Meet The Makers
The Meet the Makers series features talented Makers throughout Chicagoland discussing and demonstrating their work, from weaving and screen-printing, to pottery and glassmaking and more! Each segment explores the unique creative inspiration and practices of our featured artists. Meet our Makers and find recordings of past events below.
Learn more about the Makerplace.
Sarah Holden
Sarah Holden received her Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art with a focus in Jewelry and Metalsmithing from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Crafts/Material Studies and Sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University. Sarah has presented as a visiting artist at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, The University of Wisconsin, Whitewater and taught as a Metals Instructor at The Penland School of Crafts. Sarah currently teaches steel fabrication and metal forming at The Chicago Industrial Arts and Design Center. Sarah’s sculpture and limited production jewelry can be found in exhibitions and at galleries across the US. Sarah currently lives in Chicago where she works as a studio artist, metals instructor and mom.
Artist Showcase
Color and Ruff Detail | Dictchev Collar Detail | Brooch Details
Paige Gardner
Paige Gardner is an award-winning costume artist who regularly appears as a guest presenter on unconventional costuming at science fiction and fantasy conventions in the U.S. and Canada. Creating extravagant and eye-catching looks, Paige is recognized for her “costume as art” ethic through original projects constructed from found, salvaged or vintage items. As a costumer who doesn’t sew, Paige is a popular panelist who shares her enthusiasm for costuming with the minimum of resources and the maximum of tenacity! Paige’s humorous approach to daunting projects features shocking shortcuts, fresh ideas, and eccentric tips for building costumes using salvaged items, thrift store finds and other unlikely oddments. Paige’s costuming work has appeared in national news outlets, magazines, television and independent film as well as being featured in books, including “1000 Steampunk Creations”, “1000 Cosplay Creations” and “The Steampunk User’s Manual” by Jeff VandeMeer. Her ‘costume art’ projects have been exhibited at various venues around the United States, most recently at ‘Odd Beauty’ (New York) and the Morris Museum’s ‘Steampunk Fashion’ exhibition (New Jersey).
Click Here to Read Her Full Biography
Artist Showcase
Merry McQueen Steampunk | Kokoshnik Stained Glass | Tarot Steampunk
Matt Maldonado
With over a decade of experience in the Themed Entertainment Industry, Matt Maldonado's passion for art, design, storytelling and miniature model making has inspired him tremendously throughout his career. This passion has led his career down many different paths. After bringing to life some memorable projects for Universal Studios Hollywood such as the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Production Designer and Art Director for Halloween Horror Nights, Lunar New Year, and Grinchmas, Matt then, spent some time at the edge of the galaxy working on Star Wars - Galaxy’s Edge at the Disneyland Resort. His strong work ethic and the ability to develop a project from conception to realization has not only lead him to work one some amazing projects but has given him the opportunity to collaborate with some amazing people.
Recommended Resources by the Maker
- “Dream It! Do It! My Half Century Creating Disney’s Magic Kingdom" by Marty Sklar (https://www.ahml.info/catalog/record/2044909)
- “Sculpting a Galaxy - Inside the Star Wars Model Shop" by Lorne Peterson (https://www.ahml.info/catalog/record/1820444)
- “The Art of Walt Disney” by Christopher Finch
Artist Showcase
Ill Gotten Games
Ill Gotten Games: Taking print-and-play to the new dimension. We're making tabletop gaming inclusive, creative, and fun. How? By innovating our own games and incorporating accessible 3D printing technology.
Arian "Dutchmogul" Croft has been an artist, designer, developer, and entrepreneur since childhood. Having cycled through traditional tabletop mini painting, mixed media, junk building, and many other artistic expressions, he discovered 3D design in 2011 and hasn't looked back. By designing his own game pieces, printing them himself on his Replicator 2, and working at a record pace, he's now changing the way 3D printing influences game design internationally.
Jeremy Larsen is a renaissance man, creating art through woodworking, music, bike maintenance, and exceptional parenting. Once Arian awakened the long-dormant gaming beast within Jeremy, he embraced the 3D design, the painting, the 3D printing, and all the game developments in between.
Recommended Resources by the Maker
- Tinkercad - free design software: https://www.tinkercad.com/
- Sculptris - free design software that is unfortunately no longer supported by the software designer. They've replaced it with ZBrushProMini, but we haven't used it. https://zbrushcore.com/mini/
- Blender: https://www.blender.org/
- Meshmixer: https://www.meshmixer.com/
- Nomad Sculpt - awesome design program for an iPad: https://nomadsculpt.com/
Shannon Downey
Shannon Downey is an artist, activist, craftivist, and community builder who works in embroidery. She blends activism and art into projects that are designed to inspire others to take action, think, discuss, engage with democracy and their community, and find some digital/analog balance. Coming up with and executing on big ideas is her jam. She creates art to inspire other people to create art.
Artist Showcase
Laurie Freivogel
Laurie Freivogel has been creating screen-printed, fused glass goods in her Oak Park studio since 2004. While Freivogel has her BFA in drawing, she is a self-taught glass artist, and through extensive experimentation, figured out how to incorporate her imagery onto kiln-formed glass by utilizing screen printing techniques learned in art school.
Since then, she has gone on to develop a line of colorful and contemporary coasters, platters, bowls and more. Each piece is screen printed by hand with fine glass enamels, then fused in a kiln in multiple firings to achieve it's final shape. Imagery includes Freivogel's graphic designs, botanical drawings, pop culture imagery and iconic city landmarks.
Freivogel participates in one art show per year - the Chicago Art Girls Pop-Up Shop in North Center, and largely sells wholesale to independent retailers and museum shops. She also sells her work online and at her twice annual open studios in Oak Park.
Resources Recommended by the Maker
- Laurie Freivogel Website
- Bullseye glass (glass for fusing needs to be compatible, only one kind is used)
- Ed Hoy's International (one of the country’s largest Bullseye distributor)
- Tutorials by Warm Glass
- The Chicago Art Girls (an all-women, local artist community that has helped Laurie Freivogel with her career)
Artist Showcase
William Estrada
William Estrada is an arts educator and multidisciplinary artist. His art and teaching is a collaborative discourse that critically re-examines public and private spaces with people to engage in radical imagination. He has presented in various panels regarding community programming, arts integration and social justice curricula. He is currently a Visual Arts Teacher at Telpochcalli Elementary and faculty at the School of Art and Art History at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Estrada is engaging in collaborative work with the Mobilize Creative Collaborative, Chicago ACT Collective and Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative. His current research is focused on developing community-based and culturally relevant projects that center power structures of race, economy and cultural access in contested spaces that provide a space to collectively imagine just futures..
Resources Recommended by the Maker
SHENEQUA
SHENEQUA is an Artprenuer who received her Masters of Design in Fashion, Body and Garment at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago under the mentorship of Nick Cave and Liat Stemad. Her solo exhibition Woven Narratives was on view at Haw Contemporary (Stockyards) in Kansas City from September 20 to October 30, 2019. She has exhibited her works in Performing Labor at Patricia Sweetow Gallery in San Francisco, The Space We Grow Into at Woman Made Gallery in Chicago, and Mane N’ Tail at The Luminary in St. Louis, to name a few.
A featured artist for "Ties that Bind" in American Craft Magazine and in The Kansas City Star, she spoke about her process of weaving synthetic-hair in relationship to the African-American Hair Experience. She was 2014’s Windgate Fellow of the Center for Craft and 2017-2018’s recipient of the inaugural YoungArts Daniel Arsham Fellowship, presented by the Ridinger-McLaughlin Family. SHENEQUA weaves the memories shared with the women in her life, Caribbean roots, Ghanaian experience and celebrates the black hair salon.
Resources Recommended by the Maker
- You Are a Badass at Making Money: Master the Mindset of Wealth by Jen Sincero
- The Artist's Guide: How To Make A Living Doing What You Love by Jackie Battenfield
- SHENEQUA Facebook Page
- SHENEQUA Instagram Page
- SHENEQUA Website
- "SHENEQUA At Chicago Expo"
Artist Showcase
Nastasiya Marusyk
Nastasiya Marusyk was born in the Bukovyna region of Ukraine, in a family where folk customs and art traditions were respected. She is a master of traditional of folk art, researcher of Ukrainian folk culture, ethnographer, collector of Ukrainian folk antiquities and member of the Ukrainian Folk Art Masters’ Union.
Her area of creative interests include artwork in particular hand art embroidery, beadwork design, beads decoration of folk costumes and more.
Marusyk is the head of the Bead Art Studio in the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art and of the children’s art studio Gerdan in the art school in Saint Nicholas Cathedral, a reporter for the American Ukrainian independent newspaper Time and Events, and has conducted radio programs on Ukrainian ethnic topics on UkieDrive Radio (Chicago, USA).
Resources Recommended by the Maker
- Nastasiya Marusyk Facebook Page
- Nastasiya Marusyk Etsy Page
- Nastasiya Marusyk’s creative works include the following books: Bukovyna Colors (Kyiv, Narodni Dzerela, 2006), Bukovyna Embroidery and weaving: Signs-Symbols (Kyiv-Chernivtsi, 2011), Ancient Beaded Artwork from Bukovyna (Kyiv, Narodni Dzerela, 2017) and Beading Therapy (Kyiv, 2019).
Artist Showcase
Julie Kittredge
Local and self-taught ceramic artist, Julie Kittredge is no stranger to creative entrepreneurship. Starting with sketching portraits in the early days, to a 10-year family photography business, and now her ultimate dream of throwing pottery in her home studio, Julie is passionate about encouraging creators and makers of all kinds to step out into the one-of-a-kind call of their heart.
Resources Recommended by the Maker
- Julie Kittredge Website
- Ceramics Supply Chicago for traditional ceramics supplies
- Newberry Library
- Dick Blick for supplies and air dry clay
- Simon Leach Tutorials
Artist Showcase
Tim Harrison
Tim Harrison aka HDC is a master-level, award-winning costumer, craftsmanship judge and industry fabricator who first got his start in August 2012. Practical effects, sculpting, casting, foamsmithing, leatherworking, 3D printing, some sewing and metal-work are just some of the skills he has brought to the table, along with being known for fine detail work and a cinematic level of finishing. Providing costume design and fabrication work for costumers, film and theater, he has had work featured in Image Comics and Marvel Comics, Chicago theater shows and select films. He continues to spread his zest for life, knowledge and love of the craft in the form of workshops, panels and by sharing as much experience and information as he can. In 2017, Harrison Designs and Concepts, or HDC, was formally founded and continues to bring your fantasy to reality in 2020.
Resources Recommended by the Maker
Tanner Woodford
Tanner Woodford is the founder, executive director and board member of the Design Museum of Chicago, where he leads strategy, partnerships and special projects. He received a BS in Design from Arizona State University in 2009, and returned to teach in 2010. More recently, he teaches Design Thinking For Social Change at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and paints large scale typographic murals across public spaces on nights and weekends. In 2020, he was appointed by Mayor Lori Lightfoot to the City of Chicago’s Cultural Advisory Council. As a designer, educator and entrepreneur, he has taught, lectured and led workshops on design issues, social change and design history in classrooms and at conferences. He is happy to be scrappy, irrepressibly optimistic and believes design has the capacity to fundamentally improve the human condition.
Resources Recommended by the Maker
- People's Graphic Design Archive
- Letterform Archive
- Newberry Library
- Art Institute of Chicago (Architecture and Design Collection)
- UIC Richard J Dailey Library
- CPS All City Visual Arts
- Exhibitions
- "Postcards to Chicago"