Instructors
Maïté Agopian
Maïté has lived in the Alaskan woods with her family since 2005. When she carved her first string marionette in Prague in 2017, the passion was born, and her exploration of the art of puppetry never ended. She took multiple classes from professional puppeteers in USA, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, and Iceland, learning different kinds of puppet construction and manipulation. You can see more of her work on chakpuppetry.org.
Deb Ajango
Deb has presented nationally and internationally on the topic of risk management, emergency action planning, and wilderness medicine.…Read More
Deb is a senior lead instructor for Wilderness Medical Associates (WMA) and is a member of the WMA faculty committee. She has spent more than 2,000 days in remote areas of Alaska and the world and has taught medicine in the U.S., Chile, Ecuador, Morocco, Japan, China, Malaysia, and Spain.
Deb has presented nationally and internationally on the topic of risk management, emergency action planning, and wilderness medicine. In 2012, Deb was awarded the Charles (Reb) Gregg Award in recognition of “exceptional leadership, service, and innovation in wilderness risk management,” and in 2014 she was awarded the Paul K. Petzoldt Award “for excellence in wilderness education.” Ms. Ajango has written two books on safety education and risk management. The second book, Lessons Learned II: Using Case Studies and History to Improve Safety Education, is used as a text book in a variety of colleges and university across the country.
She received her Master of Science degree in clinical psychology and education from the University of Wisconsin Madison.
Lori Alexander
Lori Jean began her artistic journey at a young age, drawing and painting alongside her grandmother, Nellie. She pursued a college education in illustration and painting, but it was an elective pottery class that truly transformed her path. After trying her hand at the pottery wheel, she embarked on a lasting journey with clay.
For twelve years, Lori Jean worked with children at the local library. However last year she decided to leave the library to dedicate herself fully to creating and teaching pottery. Currently, Lori Jean sells her pieces online, as well as at various local shops and venues.
Kadey Ambrose
Kadey made her first basket sitting in the dirt of the Arizona desert in 2009. She then went on to study traditional skills and ethnobotany – including basketry – under the tutelage of her long-time mentor Karen Magnuson at Earthwalk Northwest in Issaquah, WA. She has since dedicated herself to the art, craft, and cultural significance of basketry. Kadey holds a BAS in Ethnobotany from The Evergreen State College and a MA in Studio Art from Eastern Illinois University, both degrees focused on basket making. As an artist, her work investigates the connections between ancient craft, ethnobotanical knowledge, and the ever-evolving innovations of living culture. Kadey is from Fairbanks and is grateful to have grown up in this exceptional community.
Rosario Andrade
Rosario Andrade is the director & founder of Ch’eno’ Polynesian Arts, a local Polynesian cultural arts program. Rosario has always made plant & flower embellishments but credits Kumu (teacher) Kuana Torres Kahele for providing structure in lei making. Ch’eno’ Polynesian Arts performs with fresh plant & flower leis & has performed for International Friendship Day, Juneteenth, Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival, AAPI Celebrations, Festival
Of Native Arts, and numerous other events. Lei making is integral in the authenticity of performances. To make lei is not only to make a craft but the embodiment of sharing mana (soul).
Tricia Blake
Raised in the deciduous forests and salt marshes of New England, Tricia grew up camping and exploring the outdoors. Her undergraduate studies in ecology brought field work on everything from turtles and coyotes to bats and birds–from Cape Cod to Queensland, Australia. She moved west and north, looking for wild places to work and play, and discovered a love of teaching along the way. She led backcountry and camping trips for kids and families from Massachusetts to Oregon, and eventually ventured north to Alaska where she led the the Alaska Bird Observatory’s education program for almost a decade.
Tricia has been with the Alaska Songbird Institute since its inception in 2013. As the Executive Director, she leads ASI’s daily operations, programs, fundraising, and finances, and works with the Board of Directors to provide overall strategic guidance.
Tricia holds a B.S. in Biology from Boston College and an M.S. in Ecological Education from Lesley University.
Richard Bond
Retiring in 2021 after 30 years in municipal Desert Landscape Horticulture down in Arizona I finally got the opportunity to permanently move to Fairbanks after 19 years of commuting. Having traveled the world collecting conifers and photographing trees has made my time exploring Alaska the icing on the cake. My summers are devoted to landscaping our property in the picturesque and spending time with family and the boreal forest.
Renae Bookman
With over two decades of experience, Renae Bookman is a passionate artist, creator, and educator who has dedicated their life to inspiring and nurturing the creative spirit within others. Drawing from a deep love for the outdoors and a 20-year residency in the stunning landscapes of Alaska, Renae has seamlessly woven the beauty of nature into their work and teaching. Born with an insatiable passion for learning and a compulsion for teaching, Renae is enamored by the world of wet and needle felting. This captivating craft, rooted in tactile artistry, has become her medium of choice, allowing her to translate the wonders of the natural world into vibrant, textured creations. Whether teaching beginners or advanced artists, her patient and enthusiastic approach creates an environment where every student feels encouraged and supported in their artistic journey.
Alex Brede
A recent arrival to Fairbanks, Alex Brede has more than 35 years of experience teaching woodworking to children and adults. He has taught every grade from K-5, as well as serving as a Title One Reading Specialist, during his last 30 years in the Bellingham Public Schools (in Bellingham, WA).
Bonni Brooks
A dancer and choreographer in her earlier years, Bonni Brooks took a spinning class as a cure for cabin fever and immediately fell hard down the fiber arts rabbit hole. Bonni is a spinner and weaver, specializing in tapestry, rigid heddle looms and other work on small, easy to chuck in your backpack looms. She loves introducing people to the joys of working with fiber – from the healing aspect of holding fiber in your hands and feeling it slip through your fingers to the creativity that opens up when fiber newbies discover how very easy it is to get started!
Randy Brown
Randy has been a hand tool kind of a wood craftsman for over 40 years. Roy Underhill of the Woodwright’s Shop has had a great influence on his approach to wood working projects. Randy has built numerous log cabins, dog sleds and toboggans, chairs, tables, benches, wooden bowls, birch bark canoes, and many other items over the years. He enjoys the opportunities provided by the Folk School to share his craft skills with others.
Helena Buurman
Helena Buurman is a Fairbanks-based scientist who is concerned that not everyone appreciates science as much as they should, and that this is because scientists need some help with their story-telling skills. Outside of her day job at the University of Alaska Fairbanks she doodles science cartoons and creates science talks that capture the imagination of kids and adults alike.
Bruce Campbell
Boat-building: Bruce Campbell built his first canvas covered kayak at age 14, in 1966. His first plywood skiff in 1976, his first stitch and glue skiff in the early 1980’s, and finished his most recent plywood skiff this year. Prior Boat Series classes instructed include: Lap Clamps and Lapstrake Wooden Toolbox.
Cooking: Bruce Campbell started cooking over a campfire in 1963. At 14, while canoeing in Northern Manitoba, the group of older teens ran out of food, took their fishing seriously, and Bruce acquired a lifelong interest in planning and creating camp meals. A master of heat control with fire, Bruce’s cooking classes explore different aspects of campfire cooking, such as Dutch Oven camp cooking and more primitive forms of cooking.
Letterpress: Bruce Campbell originally learned how to use his grandfather’s Kelsey Letterpress 50 years. He has enthusiastically revived his family’s press at the Folk School and has become the resident expert on “all things letterpress”. Bruce is a current Folk School board member.
Emily Carroll
Nadine and Emily Carroll are Gwich’in Athabascan sisters who grew up in Fort Yukon, AK. Both were taught traditional beading by their grandmother, Jessie Carroll, at a young age. Nadine graduated from UAF with an MBA and is currently a Project Manager with the Council of Athabascan Tribal Governments and has one son, Hayden. Emily also graduated from UAF with an AAS in process technology and is the Payroll Specialist with the Interior Regional Housing Authority. Nadine and Emily both continue to bead and skin sew as a hobby.
Nadine Carroll
Nadine and Emily Carroll are Gwich’in Athabascan sisters who grew up in Fort Yukon, AK. Both were taught traditional beading by their grandmother, Jessie Carroll, at a young age. Nadine graduated from UAF with an MBA and is currently a Project Manager with the Council of Athabascan Tribal Governments and has one son, Hayden. Emily also graduated from UAF with an AAS in process technology and is the Payroll Specialist with the Interior Regional Housing Authority. Nadine and Emily both continue to bead and skin sew as a hobby.
Maureen Chambrone
For over 25 years, Alaska has been Maureen’s place for gathering materials from the woods and turning them into functional things. She originally learned how to carve from a Haida elder in southeast Alaska, then went on to build a couple log cabins. One of these is now her shop where she built a couple canoes which traveled on summer long Alaskan adventures. Nowadays she looks forward to winters at her cabin and in her shop bending snowshoe frames for the snowshoe making class and jumping at any opportunity to make another wooden flute. When she’s not enjoying life at her cabin and shop in Talkeetna she can be found working for Fish and Game in some remote part of the state or wandering around the woods recording bird songs, gathering wild foods, and just smiling.
Terry Chapin
Professor Emeritus of Ecology, University of Alaska Fairbanks.
I have studied climate effects on Alaskan ecosystems for the past 50 years. My research addresses the effects of changes in climate and wildfire on Alaskan ecology and rural communities. I explore ways that communities and agencies can develop options that increase sustainability of ecosystems and human communities over the long term despite rapid climatic and social changes. Through earth stewardship, I explore ways that society can proactively shape changes toward a more sustainable future through actions that enhance ecosystem resilience and human well-being.
Robin Child
Robin first discovered crankies as a K-12 itinerant art teacher in the Bering Strait region of Western Alaska. A musician and artist, she loved that crankies combine visual arts with music to tell stories, and that they can be made from simple recycled materials- from matchboxes, to shoeboxes, to refrigerator boxes! She used scrap wood to build big crankie boxes for each of the 15 schools she taught in, and proceeded to make crankie stories large and small with hundreds of students from Kindergardeners to adults. She has been hooked ever since!
Robin serves on the board of the Alaska Arts Education Consortium, which works to advance teaching and learning through the arts across Alaska, and is a Fairbanks Folk Fest volunteer. She loves to play music (old-time banjo, mandolin, and classical piano). She currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Elementary Education at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and is passionate about connecting learning with place and culture, and helping inspire new educators with creative ideas to enhance their own teaching practices.
Homyna Curiel
Homyna Curiel is the owner / operator of Tundra Tonics . Homyna originally found a passion for health and the power of natural foods in studying mycology. Homyna believes that what we eat is fundamental to acquiring a critical agency in shaping our health both physically and mentally and that what we choose to eat is inextricably entwined with the degree of our literacy and our political / philosophical affiliations.
Gail Davidson
Gail is a long time fiber artist who has taught classes for the Folk School in knitting, seat caning, rug hooking, and rug braiding, having learned these skills as a child.