Instructors
Leila Pyle
Leila Pyle is a local artist and outdoor educator. She teaches environmental education at Calypso Farm in the summers, and she is passionate about connecting people to nature and the place where they live. In her free time loves to experiment with a variety of different art mediums. These include drawing, painting, bookmaking, printmaking, and fiber arts like knitting and felting.
Nita Rae
I’m a musher and I love living in Fairbanks, Alaska. I’ve always enjoyed hand crafts of every type and anything done outdoors. Raised on a farm in NC, I learned early in life to make do with what was on hand – gardening and processing foods and taking care of farm animals.
Jim Richardson
Jim is a retired general contractor. Most of the work he did was residential.
Chelsea S.
Chelsea S. grew up in Southern Appalachia and began teaching nature-based education as a teenager while working for a North Carolina State Park . Through 20 years of educating in outdoor classrooms, she has gained a deep love for the wonders of nature that enter our daily lives in countless ways. She enjoys sharing her discoveries about the connections between the natural world and our personal experiences in everyday life. Upon moving to Alaska, Chelsea began cultivating a growing interest in fiber arts, from sheep to loom and beyond. As a volunteer and Farm and Forest Educator at Calypso Farm, she has taken every opportunity to share her growing knowledge and skills. Chelsea believes that everything- from family growth and heritage to cooking and crafting or even spirituality, contains an element of nature to be acknowledged and cherished. As the owner of Cultivate Family Support Services LLC, she strives to help families understand and embrace this simple but empowering truth as a doula, health coach, childbirth and nature-play educator.
Megan Schulze
Megan Schulze is the business owner and full time farmer behind Frontieress Farm. With sustainablity at heart, she strives to feed both body and soul with the growth of local produce while exploring and delving deep into the beautiful world of specialty cut flowers. She dedicates a portion of her field to being harvested and dried into material used for artistic, handmade crafts that endure well past the short Alaskan growing season. Visit http://www.frontieressfarm.com for more information.
Christie Shell
Christie is an avid knitter, fiber enthusiast and one of the farmers at Calypso Farm and Ecology Center. She has been teaching knitting and other fiber arts at Calypso for several years.
Frank Soos
In Memoriam
Frank Soos was the 2015 Alaska State Laureate Writer and instructed creative writing at the University of Alaska Fairbanks for nearly two decades. Frank was author of several books, including several Bamboo Fly Rod Suite (essays) and a book of essays from the University of Washington Press.
Brian Sprague
Brian Sprague is a lifelong woodworker and hand tool enthusiast. Brought up in rural Michigan, his occupations have ranged from white collar engineer to aircraft mechanic to fuels crew sawyer, and counting. He is particularly fond of tree work and began running a saw at the age of 12 (It was a Stihl.).
Marianne Stolz
Marianne was born and raised in Germany where she completed a wood carving apprenticeship. Her passion for mountains and ice climbing brought her to Alaska in 1985. She now works as a professional wood carver, ice carver and artist.
Christin Swearingen
Christin Swearingen is a volunteer mycologist for the Fungal Diversity Survey. She has degrees in Biology and Environmental Studies from Oberlin College, and earned a master’s degree from UAF from 2013-2016. There she learned mushroom identification from the esteemed mycologist Dr. Gary Laursen. She works at the Northern Alaska Environmental Center and Interior Alaska Land Trust to protect habitat for all types of wildlife, including fungi.
Danielle Symons
Hi, my name is Danielle Symons. I moved to Alaska back in 2017 and fell in love with its beauty. I picked up a crochet hook for the first time in 2020 and since then have developed a passion for fiber art. My craft grew into a business where I make cute little stuffies and home decor items, but I must say my passion is making and designing clothing.
Sara Tabbert
Sara has been making prints for quite some time! She has a MFA in printmaking from the University of Nebraska and has taught printmaking to ages kindergarten through college. She’s excited about The Folk School’s new location and hopes to help grow a print shop around the press that Bill Brody donated. Look for more printmaking classes ahead. We can talk about what you are interested in to plan for future classes.
Cyndie Warbelow
I am a lifelong Alaskan growing up first in several remote villages and then in a roadhouse on the Alaska Highway. My education was in biology and zoology, but then I discovered horticulture, which lead to a career of building and operating two greenhouse businesses in the Fairbanks area, first Tacks’ General Store and then The Plant Kingdom. One of my favorite parts of the greenhouse business is designing hanging baskets and porch planters, and over the years both of these business locations became known for these container plantings. Combining the beautiful colors and textures of flowering plants in containers and growing them in the unique magic of Alaskan summer light is definitely one of the most inspiring opportunities I have had. I passed The Plant Kingdom to a new owner a few years ago. Now I have a small research greenhouse near my home here in Fairbanks, where I continue to experiment with container combinations, trial perennials, and develop perennial display gardens. I also teach classes in horticulture and garden design. My book, Northern Garden Symphony: Combining Hardy Perennials for Blooms All Season, was just released in May of this year.
Arvid Weflen
I am interested in nearly everything, especially the old crafts where you get to make something. Thus, it was probably only natural that I took up birch bark basket weaving some years back (along with a gazillion others – blacksmithing, book binding, sewing winter gear, carving, rosemaling, woodworking, wheelwrighting, coopering, knitting socks, and now starting to learn shoemaking – the list could go on, but you get the idea). From there it was a short step to sharing the joy of creating things by teaching others how to do the same. I’ve been teaching much of my life, recently “retired” as a professor in the rather more modern craft of aircraft maintenance. As I put it, I failed the retirement class and spend time both at the University and sharing the fun of learning new skills. To stay well rounded and to keep from getting too bored, I also enjoy flying my airplane that I built from scratch, cross country skiing, bicycling, farming, crossing the ocean on an old square rigged sailing vessel and once in a while I even sit down and read a book.
Susan Willsrud
Susan Willsrud is a co-founder of Calypso Farm and Ecology Center. She loves growing vegetables and also loves creating beautiful warm things out of the mountains of wool provided by the farm’s flock of Shetland Sheep! She has been spinning yarn for over 10 years and has been drawn to “seeing what happens when you break all the rules” since the beginning.
Jeff Yacevich
Jeff blames his obsession with experimental hunting and gathering on having to read Hatchet in sixth grade. Twelve years after moving to Alaska, his mind is never far from the boreal forest. He has spent a year alone on the Tanana River endeavoring to make all his food, shelter, tools, and clothing from the land. Lately he has been working on a walking trap-line based around deadfalls and sinew snares. Jeff earns money seasonally by leading a chainsaw crew. Most importantly, he is lucky to be partnered with an extremely understanding wife.
Tom Zimmer
Tom is a co-founder of Calypso Farm and Ecology Center. He loves working with his hands – whether it be shearing sheep, building farm outbuildings, designing greenhouses, irrigation systems or tinkering in Calypso’s blacksmith shop. He loves sharing his knowledge and skills with others. He began teaching at age 16 and has been teaching in one way or another ever since. He is one of the primary instructors of Calypso’s workshops and Farmer Training Program.