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Instructor Biographies

 

Ida Atkinson has been a basket case for over twenty years!  Starting with the 100+ Carolina Stars as wedding favors at her own wedding, Ida progressed through classes offered at adult ed programs until she became the adult ed basket instructor in several area programs.  A former elementary teacher, she has a passion for making learning fun.  Come join the fun and soon you will also be mumbling, “ Under, over, under, over…..”  in your sleep.  idaandgary@fairpoint.net

 

Kathy Banks is passionate about pottery and all forms of fiber arts. Her work is informed and inspired by her gardens and the natural world. She taught elementary art for 16 years and before that, science and environmental education. Currently, she teaches at the Denmark Arts Center and Tear Cap Workshops. She sells her pottery, artwork and cut flower bouquets at the Bridgton Farmers Market and at local venues and events. She loves to share her joy of working with clay with learners of all ages.

 

Mary Delano is a ‘multi-lingual’ fiber artist. She mixes techniques and materials across the fiber arts to create magnificent, one-of-a-kind pieces. Mary has a unique perspective that gives her the freedom to venture into uncharted territories and take her students along for the ride. Mary devotes most of her time to a variety of needlework techniques. She is a big fan of Sue Spargo, having taken two long workshops from her and sewn one of her larger appliqué quilts. Mary teaches an open embroidery class at Camp Wool in Kennebunk, Maine once a month where she teaches students new stitches to incorporate into their penny rugs and wool quilts. Mary also teaches at Fiber College in Searsport, Maine, at Pleasant Mountain Fiber Arts in Denmark, Maine, and at many local fiber shops. www.marydelanofiberart.com

 

Carol Dennison:  after many years of exploring and teaching a variety of fiber arts, Carol moved to Stow, Maine, to begin a fiber farm. She has raised Sheep, Alpacas and Angora Rabbits for fiber to spin, knit, felt and hook. She currently keeps Angora Rabbits, dairy goats, KuneKune pigs, and poultry.

 

Teresa Hall has been interested in needlework since she was a young girl. Since retirement she has explored many different types of needlework and other fiber arts, including embroidery, punch needle, applique, and rug hooking. She has an engineering background and enjoys incorporating that into her work.

 

 

Donna Kay. For over 25 years Donna Kay has been a professional knitting teacher and designer. She has a passion for traditional knitting and spinning and enjoys sharing her expertise with others. As well as teaching nationally and locally she designs for yarn companies and various publications, including Knitter’s Stash. In order to further promote traditional knitting she started her own design company, Tree of Life Designs. Donna lives on a farm in NH with her husband and family where they keep oxen, sheep and horses. She has been teaching knitting since 1983 and spinning since 1997. treeoflife@metrocast.com

Betsey Leslie is a fiber artist , teacher and native Mainer who has been perfecting her craft over the last 37 yrs. She loves teaching the basic skills that allow someone to explore their own creativity! Betsey taught fiber arts at Fiddlehead Center of Arts and Sciences . Currently she is teaching workshops year round, virtually and in person, at the Shaker Village in New Gloucester Maine.  She works daily at her studio and is open by appointment and offers private lessons. She sells fiber art supplies, spinning wheels, carders, wooden knitting needles ,dyes and wools. 

Anna Low, a Portland Maine bookbinder, made her first book in kindergarten - a simple, stab bound book. Making books has stuck with her ever since. In college she took a bookbinding class and was introduced to bookbinding as an art form, both in terms of content and structure. This is when the obsessive binding started. After a while she had to unload her ‘test’ books on friends and family to make room for new ones. Seeing her books being use helped her realize how much she enjoyed making functional art. There is always a new book experiment being worked on in her studio. Each book she makes is unique. There are too many beautiful papers and fabric to ever make the same book twice. Her blank books for sale (on Etsy, in local shops and at art fairs) are carefully crafted to be both functional and aesthetically pleasing, in hopes they will inspire people to fill the pages with thoughtful writing and drawings, whether that be detailed garden notes, poetry, or artful collages. Visit her website at www.purplebeanbindery.com 

Elizabeth Miller is a fiber artist, writer, and instructor in the Western Lakes & Mountains region of Maine. Her primary sources of inspiration are the natural environment and matters of being human, including love, motherhood, trauma, and grief. Her western Maine village homestead keeps her occupied with gardening, beekeeping, chicken keeping, and many things fiber.
Elizabeth is the founder and artisan at Parris House Wool Works (www.parrishousewoolworks.com), a rug hooking studio based in her historic home and online. The studio provides rug hooking, punch, and needle felting supplies, original rug hooking patterns and kits, and more. It is also the site of a monthly hook-in/pot luck, the 2nd Saturday of each month, and numerous ongoing workshops.
North Atlantic Fiber Arts was started in 2022 as Elizabeth’s art and creative writing hub, separate from her studio supply sales and work. It is a container for her love for Maine and Nova Scotia and the artistic themes she revisits in her work as a result of her ties to both places. 
She is the author of Heritage Skills for Contemporary Life: Seasons at the Parris House, published by Down East Books in 2021. The title references her 1818 historic home in the National Historic District of Paris Hill and includes both homesteading and fiber art how-tos and projects.
Her work has appeared regularly in Making magazine and Rug Hooking Magazine.  She has also appeared on the Magnolia Network show Maine Cabin Masters, episode 704, teaching Ashley to hook. Her art has been exhibited at Rug Hooking Week at Sauder Village, the premier rug show in North America, in Archbold, Ohio. She is a contributing artist to the collaborative book, Mothering: Our Lives in Colour and Shadow, by Karen D. Miller, published by Rug Hooking Magazine.
Teaching is a favorite aspect of Elizabeth’s creative life. She especially enjoys introducing beginners to our craft. She teaches in her own studio and has also taught for the Squam Art Workshops, Fiber College, Schoodic Arts for All, Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village, Beekman 1802, Darn Good Yarn, Portfiber, Pleasant Mountain Fiber Arts, Rufus Porter Museum, and a variety of other venues around New England.
Parris House Wool Works kits can also be found in shop and online at Kennebec Cabin Company (Maine Cabin Masters), Darn Good Yarn, Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village, and Fiber & Vine (Norway, Maine).
Follow Parris House Wool Works on Facebook and Instagram, follow North Atlantic Fiber Arts on Instagram.

Susan Perrine constructs introspective textiles ranging from handheld, wearable to inhabitable. She studied fine and book arts at the University of Southern Maine. Apprenticed to Master Weaver, Carol Schwartzott and creates twig garden sculptures with deciduous twigs and saplings and weaves with softer materials for home and body. Her twig garden sculptures received Editors’ Choice Award from Yankee and Downeast Magazines. She has received grants to construct twig garden sculptures in public gardens, including: Artpark, Lewiston, NY, Maine Botanical Gardens, Boothbay, ME, Nantucket Island School of Design, Nantucket, MA and The Waterfront Festival, Providence, RI. www.susanperrine.com

 

Karen Smith is the owner of Shearbrooke Farm in Standish, ME where she raises sheep, angora rabbits, a llama and pygora goats, chickens and a few guinea hens. She is a former elementary school teacher and librarian who has been teaching weaving for twenty-five years. She hosted the Saco Valley Fiber Artists Summer Workshops at her farm for twenty years. She has enjoys traveling and has ties with weavers in Guatemala. shearbrooke@roadrunner.com

 

Linda Whiting grew up in a family of “makers” and has worked in a variety of mediums, but her love of color brought her back to fiber. Her special interests are dyeing and tapestry weaving, but include many others. She enjoys gathering inspiration from her photography and loves learning new techniques and passing them along to others through workshops, fairs and fiber events. She is the director of the Pleasant Mountain Fiber Arts Workshops held each year in June and participates in fiber events throughout New England.  www.pinestarstudio.com pinestarlinda@fairpoint.net

 

Marcy Young is a Rug Maker. Her interests have included Traditional Rug Hooking, Penny Rugs, Twined, Proddy, Braided, Locker Hooked and her favorite, Oxford Punch Needle Rugs. She has upcycled, recycled and used many textiles for her rugs, but mostly enjoys using traditional wool and natural fibers. Marcy started her Rug Making journey when she found a hook while cleaning her in-laws home. She soon learned her own grandmother and great grandmother were rugmakers and she inherited those rugs, frames, hooks and inspirations from her mother. Her greatest interest is Oxford Punch Needle and she is a Certified Oxford Punch Needle Rug Hooking Teacher 2018. She teaches Oxford punch needle, Locker hooking, Quilly rugs and Traditional Proddy rugs. Marcy is a lifelong resident of Massachusetts, has worked as Oncology RN for almost 35 years, is an Army Veteran, and now enjoys her rug making. She loves the peace and satisfaction of completing a useful rug project. She hopes to inspire others with lovely yarns and fibers and creative rug making.