Makers

Wilson Allen

Wilson Allen is a calligrapher and graphic designer born and raised in a log house in Georgia. He traveled north to study at the School of the Artist Institute of Chicago where he developed a keen interest in letterpress printing and bookbinding. Wilson designed the cover of this booklet and assisted in its binding. You will also find his original calligraphy on the quote cards. Wilson recently moved back to Georgia and is excited to do anything relating to design and the book arts. // @calligraphy_wilson

Ryan Burger

Ryan Burger is the owner and cheesemaker of The Woodsman & Wife. He has been making cheese for nearly nine years, previously managing two dairies in the South, including Blackberry Farm in Tennessee. Ryan has also worked in renowned restaurants across America, including stages at 3-starred Michelin restaurants Manresa and Quince in California and Blue Hill at Stone Barns in New York. He was Executive Sous Chef for Jean Georges Market in Atlanta, Georgia before venturing into cheesemaking and farming. Ryan’s food philosophy is greatly rooted in simple, sustainable, local food focusing on close farm relationships and growing, raising, and foraging for ingredients. // @thewoodsmanandwife

Eduardo Porto Carreiro

Eduardo Porto Carreiro is a beverage director with nearly 15 years of experience creating and managing profitable wine, beer, and spirit programs and educating restaurant staff in beverage service and salesmanship for high-profile chef-driven restaurants. He is a nationally-recognized sommelier and discerning wine buyer with expertise in discovering up-and-coming wine producers and sourcing rare and collectible bottles. He is known for curating wine lists that elevate restaurants and pursues wines that display honesty, purity, and place. // @_eduardo_pc

ELIZABETH CASTALDO

Elizabeth Castaldo is an artist, printmaker, and bookbinder living and working in Peekskill, NY and New York City. During 2017 and 2018 she was a Scholar in Residence at the Center for Book Arts. Castaldo received her MFA from SCAD Atlanta where she was a Dean’s Fellow in Printmaking and her BFA from the School of Visual Arts. Several of Castaldo’s artist’s books are currently included in the traveling exhibition, “Freed Formats: The Book Reconsidered”. Her work has also been shown recently at The Atlantic Highlands Arts Council and The Patchogue Arts Council. In addition to being in many private collections, Castaldo’s work has been collected by the Savannah College of Art and Design, Carnegie Melon University, Yale University, and other institutions. // @ecastaldo_artandbooks

Diane Churn

Diane is a professional photographer with nearly 20 years of experience. She primarily focuses on children and family portraiture, with a specialty in black and white hand-colored prints. She loves to use natural lighting and expressions, and poses that come easily to her clients. She also creates custom-made frames, glass tiles, books, cards, lampshades, wall murals, and magnet boards for her clients to showcase their photos. She shoots around the country, with a concentration in Atlanta, Georgia and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where she resides with her three children.

CATHERINE CLEMENTS

Catherine Clements is a papermaker and book artist living in Athens, GA. She received her master’s degree from the UGA Printmaking and Book Arts program in 2019. She completed her undergraduate studies in printmaking and arts management at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, OH in 2013. Her work has been exhibited nationally at such venues as Core New Art Space in Denver, CO, the Maryland Federation of Art in Annapolis, MD, and the Pasaquan Visionary Art Site in Buena Vista, GA. Catherine has attended workshops and residencies at Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Spark Box Studio, the Hambidge Center for Arts and Sciences, and Frogman’s Print Workshop, among others. Her research interests include constructed and inherited identities; the history of paper, printmaking, and other information technologies; the phenomenology of communication and encoding meaning and messages within materials. // @c_clemgram

Tom Egan

Tom Egan has been a studio potter since 1993. His ceramic studies began at a community arts center and have continued through the years with international travel exploring pottery traditions and attending workshops with nationally recognized potters, including Warren McKenzie, Don Reitz, Paul Soldner, Ron Myers, Cynthia Bringle, Peter Volkous, Tom Coleman, Tom Collins, Michael Simon, Bill van Gilder, Kuroemon Kumano, and Ben Owen III. He currently maintains and operates his own studio with the use of various firing techniques including a stoneware kiln that he personally designed and built. He has attended woodfirings throughout the southeast and worked closely with artists to learn the intricacies of woodfiring. He led the Hambidge anagama firings for the last seven years, and in the last three years he has leading woodfiring workshops throughout the Southeast. He also gives talks on woodfiring, tea bowls as an introduction to the Japanese pottery aesthetic, and the importance of handmade objects in today’s society. He currently teaches pottery classes at the Sewell Mill Arts Center in Marietta, GA. // @tomeganpottery

Sabre Esler

Sabre Esler is an Atlanta-based mixed media artist. Her work focuses on the architecture of thought, and she uses research from mathematics, neurology, and psychology to inform the patterns in her work. Her art has been showcased in exhibitions around the globe, including Art Basel Miami. Her works are in permanent collections at The Federal Reserve Bank, Ritz Carlton, Tufts University, and Hilton Hotels, among others. Sabre has a BFA in graphic design/illustration from Miami University, with a minor in biology, and an MFA in painting from Savannah College of Art and Design where she is an adjunct professor. // @sabreeslerfineart

Chad Hellem

Atlanta native Chad Hellem began working in the food service industry at age 13, helping his dad cater barbeque on weekends. His first ‘real job’ was in a grocery store, and since then, he has been the kitchen manager and experimental chef at a sorority house and interned in a parrilla steakhouse in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He also trained at the Hillstone Biltmore in Phoenix, Arizona in their restaurant management program. Chad graduated from the University of Georgia with degrees in supply chain management and Spanish, but his passion for food and people led him to travel Europe and subsequently join Local Three in Buckhead to continue his food journey. He has a strong interest in international cuisine and enjoys bringing smiles and fond memories to everyone he meets. // @chadthefooddude

Tom Francis

Wisconsin born artist Tom Francis is Professor Emeritus of Painting at SCAD-Atlanta. He received his B.S., M.A. and M.F.A. degrees in Painting from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Francis’ paintings have been exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the United States and abroad, including the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis; The High Museum of Art in Atlanta; MOCA-GA in Atlanta; Montgomery Museum of Fine Art in Alabama; the Georgia Museum of Fine Art in Athens; the Columbia Museum of Art in South Carolina; the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum in Biloxi, Mississippi; Fay Gold Gallery in Atlanta; Sylvia Schmidt Gallery in New Orleans; KLIM Galleries in Toronto, Canada; and the Chapelle de la Sorbonne in Paris; Refectoire des Jacobins in Toulouse, France; and Palazzo Venezia in Rome; Westmont Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA. In addition, his work is in numerous private, public and corporate collections, including those of the Chase Manhattan Bank, Champion Corporation, Savannah College of Art and Design, Lorimar Productions, Disney Corporation, Coca Cola USA; the State of Georgia, and the State of Wisconsin. // @tom_francis_art

Jen Giersch

Jen Giersch works in textiles and loves to make ordinary things from repurposed materials. Inspired by her grandmother, a depression-era farmer, she has made a few social statements on an old canvas drop cloth. When asked why her work is so imperfect and uneven, she brilliantly skirted the truth by replying, “It is a metaphor for the way we pass judgment every day.”

Kaye Lee Patton

Kaye Lee Patton is a visual artist and graphic designer currently based in Atlanta, Georgia. Born in Seoul, South Korea as Lee Ko Won, she moved to the United States at the age of twelve, legally changing her name to Kaye Lee Patton. She is interested in the idea of culture and identity in relation to history, geography, and everyday materials. Before 2011 Kaye lived and worked as a branding and packaging designer in Chicago before moving to Atlanta to complete her MFA in painting from Savannah College of Art and Design. Her career as a graphic designer highly influences her work, as evident in the use of graphic shapes, typography and colors in her paintings, murals, and even in her paper makings. Her exhibits include Gathered: Georgia Artists Selecting Georgia Artists 2015 at The Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia (MOCA GA); WAP Apprentice Exhibition, MOCA GA in 2015, and other various group and solo shows in Atlanta and the Midwest since 2008. In 2019, Patton participated in Stacks Squares and Forward Warriors, both a community mural painting event in Cabbagetown, Atlanta.

Ciel Rodriguez

Ciel Rodriguez is a papermaker, letterpress printer, and book binder. She completed her BFA at the Art Institute of Chicago and is currently pursuing her MFA at the University of Georgia in printmaking and book arts. She is drawn to the book’s ability to be an intimate, personal space and views a book as a gathering of thoughts and reflections, a record, and a moment shared between author and reader. The physicality of Ciel’s prints, books and photographs allow viewers to experience intimate connections where things can bubble to the surface, if you let them.

Ashley L. Schick

Ashley L. Schick works in printmaking and paper arts, inspired by the flora and fauna of her neighborhood walks. Her artwork has been exhibited nationally and internationally, has been installed in film sets, and is held in multiple private and university collections including Vanderbilt, University of Florida, Baylor, and the Renaissance Atlanta Airport Gateway Hotel. Schick was an artist’s assistant to sculptor Brian Dettmer and a resident in the Creatives Project’s Studio Program (2011-2013). She earned an MFA in Printmaking, where she also worked as the lead printer and constructor for Kiki Smith’s artist book Color Noise. She has completed studio work at Ballinglen Art Foundation in Ireland, the UF Paris Research Center in France, and at the Skopelos Foundation in Greece. Schick is an Upper School Visual Arts Faculty member at the Lovett School. She lives and works in Atlanta, GA. // @ashleylschick

Allison Shockley

Allison Shockley is an Atlanta based painter, sculptor, and drawer who has been exhibiting her artwork in Atlanta and beyond since 1998. Her emotive ink wash paintings seek to evoke the experience of the intangible, sensual worlds that we each have within us by capturing the essence of feeling through intuitive and expressive painting techniques. She is influenced by Japanese and Chinese brush painting, Expressionism, and the Wabi-sabi aesthetic. Allison is an assistant professor of art at Georgia State University Perimeter College. She has a BA in anthropology from Emory University, a BFA from the Atlanta College of Art and an MFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design. // @aparkershockley

aLICE STone-Collins

Alice Stone-Collins is an artist currently living outside of Atlanta, GA with her family. She earned her MFA in studio art from the University of Tennessee and has exhibited her work regionally and nationally. Throughout her career as an artist, Alice uses snapshots of her life, which explore various borders—home and leaving, loss and change, family and freedom. Asking questions of tradition and resistant to the ties that bind, her work questions if beauty can come from the mundane, the everyday. Currently, Alice is a faculty member at Georgia Gwinnett College in Metro Atlanta. // @alicestonecollins

Robert Thompson

Robert Thompson is a sculptor, printmaker, and fiber artist practicing in Fairburn, Georgia. The focus of his work is on tracing place. Through his papermaking process, he allows the fibers to reveal the significance of the locations of their sources. He can trace every paper he makes to a specific farm, market, or yard – an exciting journey that reveals the uniqueness of each place. Thompson is a recognized authority on plant fiber-based papermaking and has taught workshops throughout the southeastern United States, including the Salvador Dali Museum, Tampa Museum of Art, USF Botanical Garden, Florida Gulf Coast University, University, Agnes Scott College, West Georgia University, and the Gulf Coast Museum of Art. // @lot10paper