Teachers
Sarah Camille Wilson
Burlington, VT
· Clay
Sarah Camille Wilson has a BFA from Maine College of Art and an MFA from Syracuse University. She lives in Burlington Vermont, where she teaches a variety of ceramics classes and maintains a studio practice. Sarah's work in clay has taken her to China, India and around the US, and she loves exploring new clays in new places.
Ryan Cocina
Shelburne, VT
· Wood
Born and raised in Buffalo, NY, Ryan has been a resident woodworker at the Shelburne Craft School since 2011. Ryan received his BA from SUNY Geneseo and a Masters of Education from Johnson State College. Ryan studied furniture-making at the Vermont Woodworking school as an apprentice under Bob Fletcher. Ryan manages the wood shop, adult woodworking classes, youth woodworking classes, and open studio nights.
Joel Popadics
Wayne, NJ
· Paint
Joel Popadics is one of the nation’s top watercolorists. He is an advocate of watercolor and has dedicated his career to the advancement and appreciation of the medium. He is Vice-President of the prestigious American Watercolor Society (AWS) in New York City and a Past-President of the New Jersey Water Color Society.
Joel has been teaching aspiring artists, young and old, to reach their artistic potential through his watercolor classes and workshops across the country. His peaceful landscapes beautify homes, corporations and public spaces throughout the United States.
He has been featured many times in AMERICAN ARTIST, THE ARTIST'S MAGAZINE, WATERCOLOR ARTIST, and WATERCOLOR MAGIC MAGAZINES. He received a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York. He is represented in some of the finest galleries in the Northeast. He resides in Wayne, NJ with his wife Patricia and their two sons.
Frances Cannon
Burlington, VT
· Paint
FRANCES CANNON is a writer and artist of hybrid mediums, and is the author and illustrator of the graphic memoir, The Highs and Lows of Shapeshift Ma and Big-Little Frank, through Gold Wake Press. She has an MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop in nonfiction writing, and a BFA from the University of Vermont. She has a book of poems and illustrations, Tropicalia, through Vagabond Press, and a book of poems and prints, Uranian Fruit, through Honeybee Press. She has a book of graphic literary criticism forthcoming with MIT Press. She has also contributed to Vice, McSweeney's Quarterly, The Believer, The Lucky Peach, and The Iowa Review. You can find more of her work at frankyfrancescannon.com
Misoo Filan
Shelburne, VT
· Paint
Misoo uses “vulnerability” as a theme revealed through her emotional self-portraits, narrative fantasy, and abstract images. Exploiting her paints ability to be both fluid and to congeal in her technique, her large paintings explore feelings of fear in reaction to abuse, abandonment and neglect. In-between her painted layers and intricate mark making, Misoo weaves her stories of innocence lost together using threads from of her childhood nightmares, news headlines that scream tales of abuse and rape, her fear for her vulnerable young daughter, and the desire to escape into fairytale and fantasy.
Misoo graduated with her Master of Fine Arts degree with a concentration on painting from Florida Atlantic University in the spring of 2014. Misoo has exhibited in shows at Scope, The Art Place Wynwood in Miami, Cultural Council of Palm Beach County in Lake Worth, Boca Raton Museum of Art, The Gallery at Art House Delray, Las Laguna Gallery in California, Fresh Paint 7 in Tel Aviv, Israel, University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley in Texas, solo exhibitions at Durham Arts Council in North Carolina, Bailey Contemporary Arts in Pompono Beach, and Living Learning Center Gallery of University of Vermont. In 2018, she will be in the upcoming solo exhibition at Palm Beach State College in Florida and Champlain College in Vermont. Her work has been reviewed in Boca Raton Magazine, Palm Beach Arts Paper, Sun Sentinel, The Palm Beach Post, The Chronicle: The Independent Daily at Duke University, Seven Days, and INDA 11.
Misoo Filan currently lives and works in Shelburne, Vermont and can be reached at misoo@misoo.org
Rik joined the Shelburne Craft School community in 2004, studying with Loreta Lanquet and Hoyt Berringer. In 2006, he started teaching kids clay classes at Burlington City Arts and became a studio assistant at the Shelburne Craft School. He is now the Craft School’s ceramics studio manager, teaches kids clay on the wheel, adult classes and is the community outreach instructor. He manages the open-studio schedule, studio monitors, kiln fires, and oversees equipment maintenance and supply ordering.
Neil Berger
Shelburne, VT
· Paint
Neil on his work:
The work I most admire is blatantly in love with nature. When I see Egon Schiele drawings I think, what else is there to do but draw people (or houses, chairs) with such devastating passion and intelligence?
When I get tired of working in the sky-trees-fields landscape style I think of Charles Burchfield. His openness and ecstasy before nature is humbling. Obviously all I can do is pursue my own awe. Wyeth said one’s work goes as deep and as far as one’s love. I believe that.
Chris Ramos
Winooski, VT
· Wood
Chris Ramos immersed himself in furniture making as an early student of the Vermont Woodworking School, studying under the prolific Bob Fletcher and other prominent Vermont craftspeople. Now working out of the Shelburne Craft School, Chris and his partner, Ryan Cocina design and build custom residential and commercial furnishings under the brand, Seral Designs. He returns regularly to VWS to teach introductory woodworking and is a resident instructor at the Shelburne Craft School. Chris is honored to share his method through community education, and his vision through his labor. SeralDesigns.com
Stephanie Bush
Shelburne, VT
· Paint
Stephanie Bush is a Montreal native with an extensive exhibition record both nationally and internationally. She earned her MFA from the University of Waterloo, ON, with a minor in Women’s Studies. Currently, Bush resides in Vermont and divides her time between her professional art practice, teaching art and raising her young family. Bush is represented by West Branch Gallery & Sculpture Park in Stowe, VT, Mill Brook Gallery & Sculpture Park in Concord, NH and Dedee Shattuck in Westport, MA.
Clark Derbes
Charlotte, VT
For over a decade CLARK DERBES has salvaged large hardwood trunks from arborists in the area surrounding his studio and carved these trunks with his chainsaw, honing them into raw shapes and meticulously painting them with a variety of complex visual systems, patterns and patina processes to make dimensional sculpture in a variety of sizes. He uses new distributions of light and color to playfully shift space and undermine habitual viewing systems, asking viewers to question their perceptions and remain constant as the the separation between the public and the personal is dissolved by the joy of color and the delight of the unexpected.
Clark Derbes also makes paintings, works on paper and large public installations. He was born in New Orleans, LA in 1978 and raised in Baton Rouge where he remains closely tied to the community and where several of his large scale commissioned projects can be seen. He also makes large ‘self-commissioned’ public works designed to keep fluid the dialogue between free art and the material culture found in museums and other institutions. Derbes earned a BFA at Louisiana State University and exhibits extensively throughout the US. He has made his home in Vermont since 2002.
Jen berger works as an interdisciplinary, community and socially engaged artist and educator. Using street, stage and guerilla theater, visual arts, painting, printmaking, puppetry, video for education and dialogue she seeks to raise awareness and intervene in social issues that affect us all.
Jen is also works as a teaching artist, working with students in, and out, of the public schools, who are in early childhood through adult aged students.
Dylan Fitzsimmons
South Burlington, VT
Hi, my name is Dylan Fitzsimmons, an accomplished singer and songwriter who was been performing music solo and in bands for 15+ years. This summer I will be leading the Craft of Songwriting Workshop at SCS. I can't wait to share my love of music with the Craft School community!
Throughout my journey as a self-taught guitar player, vocalist, and songwriter I’ve had the pleasure of writing and performing many original tunes. I've found writing original songs to be a refreshing way of keeping my playing fresh and expressing myself through song. I believe that everyone can write and perform their own music, and that sharing music with fellow players is a wonderful way to connect and grow as a musician.
With the Craft of Songwriting Workshop I hope to share a practical framework for beginning to write one's own songs. In partnership with SCS, I also hope to develop a community of guitar players and songwriters who support one another in developing original tunes and playing in public. Hope to see you there!