Workshop Instructors
Ed Alexander
Digital Photography, and Songwriting
Each day, the splendor of Izard County and its natural surroundings draws Ed Alexander’s attention as he works to capture its beauty on film. From his studio atop Wildcat Mountain, Ed’s photos tell a story of the rugged and sometimes delicate beauty of Arkansas. Images of dramatic vistas and intimate wildlife scenes contrast with photos recording the subtle changes of light and shadow on delicate leaves and flowers that appear in his work.
Brandy Boyd
Silversmithing and Jewelry
Brandy is a certified Senior Instructor with Art Clay World, has certification in New Mokume Gane, received Level 2 certification from PMC connection, and is a Camp PMC (Precious Metals Clay) instructor. She holds a BA in Art History from the University of Memphis. For more than a decade, she has taught metal clay and other small metals techniques in a variety of roles, including at the Memphis Botanic Gardens since 2007.
Since 2012, she has owned and operated BMB Designs, her classroom, retail supply shop, and gallery space, in Bartlett, Tennessee. She is a regular demonstrating artist at many craft shows around Tennessee and beyond, such as Pink Palace and RiverArts. She’s also the editor of the arts periodical Metal Clay Today, where she’s been a contributing author since 2017. Her jewelry is on exhibit at the Metal Museum and Arrow Creative in Memphis, as well as at fairs, festivals, and craft galleries across the mid-South. Her work is summed up by the motto “Making Life More Beautiful.”
Suzette Clements
Painting and Stained Glass
Suzette Clements comes from an artistic family and has always been passionate about art. She grew up as a military child, moving to many different places, but eventually settled in Nederland, Texas. There she attended Nederland High School, being involved in many school and community art projects. Late in life, she has finally earned her Associates of Fine Arts from Central Texas College in June 2020.
She is a talented and knowledgeable artist with conventional mediums such as oils, acrylics, pastels, colored pencils, charcoal, and pencil drawing. She is a stained glass artist with 40 years’ experience working in a studio for several years. In 2007, she began china painting after inheriting all her late grandmother’s supplies.
Suzette enjoys both realistic and abstract work and has shown at many local art exhibitions including being published in local Texas media. She was a member of a local artist co-op, Uniquely Salado in Salado, Texas where she sold her work in all her different mediums. She has been a teacher of many of her preferred mediums over the years.
She currently lives with her husband, Ret. Major Randy Clements in Mt. Pleasant, AR. She has three children and five grandchildren.
suzetteclements.com
Dana Finimore
Pottery and Painting
As an artist, Dana wants to make tiny connections to the natural world. She is filled with curiosity, and endlessly think about what’s next in terms of making. Through metal, clay, and mixed media interpretations, she hopes to inspire others to connect with nature. The textures of tree bark, a feather, or lichen growing on a stone fascinate her. There isn’t a shortage of ideas when nature is your muse. She has a special reverence for the natural beauty of Arkansas, and find clarity of spirit outdoors.”
Being a multi-disciplined artist, clay and metal are the most physical of mediums. Whether casting a twig in silver or producing a planter that holds a house plant, she hopes her work can enhance every-day life. As AI increasingly robs us of our humanity, she feels compelled to create a sense of authenticity, and her work is intended to live in the moments of everyday existence, and add a bit specialness to it that is found only in one-of-a-kind things. She enjoys 2-dimensional mixed media painting, clay slab work and wheel thrown ceramics, and metal fabrication for jewelry. Dana finds it gratifying when construction modes are evident in the finished piece. Staying true to her connections, her work often features whimsical animals, birds, leaves, or some nod to the natural world.
tinroofartist@gmail.com
Marlene Gremillion
Wire Wrapping
Marlene Gremillion, a Hot Springs Village, Arkansas artist, enjoys creating and designing in many mediums and has done so for over 35 years. Texture, color and light play an important role in what she designs be it in Oil, pastel, watercolor, photography, collage, glass, polymer clay or jewelry. She enjoys working, manipulating and creating with her hands and experiments to see if she can come out with a pleasing artistic piece. “It sort of reminds me of being a child at play. I just enjoy having fun along with it being therapeutic for me”.
Marlene is active in the arts and enjoys teaching. “I enjoy watching others learn and get excited about creating their own works. As adults, we forget to have fun. I encourage students to do just that; you must enjoy what you are doing in order to be creative and then it shows in your works.”
Marlene teaches at the National Park Community College, in Continuing Education and at the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock. She also enjoys traveling and teaching workshops. She is a registered teacher through the Arts on Tour with the Arkansas Arts Council Little Rock, AR. Marlene is in the Arkansas Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts’ 2017-2018 Artists Registry and member of the International Society of Experimental Artists.
She recently organized the Ouachita Mountain Polymer Clay Guild in Arkansas. The only active guild in Arkansas. Marlene is a charter member of Ouachita River Art Guild in West Monroe, Louisiana, and member of Brush Strokes in Hot Springs Village, Arkansas. Her art is presented at Butler Center Gallery (Arkansas Studies Institute) Little Rock, AR; Backwoods Gallery El Dorado, AR; Artists’ Workshop Gallery, Hot Springs, AR; and Ouachita Artists Gallery, Mt. Ida, AR. Marlene is a signature member of Mid-Southern Watercolorists, Louisiana Watercolor Society and Arkansas Pastel Society.
Sage Holland
Glass Beads
Patricia "Sage" Holland began her path in the art of flameworking glass in 1987 while in the Pacific Northwest. Sage honed her voice in the expression of glass beadmaking for five years before moving to Arkansas to join studios with her husband, Tom Holland in 1993. They have been instrumental in sharing the history and technique of beadmaking through workshops across the country. Together they researched in multiple national and international museums as well as private collections of ancient artifacts in glass in order to write articles and create the technique list offered in their workshops. Sage and Tom began teaching at Meadowcreek in 1997 and became residents of the Meadowcreek Valley in 1999. Their work has been presented internationally including at the Denmark Contemporary Glass Bead Exhibit, and they have received awards such as the Sars Potteries Museum International Glass Bead Exhibit Journee's de/la Perle du Verre, Guest of Honor, Best in Show, Pikes Place Market, Seattle, and Inductee into The International Society of Glass Beadmakers Hall of Flame.
Dana Johnson
Painting
Dana is a graduate of Yellville High School, studied art classes through North Arkansas Community College, ASUMH. She is primarily self taught. Dana has had instructions from numerous accomplished artists and educators. Her mentor was Jo Rowell (her mother), and Roger King. She has also studied under Bruce Peil (Texas), Bill Garrison (Arkansas), Gill Adams (Missouri), Marlene Germillion (Arkansas), John Laseter (Arkansas), Julie Mayser (Missouri), and many others.
Dana has taught art classes for community ed at North Arkansas community, numerous workshop in watercolor, pastel, oil in Arkansas Missouri, and Texas.
Her subject matter is nature, whether it is a landscape, or a bird, or flower painting. She uses traditional materials - watercolor, oil, pastels, acrylics, or combination of several mediums hoping to capture movement and life - making the brush dance and sing. Everything is captured in a spontaneous dance and movement of the brush on the surface. Her goal is to inspire those who see her artwork to look more carefully at the world around them to discover beauty in unusual places.
She is the owner of Dana’s Art Studio and Gallery in Yellville, Arkansas. Dana has been actively working to promote the arts through many art groups such as the Palette Art League, Ozark Regional Arts Council, Arkansas Pastel Society, Mid-Southern Watercolorist, and Art Odyssey Tour of Studios.
Ozarkartist@live.com
Lubna Khatoon
Spinning, Weaving, and Knitting
Lubna is a textile artist. She holds a Masters in Fina Arts degree in textile design from Fatima Jinnah Women’s University, Rawalpindi, Pakistan and has taught textile design at the university level for over eleven years. Lubna is a recent addition to the Arkansas Craft School instructional staff. Working in the Craft School’s textile studio, Lubna teaches textile design, spinning, knitwear, weaving, crochet, hand block printing, Batik. Shaburi, hand silk painting, silk embroidery, and macrame.
Keith Kyle
Wood Turning
Wood lathe turning is a passion that Keith has followed with his father for years. It is his desire that every piece he creates is enjoyed by someone as much as he enjoys creating it. From one of a kind bowls, pens, sewing products, and everything he turns, he wishes it will be used, enjoyed, and shared. Keith is a retired school teacher, married with two grown sons. His wife, also a retired school teacher, enjoy their lives rambling around the country chasing his craft and camping. Traveling is his passion and his family too!
kkturnings.com
kkturnings@gmail.com
Hannah May
Pottery
Hannah is a ceramic artist who makes pottery and sculptural vessels. She studied ceramics at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock, graduating in 2012. She has been involved in wood firing with potters Ron Meyers and Stephen Driver in Georgia and Arkansas since 2012. As co-owner of Hunter and May Pottery, she teaches out of her studio in Hensley, Arkansas. Since 2016, she has worked for the Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub as its Lead Art Educator, Education Lead, Sr. Officer of Education, and Best Buy Teen Tech Center respectively, where she developed arts education programs, established a ceramics studio, and created an art gallery. Hannah has been a ceramics educator for both youth and adults since 2010.
huntermaypottery@gmail.com
huntermaypottery.com
Ed Pennebaker
Glass Blowing
Ed, owner/artist at Red Fern Glass in Clinton, Arkansas is most well-known for his custom sculptural lighting made with blown glass elements. These chandeliers have been installed in Saudi Arabia, Portugal, Brazil, Russia, China, Canada, Mexico, and other locations around the world in public places and private residences. Ed also makes mixed media, minimal, environmental sculptures which are statements about pollution and climate change concerns at the local to the global level.
Ed started making glass in 1981 in Kansas. After a couple years blowing glass at Hale Farm & Village in Ohio, Ed established Red Fern Glass in 1985 in Salem, Arkansas. The studio was located near Osage, Arkansas from 1991-2018.
(501) 745-2449 Studio
(870) 712-3036 Cell
Donna Reynolds
Basketry
Donna has been weaving for about 12 years. She took her first weaving class at University of Missouri Extension and was hooked! Donna started purchasing kits and teaching herself new techniques. She also took a few classes as they were available. She now teaches local classes and demonstrates at the Ellsinore Pioneer Museum. She sells baskets at an antique mall and festivals. Some of her baskets have gone as far away as California and Alaska.
rrfarms@live.com
Scott Riedy
Blacksmithing
Scott began metal working at the age of 13 as a hobby, which he continued for the next six years. After that, he started as a full time blacksmith at Stone County Ironworks in Mountain View, Arkansas. To expand his skills, Scott began working for other blacksmiths throughout Arkansas. Gaining experience and technique, Scott became the head Blacksmith at the Ozark Folk Center. Scott not only taught classes and performed demonstrations, but also sold his metal work creations.
Later Scott opened Heritage Blacksmith Shop in Mountain View, Arkansas. There he continued to teach and build metal work products that were sold to the public and various state parks. Scott has always had a home shop, where he forges, teach classes, and sells fine metal work.
The Happy Dragon Blacksmith Shop - (870) 504-2293
scottriedy.blacksmith@gmail.com
Charley Sandage
Songwriting and Stories
Charley is retired from a career in Arkansas public schools and colleges as a teacher and administrator. He also spent a decade with Arkansas Education Television and was Program Director for the Ozark Folk Center in its first year of operation. A songwriter for around 65 years, he served as a chapter coordinator for Nashville Songwriters Association International. He is currently working on several long-form writing projects, most using music and all relating stories from Arkansas history.
Shelley Smith
Clay Art and Tie-Dye Shirts
She received her degree in Art Education from Greensboro College in 1980. Shelley worked as an artist in residence and a public school art teacher in North Carolina and Arkansas public schools. Twenty-five of those years in Arkansas as a K-12 art teacher at Leslie and Rural Special schools. She retired from the Mountain View School District in 2020. Shelley retains a lifetime Arkansas teaching license in Art. She and her husband live in Fox, Arkansas with a family of dogs and adult children nearby.
David Spurlock
Bladesmithing
He is a professional self-taught Bladesmith and Blacksmith with 19 years experience in his field, but begin his journey in his parents’ backyard. He forged his first knife in 2003 after watching Conan the Barbarian, and he has been bladesmithing and blacksmithing ever since.
He taught his first bladesmithing class in 2010 to a nephew who still uses his knife to this day.
David has worked at the Ozark Folk Center as a blacksmith and bladesmith, and now is an instructor at the Arkansas Craft School.
He is originally from Walla Walla, Washington but now calls Mountain View, Arkansas home.