Instructors
Steve Levey
Steve Levey has an MA in history from the University of Colorado. He taught high school history for ten years. Many of his students in Honors World History at West Valley High School took the World History AP test without AP-specific preparation. His class, World History: An Early College Survey Course, started as a whimsical dare from a colleague and a challenge to students. Over the years, all but one student passed the exam to merit college credit for their achievement in 10th grade.
Blaine Lunsford
Blaine has worked with natural dyes for over seven years as well as dyers from around the world. She weaves storytelling, the science of play, and indigenous epistemology into her workshops, inviting an atmosphere centered around ecology, relationship to the land, and artistic expression. Blaine has taught workshops in the summers in Fairbanks over the years, visiting from Canada. She officially moved to Alaska earlier this year and works for Fairbanks Arts Association. As a facilitator, she is passionate about creating accessible containers for folks to learn about natural dyeing to utilize learned skills and techniques at home.
Karen Magnuson
Karen Magnuson began her basket weaving journey creating purposeful containers useful for wilderness survival. The materials she used were efficiently prepared after gathered from forests or field. Over the last 35 years Karen’s understanding of natural materials along with her refinement of weaving techniques has allowed a greater understanding of the enormous skill possessed by early basket makers. She carries a passion for exploring historic basketry techniques and styles and brings this to her work, in part, by harvesting and preparing her own materials.
My commitment for weaving “working” baskets remains strong, however, I realize clearly that basket making is an evolution, a fluid process where we weave a part of ourselves into each piece. We try to understand a basket’s history while creating something unique and personal. With connections to the plants and their remarkable uses, and gratitude for the linage that brought the understanding of weaving forward, each project becomes a unique blend of past and present. It is with this vision we hope to honor the plants and the traditions they have grown from to give insight to, not only the past, but how it can illuminate our future.
Karen teaches ethnobotany programs with the Washington State Department of Ecology. She leads online and in-person classes sharing over 40 years of experience teaching the identification and traditions surrounding of wild edible and medicinal plants. Karen leads basketry classes throughout the country and as well as other earth centered programs through Earthwalk Northwest, a wilderness school she co-founded and directs.
John Manthei
John has been a carpenter/cabinetmaker for nearly half a century and now spends a considerable amount of time teaching through The Folk School. He is one of the founders of Week in the Woods and The Folk School. John’s intimate connection to the land and rivers of the interior drives most everything he does.
john@folk.school
Phil Marshall
Phil has studied traditional hand woodcarving in Austria and Norway, and studied under German and Italian masters in the U.S. “Woodworking smooths and hones my life. This revelation surprised me twenty-three years ago when I tried my hand at woodcarving. There had never been any signs this pursuit would become such a joy. I had not manifested artistic talent. But a visit to a remote Colorado gallery of hand-carved, wooden sculpture inspired my wife to present me with a set of beginner’s chisels and gouges; I grabbed an instruction booklet and gave it a go, solo. Perhaps she had sensed something I had not: the time was right in my life for the conjunction of hand, head and heart. Quite unforseen was the equanimity this handcraft brought. Hitherto, many of my endeavors had been struggles full of frustration. This woodcraft flowed calmly, full of acceptance, even with setbacks. Here was a clear, inexplicable pleasure replete with satisfaction even with miniscule advances, nay reverses, in pursuing the skill.
If we join to grow together, I shall try to nurture this fulfillment for you by sharing in small, definite steps; reinforcing them frequently; sequencing them slowly to handle growing complexity; and then bringing it all together in a supportive manner to reduce stress. I proffer a hand for you to discern your destiny.”
Steve & Sarah Masterman
Steve and Sarah Masterman have an orchard producing apples, plums, cherries, honeyberries, and saskatoons in the Cripple Creek Neighborhood of Fairbanks. They have pear trees too, but it would be an exaggeration to call those productive. They sell grafted fruit trees and do a small U-pick in their orchard. They’ve been teaching grafting classes for several years.
Carol McIntyre
Carol McIntyre is a long-time resident of interior Alaska where she conducts studies focused on the natural history and ecology of birds and leads the long-term golden eagle studies in Denali National Park. She loves teaching about the ecology of birds and their dynamic roles in our environments.
Amy Meissner
Anchorage artist, Amy Meissner, teaches the Craft of Repair as an act of prolonging, care, and accompaniment of vulnerable objects in transition. This community-based work complements her solitary studio practice that combines handwork, found objects, and abandoned textiles to further complicate the literal, physical, and emotional labor of women. With a background in clothing design and illustration, she holds an MFA in Creative Writing, an MA in Critical Craft Studies, and has taught garment repair in-person and online internationally. Awards include grants from the Rasmuson Foundation, the Sustainable Arts Foundation, and most recently a 2023 Center for Craft Teaching Artist Cohort grant to focus on the Craft of Repair in both her studio and socially engaged practices.
Stefan Milkowski
Stefan Milkowski completed the apprenticeship program through the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and worked as a journeyman carpenter in Fairbanks before starting his own business in 2019 to focus on timber-framing and natural building. He loves every part of building, from harvesting and preparing materials to cutting and raising frames to doing finish work and furniture building. He’s learned a ton from others in workshop settings and is excited to pass the knowledge on.
Royce Miller
Royce Miller was raised in northwest Montana and worked in construction and fabrication for 40 some years. Royce has a lifelong passion for boats and water and has built a number of boats in aluminum, cedar strip, stitch and glue, skin on frame, and glued lapstrake.
Naomi Morris
Naomi grew up in Cordova, Alaska and enjoyed baking from an early age, taught by her mother who would make all kinds of delicious treats, especially at Christmas. She studied biology at UAF and has worked in Anchorage, Denali, and Fairbanks as a Park Ranger and Environmental Educator. She dived into baking sourdough about 7 years ago and was instantly hooked by the fascinating alchemy, simplicity, and flavor of this type of baking.
Jennifer Moss
Brett Nelson
Brett is originally from Minnesota and has lived in Fairbanks for 25 years, with some time in Michigan along the way. Always enjoying the outdoors (hiking, canoeing, skiing and fishing), he was encouraged for many years to take up wood carving by his mother-in-law who was a master carver in Minnesota. Finally after taking a spoon carving class from John Manthei a number of years ago, Brett started to see ‘spoons’ in the birch logs while splitting firewood. Still gathering firewood, he now is also always on the lookout for spoons, kuksas, spreaders, and coffee scoops that may be in the wood.
Tiffany Nicholson
Nick Nugent
Nick Nugent was born in west central Indiana and grew up there. He was in Cub and Boy Scouts. He was also a Merit Badge Counselor for the Midnight Sun Council while his son was in scouting. He has been in Fairbanks since July of 1977. Nick enjoys primitive outdoor skills. Nick studies Alaska History and more broadly the history of North America prior to 1840. His interests also range to the use of carbide lamps and vintage pressure stoves.
Bill O’Malley
Bill O’Malley is a long-time arts educator experienced in cross-discipline education and collaboration, comfortable in both urban and wilderness environments. Bill was born and raised in Santa Barbara County, California and has been sharing his love of art as an educator for over 20 years. Along with teaching art, he has worked doing installation, public programming, and as a working artist running a small gallery. Since moving to Fairbanks, he has been fortunate enough to work with many local organizations including Camp Habitat, Calypso Farms, and Boreal Sun Charter School. He is excited to be joining The Folk School program and looking forward to a summer filled with art and adventure.
Carolyn Parker
Carolyn has done botanical surveys throughout Alaska and in other far northern landscapes for over 30 years. The rest of the time she stays based at the University of Alaska Museum while gardening, hiking and ski-joring in the boreal forest around Fairbanks.
Kaari Parrish
Kaari has lived in the Interior since 1974. She has been obsessed with fiber and textiles her whole life and has been fascinated by weaving since her first class in 1995. A main focus in recent years has been on narrow bands and the techniques used to both produce the yarn needed and weave them. Most of her yarn has been spun by walking the dog.
John Peirce
John began woodworking in earnest in 1985 when he apprenticed with Maine furniture maker David Margonelli. About the same time he discovered green woodworking. Guided by books by Drew Langsner, J Alexander and Roy Underhill, he started with post and rung chairs and snowshoes. Over the years has made spoons, kuksas, wooden skis, and other items beginning with a freshly cut tree rather than lumber yard wood. Currently John does cabinets and carpentry as Boreal Woodworks to pay the bills, but for fun he works on boats, bowls, and bodgers benches!
Marisa Peña
Marisa Peña, Program Manager, Stone’s Throw
Born and raised in the Philippines, Marisa and her family moved to Chicago in 1998, where she earned a BAS in Culinary Management. Over the next decade, she worked in professional kitchens from fast food to fine dining. Marisa came to the village of Tok in 2013 for a summer job but soon fell in love with Alaska and decided to make Fairbanks her new home, where she currently lives with her significant other (who is also a chef), their dog Hagi and cat Izzy. The Bread Line is Marisa’s first venture into the non-profit world and she is honored and excited to be part of an organization that makes positive changes in the Fairbanks community.