales. As an instructor, he is passionate about sharing his love for the physical properties of sound, instrument design, just intonation, and tuning theory. Ben holds a PhD in Music Composition and Computer Technologies from the University of Virginia, an M.A. in Music Composition from Eastern Washington University, and a B.A. from the Evergreen State College. He currently teaches music and audio production at Pierce College.
Job Titles:
- Treasurer / Director of Finance and Scholarships for the South Puget Sound Community College Foundation. Lifelong Lover of Art History, Craft and Folk Arts
Director of Finance and Scholarships for the South Puget Sound Community College Foundation. Lifelong lover of art history, craft and folk arts.
Job Titles:
- Office Staff Member
- Registrar
Bethany supports students and community members with their class enrollment needs.
Job Titles:
- Accounting Assistant
- Office Staff Member
Callie Wood is our longest-serving office staffer! They handle our financials and support HR needs.
Cheryl Upshaw has been knitting for 16 years, and teaching the craft to friends and family for at least 12. Her lace shawl was awarded the Champion ribbon in the Home Arts category at the 2022 Thurston County Fair and was given Honorable Mention at the Washington State Fair that same year.
Cheryl has also recently begun the process to become a Master Hand Knitter, an intensive process that can take up to five years.
When she's not knitting, Cheryl works as a professional writer and photographer. She is the former Managing Editor of three small Nevada newspapers. Her photos have been featured in the New York Times. Her stories have been published in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, the Seattle Times, The Rumpus, The Toronto Star, and The Anchorage Daily News. Cheryl is an alumna of the Logan Nonfiction Program's fellowship fall class of 2021.
Cheryl lives with her husband and their pets: a dog named Macaroni and a cat named Sadie.
Jane and David Stone have a long history of working together in ceramics. Both studied with internationally recognized potter and teacher Marguerite Wildenhain at Pond Farm Pottery and worked together as full-time potters in the Midwest for a number of years. Both taught in the Olympia area for many years: Jane as a professor of art history and studio art at SPSCC and David as a special education teacher in the North Thurston Public Schools. They now enjoy spending time in their home studio and teaching ceramics together at Arbutus.
Job Titles:
- Office Staff Member
- Program Administrator
- Resident and Artist
Doreen McAvity is a longtime Olympia resident and artist managing our class calendar, coordinating with instructors, posting classes to the catalog, and more. Doreen has taken many classes at Arbutus herself, and enjoys the creative energy, conversations, and camaraderie she finds in our studios.
WA Department of Children,Youth and Families: early childhood education policy, former preschool teacher/purveyor of wonder.
Glass Arts Woodworking Fiber Arts Ceramics Stone Carving Metal Arts Music Youth Other Disciplines
Job Titles:
- Executive Director
- Office Staff Member
- Writer
Hillary is a writer and folklorist originally from Tallahassee, Florida. She brings experience in arts administration, communications, and education and she holds a Master's in Folklore from the University of Oregon. With a love of folklife and a passion for supporting local arts and artists, she joined Arbutus in October 2020 and is excited to carry forward its mission.
Job Titles:
- Board Member / Retired Professor of Art History and Studio Art, South Puget Sound Community College
Shoreline restoration fund program manager with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife with a strong background in nonprofit administration and organizational development. He lives outside of Olympia with his three kids and wife in the forest.
Joelle Montez has worked with clay since 2009. She fell in love with ceramics while studying biology and ethnicity, and in her work she incorporates themes of natural science and social awareness. She believes that art-making has the power to heal and make great change, both personal and social, and that everyone can participate in this process.
John Chernoff is a long time resident of Olympia and a graduate of The Evergeen State College. He has worked as a theater technician, remodel carpenter and now currently teaches Shop & Robotics at Jefferson Middle School in Olympia. When not assisting students with bird houses and toolboxes John likes to build projects that fit the needs of the client and will last lifetimes. Currently building a workbench his next project will be cabinet doors for his home and a cedar fence for a client. John is eager to bring foundational woodworking skill, techniques and enthusiasm to a wider audience through the Arbutus Folk School.
Job Titles:
- Office Staff Member
- Marketing and Events Coordinator
Julie is a photographer and designer with a background in higher education administration. She brings to Arbutus her love for visual storytelling and passion for creating community.
Kelly first moved to Olympia in 1988 to attend The Evergreen State College, where he was able to combine his passions for natural history and three dimensional art in his studies. Upon graduating from Evergreen Kelly worked as a field biologist throughout the Northwest eventually settling in Seattle to raise a family. While in Seattle, Kelly worked as a machinist, gaining an interest and skill in working with metal. Kelly soon inherited his grandfather's coal-burning forge and a couple of basic blacksmithing tools. He studied at Pratt Art Institute in Seattle as well as with local blacksmiths. Kelly and his family returned to Olympia in 2006, and Kelly started his own business, Big Hammer Technology. Kelly's metalwork draws on his passion for the natural world where birds, insects and natural forms are reoccurring themes. Kelly has taught blacksmithing classes at South Puget Sound Community College and The Evergreen State College. Kelly is excited to have the opportunity to continue the blacksmithing tradition of teaching others his craft. At Arbutus, Kelly will be teaching beginning and intermediate blacksmithing techniques and how to set up a basic home smithy.
Kirsten is an artist and naturalist based in Olympia, Washington. She was born and raised in Kirkland, Washington and learned to sew and knit from her knitting-obsessed mother at a very young age.
She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies from Western Washington University and a Master of Environmental Studies from The Evergreen State College. Her studies have focused on restoration in the Puget Sound. She currently works as an Aquatic Land Manager for the Department of Natural Resources.
Informed by her studies, her art has focused heavily on sustainability. She gives new life to secondhand textiles using techniques such as machine and hand-sewing, applique, mending, and quilting. She sources most of her material from local thrift stores.
She recently became passionate about natural dye as it combines her love of plants and foraging, scientific processes, and textiles. Over the years, she has gained knowledge through group studies and workshops focused on mordanting, ecoprinting, botanical ink making, shibori, and more.
Besides her love of crafts, she loves to spend time on the water, ride her bike, and grow flowers in her natural dye garden. She also hosts a monthly craft club in downtown Olympia.
Job Titles:
- Artist
- Board Member / Program Specialist at Folk and Traditional Arts Program, Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission Artist / Educator / Illustrator of Kuen Art Shop LLC
Kuen Kuen Spichiger is a nature-inspired artist, children's picturebook illustrator and author, and art educator living in the woods with her family in Shelton, Washington. Nature, her entomologist husband and their young inquisitive daughter are her inspirations.
Kuen grew up in Hong Kong and earned a Bachelor's Degree in Graphic Design. She was an art teacher and a graphic designer and then became a Course and Event Executive Officer in a children's art and design creative studio in Hong Kong for 11 years. She furthered her studies in the United States and earned a Master's Degree in Art Education. In 2014 she established her business, Kuen Art Shop LLC, in which she combines her knowledge, skill, and love of nature in art and art education to create innovative nature-inspired educational creations and services. She is active in her community by offering art classes, illustrating children's picturebooks, generating various community programs, participating in various artist-in-residence programs, engaging in arts and crafts festivals and curating her solo and group art exhibitions. Her energy, creativity and contributions to the community were recognized by Perry County Council of the Arts and she was awarded the Artist of the Year in 2017. Her book "Bee Umbrella Sky, The Miao Legend of Batik in Guizhou, China" received the "Best Publishing Award" in the children and teens category in the 2nd Hong Kong Publishing Biennial Awards 2019. Her nature-inspired educational art can be viewed at www.KuenArtShop.etsy.com and www.facebook.com/kuenart.
Liz Frey's weaving career began in a community weaving class in 1980 while she was still a student at The Evergreen State College. She enjoyed success throughout the 90s designing and selling wearable art - showing nationally at craft and trade shows. Frey later returned to school to gain her Master of Fine Arts with an emphasis on fiber art from the University of Washington. Since that time, she has taught Art History and studio art classes at Centralia College while maintaining her studio practice creating felted, dyed, and woven artwork.
Mariella is an artist & advocate/activist living in Olympia, WA. They make pottery full time under the studio name m.bueno. In their spare time they advocate for BIPOC & LGBTQIA+ artists in their community & all over the state through their work with Artist Trust, Arbutus & the Olympia Artspace Alliance.
Job Titles:
- Board Member / Retired, Dean of Humanities and Communications at South Puget Sound Community College
Van Cline's art process combines photosensitive and cast glass. After visiting Kodak, 1979, she began to utilize a film emulsion on glass, while completing her MFA at Massachusetts College of Art, Boston. In 1983, she was an inaugural fellow at Wheaton Glass Industries, NJ, helping to develop a program allowing artists in their glass factory, and was invited back as a Masterwork artist, 1990. In 1987, she was the youngest artist awarded the NEA/Japan US Friendship Commission Award, where she traveled while photographing Japan for six months. She won the Fujita Prize, at the inaugural opening of the Glasmuseum in Denmark, 1988. In 1993, she was commissioned by Arts America, a branch of USIA to fabricate a large glass installation that traveled to 14 venues in S.E. Asia, after its inaugural opening at Cincinatti Art Museum. One of 13 Americans, she was included in Aperto Vetro, Museo Correr, Venice, Italy, 1996, co-curated by the British/Italian Government. In 1998, she won the Grand Prize at Kanazawa Museum, Japan. In 2001, she worked with Dupont Industries Headquarters, developing photographic imagery encasing safety glass for a large commission at a private residence in Tel Aviv.
Using industry is an important part of her creative technique, whether it is an aerospace industry etching photographs on seven feet bronze slabs, using an intelligent computer lighting system to project her moving images up to 50 foot in height, or being invited into Schott North American Glass Industries to use their glass furnaces to cast photosensitive glass prisms for her architectural scale photo vessels. In 2007, wanting to expand her realistic glass castings, she moved close to a bronze foundry to learn mold making techniques, which she adapted to fabricate life sized figures into ivory sugar glass, a process she invented using time- heat compression in a kiln. A detailed interview of her art journey was recorded in 2010 for the Oral History Program, National Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.
Long time knapper Mick Hill is best known for big, beautiful percussion blades, his obsidian knowledge, and his outstanding ability to teach others! He's made hundreds of incredible large blades, visited hundreds of obsidian sites across the region, and has taught countless people the ancient art of flintknapping.
"I began this journey into flintknapping over 40 years ago. Back then flintknappers were very rare and knapping information rarer. Learning to knap back then was slowly acquired through the self "School of Hard Rocks". Today, with the revival in the knapping arts, the information is readily available, as is instruction from older knappers eager to share the accrued knowledge and pass it on to the next generation…the joy of seeing a knapping student "light up", grasping an elusive knapping concept in just a few minutes that took me years to stumble on, has made the journey more than worth it.
A long-time resident, I worked 26 years at The Evergreen State College as the engineer for KAOS-FM. When I'm not beating rocks and making big blades, I'm commonly off in the deserts exploring obsidian sources. I also play the bagpipes.
Nicole Gugliotti was born in 1979 and raised under the hot Florida sun. In 2005 she relocated to Tokyo, Japan where she lived for 3 years. In 2008 she returned to the U.S. and her Floridian roots. Nicole completed her MFA from the University of Florida in 2014.
She has exhibited in solo exhibitions at the Tim Salen Gallery in St. Petersburg, FL and The Institute of Ceramic Studies at The Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park in Shigaraki, Japan. Curatorial projects include Think Warm: Miami Draws for You at the Tomio Koyama Gallery in Tokyo, Japan and The Art Lending Project in Gainesville, Florida.
Currently based in Olympia, WA she maintains her own studio and is the Instruction & Classroom Support Technician the Art Department at South Puget Sound Community College and recent co-founder of the Socially Engaged Craft Collective.
While stitching by her grandma's knee at age 4, Bobbi developed a lifelong passion for needlework. She pursued it through her college career, volunteered at a number of museums, wrote magazine articles, delivered lectures, and has taught over 30 years. Specializing in "vintage" fine hand sewing techniques, with particular interest in costuming and embellishment, it remains a passion.
Folklorist with experience in museum education and cultural event programming; grief educator and coach at Listening to Grief.
Terry Liberty is a long time woodworking enthusiast having started in his dad's home workshop as a child. Although not a professional, Terry has built several of the furniture pieces in his home. His work includes an eight foot woodworking bench, a drop-leaf dining room table, a free standing entertainment center, print cabinet, pencil post bed, dresser, display cabinet, work tables, spice racks and several decorative boxes for friends and family. His current project is a secretary desk made of big leaf maple. Terry's major inspiration came from his father and from the writings of James Krenov. His hope is to impart some of his knowledge and inspiration to other potential woodworkers and to learn from them as well.
Wendy Clark has lived in area for 24 years. She found her passion for spinning after purchasing a used wheel from a local organic farmer and has been spinning for 4 years, Wendy is currently enrolled at Olds College in Alberta, Canada in their six-year Master Spinner program. She currently teaches beginning and intermediate spinning in Chehalis. She also speaks at events and organizations demonstrating spinning. Wendy is the owner of WeKare Farm & Fiber that she continues to develop with her friend Karin.
Job Titles:
- Board Member / Retired Washington State Folklorist