Volume 29 : Craft Edition
Presenters
Chloë Allegra Moore & Max Mandler
Chloë Allegra Moore (she/he) is a landless Black farmer and educator. She works at both Shiloh and Southside Community Gardens, growing food and teaching young people about land stewardship in Asheville's historically Black neighborhoods. As a co-creator of Liberation Tools, Chloë gets to talk about tools with other farmers, and to network with other BIPOC food producers. When he's not working, Chloë sings, plays guitar, and hangs out with chickens.
Max (he/they) is an anti-capitalist worker, craftsperson, settler of Appalachia, and co-creator of Liberation Tools. They went to Warren Wilson College to study biochemistry and neuroscience for fun, and learn blacksmithing for the oncoming apocalypse. Coming to fully realize that the apocalypse began on this land in 1492, he now dedicates his free time to resisting police violence and supporting food, water, land, and community sovereignty efforts led by Black and Indigenous people.
Silver Cousler
Silver Cousler is a Filipinx lifelong Southern resident chef who most recently worked as a Chef in Residence in Grand Cayman, British Virgin Islands. Silver’s dedication to the culinary craft is indebted to the experience of their Filipino mother, Neneng, as a first generation immigrant landing in Parris Island, SC in 1986. The lessons taught through this lifelong connection have deeply affected their inspiration and their dedication to the diffusion of Filipinx cuisine and its heritage.
Adam Atkinson
Adam Atkinson’s practice documents relationships between gender and the body using adornment and small-scale woodcarving. He has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and has held short residencies at the Baltimore Jewelry Center, Arrowmont, and is currently an artist in residence at Penland School of Craft. In 2020 he co-founded Spectral Matter, an ongoing exhibition platform for LGBTQIA+ artists. He has been an instructor at many US institutions.
Everett Hoffman
Everett Hoffman is a cross disciplinary artist, and writer. He is currently a Resident Artist at Penland School of Craft, where he lives with his partner Adam. He received his MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University 2018, and BFA from Boise State University 2013. Everett was a 2018-19 Artist in Resident at Arrowmont School of Art and Craft. His current body of work examines everyday material debris reconstructed within the intersecting narratives of identity, gender, and sexual desire.
Rachel David
Born in Maryland, now a resident of western North Carolina, Rachel David is a blacksmith, sculptor, and designer. Her metalwork practice encompasses art, furniture, architectural elements, activism, and gardening. Through community activism and metalwork that references relationships between bodies and landscapes, David investigates issues related to colonization, social, and environmental justice.
Tommy Simpson
Tommy Simpson is an “imaginist” who has worked in nearly every creative medium, from woodworking to painting, printmaking, clay, woodcarving, bookmaking, jewelry, and prose. His work is featured in museum collections including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Art & Design, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Simpson says, “the ultimate goal is to bring artwork to life, so that the viewer can identify the human spirit behind the work, and experience its poetry.”
Ian Quate
Ian has worked professionally in design, fabrication, and horticulture, with an overarching focus to encourage the ecology of human culture. Ian has attended institutions such as Isaac Dickson, Asheville Middle, and Asheville High School, in addition to secondary education at the College of Design at North Carolina State University and Rhode Island School of Design.
Melissa Robinson
Melissa Robinson is a maker of objects, spaces, events, and experiences that bring together a wide range of individuals in curiosity and community. She opened the Marshall Container Co. 7 years ago in downtown Marshall, NC as an experiment in mixing a creative workshop with a neighborhood bar and community space.
