Artists & Instructors @ Manor Mill
We feel so grateful to have such a large group of talented artists coming to the Mill to teach and share their work. Feel free to email us at info@manor-mill.com if you’d like us to set up a private class or workshop! Visit our Master Calendar to register for something coming up, and sign up for our newsletter for up-to-date class information!
Annie Howe
Annie Howe is a multimedia paper cut artist based in Baltimore, Maryland. Her intricate papercuts are used for a variety of projects including illustration, surface design, and more recently three-dimensional work. Annie has created work for numerous organizations and businesses including Anthropologie, T. Rowe Price, Neighborhood Design Center, Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts, and the University of Maryland Medical Center. With over 12 years of workshop teaching experience, Annie leads workshops for small groups, large groups, young and old, artists and non- artists.
Annie teaches at museums, summer camps, libraries, universities and private homes.
Instagram: @anniehowepapercuts
Emily Bell
Emily Bell has called the mountains of Western North Carolina her home for over a decade, though she is a Baltimore County native and looks forward to sharing this craft in her hometown.
Descended from a long line of grandmothers whose bones now rest in the Appalachian mountains, she has chosen to reclaim her ties to her heritage through a craft of hand tied brooms. She views her work as practical art: one that embodies beauty, simplicity, heritage, and functionality.
Instagram: @rhythm.and.ritual.craft
Phil Gay
Phil has been a fly fisherman for more than 50 years and has tying flies for most of that time. He has also taught fly tying classes at a fly shop in Arlington, VA as well as many individual lessons in his home on the Gunpowder River.
Phil is the owner and head guide at Trout & About and has fished and guided all over the US and many other countries. He primarily guides and teaches on the Gunpowder River. He is also a Master Certified Casting Instructor through Fly Fishers International.
Chris Lōser
Chris Lōser is a musician from Monkton MD. He grew up in central Pennsylvania and quickly realized music was his passion. He started his career before leaving high school, teaching lessons after school and gigging on weekends. Chris is a top call jazz drummer, and has had the pleasure of sharing the stage with world class musicians, such as Tim Warfield, John Swana, Steve Rudolph, Anthony Wellington, Chris Bacas, among others. As a composer, his music covers a wide variety of styles, and includes scoring short films and writing for music libraries. His latest self produced release, titled 'Strange Fates', is a retro-futuristic blend of electronic and analog sounds, inspired by the art of Simon Ståhlenhag, and heralded as "unique, enchanting, and deeply moving". Chris also runs a recording studio for solo artists, small groups, and teaching music production. Please visit www.chrisloser.com for more info.
Kas Rohm
A native of Maryland currently living in the Towson area, Kas Rohm has developed her own watercolor style by blending her love of color, composition, and technique. Watercolor, her primary medium, is beautifully fluid and presents as both versatile and challenging, lending itself gracefully to realism as well as to impressionistic studies.
Kas finds inspiration for her art from the natural world around her, including waterfowl and other flora and fauna. At times she finds ways to infuse her sense of humor in her works through personification and cartooning.
Shelley Stockett
As a Canadian immigrant and now a citizen of the United States Shelley has lived in Maryland since March of 2000. She is a fourth generation (and maybe more) creator of all crafting and artistic endeavors involving wools and threads of all textures and qualities from knitting to needle point with too many to list. She first learned to knit at the feet of her grandmother before she can remember and created her first self-designed afghan at the age of 10. Shelley started teaching individuals and selling her work beginning when she was 13 (a long time ago in her words). One-of-a-kind designs have become most of her projects along with endeavors to teach others not only "how to" follow a pattern but also how students can use their imagination and creativity to design their own unique items. Shelley was a college instructor for many years during her work life and enjoys teaching adults. Shelley also tested many crochet and knit patterns before they reached publication- neat! We hope you will enjoy any class offered by Shelley at Manor Mill.
Bey-Her Baskets
Bey-Her Baskets grew from Louise and June being co-workers, friends, and taking basketry classes together. They were intrigued about how you could make something so strong, long-lasting and useful with just your hands and minimal tools. That began their love of basketry and their love of sharing basketry through classes they teach, interacting with the public at craft shows and other venues, and becoming active members of a basketry guild. Their passion grew to designing original baskets and experiencing different material. Over the past twenty-five years, they have grown their skills and basketry knowledge to include many different basket styles, taking classes from basketry teachers from all over the country. . The reward of hearing praise about their craftsmanship, the delight of a beginner weaver taking one of their classes and interacting with the “basketry community” has led to hours of pleasure for them as they continue to pursue the art of basketry.
Facebook: Bey Her Baskets
Michael Guarraia
Since an early age, Michael has been interested in all things mechanical, from hammering nails into a stump when barely old enough to walk, to disassembling small appliances throughout grade school. This led to training and a career in engineering, followed by teaching engineering for more than a decade, and ultimately becoming a nationally recognized STEM educator working at NASA. While in the classroom, Michael worked hard to ensure manufacturing and fabrication processes were integral in his engineering curricula and has taught hundreds of students how to weld. Michael currently balances working for an education nonprofit, running a small metal-art business, and working on a local organic poultry and hog farm.
Sarah Travers
My name is Sarah Travers and I am a former Nurse Manager turned Board Certified Holistic Health Coach. I left the bedside to help guide clients through their deep transformational and healing journeys. I built Green Perspective Coaching to directly support people as they make changes in their health, relationships, careers, and family lives.
Tara Gillespie
Tara Gillespie (b.1983, Baltimore, MD) is an abstract artist with a passion for contemporary art. In 2018 she started mixing her own acrylic paints and experimenting with resin, amongst other materials, and her practice has evolved since. Her studio is based in Timonium, MD.
Tara has recently joined the fine art festival circuit and will be an exhibitor at this year's American Craft Made Baltimore convention. Select pieces of her work are currently on display, and available for purchase, in the Femme Fatale DC store in Washington DC. She also reveals her techniques in her studio offering in-person acrylic paint pouring classes for adults and children. Past events include FaerieCon 2022, The Chevy Chase Fine Art Festival 2022, a 2019 pop-up art exhibition titled “Blurred Boundaries,” Karmafest, and the 2020 RAW Artists Baltimore Showcase.
Instagram: @taragill_art
Kristina Kriss
Kristina Kriss, the pyrographer and mixed media artist behind K. L. Kriss Studio, is a Maryland native. Most of her work is inspired by nature and the magic of storytelling. She grew up playing in the woods and corn fields of northern Harford County and spent many summers on the Chesapeake Bay sketching wildlife from her father's fishing boat. These experiences helped shape her style as an artist. Over the years, she has dabbled in many creative interests such as photography, journalism, oil and watercolor, leather, sewing, fiction writing, digital art, and pyrography. She has degrees from Washington College on the Eastern shore and JHU, and multiple awards from the MDDC Press Association. She discovered pyrography in 2016 and opened an Etsy shop during the pandemic. What is pyrography? Good question - it means to draw with fire. Kristina is always exploring new canvases to burn, from wood to fabric, cork, and more. She makes art most days from her home studio in Towson where she lives with her husband, two kids, and Bernese Mountain Dog.
Candice Jasper
Valley Mill Microgreens is a woman owned, indoor microgreens farm located in Freeland, Maryland. The farm was founded in September 2021 by Candice Gasper. Candice discovered her interest in agriculture when she started volunteering at her neighborhood farmer’s market in 2016 and at a nearby urban farm in Washington DC. In 2018, Candice completed her Permaculture Design Certification and traveled to the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region of France to work on two organic farms for several weeks through the program WWOOF France. Candice has held various roles at Little Wild Things City Farm, Gotham Greens, and Karma Farm. After enough experience, Candice opened Valley Mill Microgreens and sells over 30 varieties of microgreens to Baltimore restaurants and twice a week at Central Market in York, PA.
Courtney Cohen
Courtney has had the pleasure of making agriculture/horticulture her career for over a decade. It took her all over this country, from the foothills of Appalachia to the peony fields of Alaska. When she returned to Baltimore in 2017 she started tinkering with the idea of starting her own farm. With a whole lot of help, encouragement and sweat Spore and Seed was created in 2018 and we haven’t looked back since. We are committed to providing our local community with high quality fresh cut flowers, dried flower products and mushrooms grown in a way that honors nature. We love being able to provide products that nourish belly and soul while remaining true to our environmental stewardship beliefs.
Instagram: @sporeandseed
April Snyder
A lifelong art enthusiast, April Snyder’s wool interest began early in life when her sister purchased a flock of Border Leister sheep. Together, they attended the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival in the 70s and since that moment in time, April has been hooked on all things wool including knitting, traditional rug hooking and rug punching. As an avid gardener with a background in graphic design, April draws her inspiration from life on her farm in Northern Baltimore County. Taking a cue from nature, she custom draws her rug designs and even dyes her own wool to get the perfect color to complete her vision. April is a member of ATHA and became a Certified Oxford Punch Needle Rug Hooking Instructor in 2019.
Instrgram: @sweetautumnstudio
Cheryl Bubier
I have been a working artist for 25 years, showing my paintings and ceramics around the country. I have an M. F. A. from Pratt Institute, and I am a founding member and President of The Northern Baltimore County Art Foundation. I have taught art for 20 years, and I am currently the art teacher for the lower school at St. James Academy.
Instagram: @cherylbubier
Mike Bare
I draw inspiration from nature and the surrounding landscape. What interests me as an artist is not only the formal qualities of solving the puzzle, but how creativity and the arts lead to the unknown and connect the dots in unexpected ways.
Michael lives in Monkton with his wife Joanne. He is a MICA graduate and has been a lifelong artist/educator.
Joanne Bare
Joanne began a study of painting at the Schuler School of Fine Arts as a teen. Since that time, she has earned a Master’s of Art Education from Towson University and has received in instruction in painting, printmaking, and fresco painting from instructors at the Maryland Institute College of Art and Art New England in Vermont. Joanne recently retired from a thirty-year teaching career in Baltimore County Public Schools. She enjoys painting mostly plein air both locally and abroad. “I try to capture the ever changing and sometimes-mysterious effects of light and atmosphere found in nature. Inspiration comes from early Italian Renaissance and Medieval paintings, Corot’s Italian landscape sketches along with other contemporary artists”. Joanne continues to enjoy traveling and painting with her husband, Michael Bare.
Bim Jones
I can't remember a day of my life that I wasn't already addicted to the act of creating.
I grew up in the suburbs of Washington, DC and learned first from the artists around me. My parents and grandparents, though not professional artists, were extremely creative people who consistently filled their lives and mine with making things of one kind or another.
As I got older, and through college, the more I learned about art and other artists and every new way of making things, the more I liked it and the more addicted I became. I pursued art through my undergraduate years, through years of child-rearing and now into the great unknown...as always...
Today, I live in rural Baltimore County with my husband, our dogs, an ever-varying number of children...and four exquisite, precious and endlessly entertaining grandchildren.
Mary Swann
Mary Swann is a landscape painter, formerly a narrative quiltmaker, and recently a printmaker. She has spent most of her adult life somewhere in the countryside and now lives on a nearby farm with her husband, Josh Brumfield, a fine woodworker. Returning to school in the 1980’s, she received a BFA in Painting from MICA, only to return once more to take classes in Printmaking throughout the 2000’s. Her latest passion is color Reduction Blockprinting, which she is dying to share with anyone daring enough to take it on.
website: marymcbpaintings.com
Alison Maxwell
I am a Baltimore County based fiber artist, who is inspired by nature. I have a degree in Studio Art, Fiber Art from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, but I am self-taught in needle felting. I source my wool locally, when I can. If I cannot, I source my wool from three US based Etsy shops. I pride myself in making sustainable pieces of fiber art.
Instagram: @feltupgirl
Rita Baker-Schmidt
Rita is a singer, songwriter and instrumentalist from the Hereford. A lifelong musician she started teaching Voice, Piano, Guitar, and later Ukulele, Music Theory and Boomwhackers about a decade ago. She teaches privately in the Northern Baltimore County Area and is the former Director of Music at EMC Performing Arts Studio in New Freedom, PA. Rita is a long time Music Minister at Our Lady of Grace where she sings and plays Bass and D’jembe for the Contemporary Music Band.
Ben Smith
Ben Smith was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. Growing up between the rolling hills of northern Harford County to the family house on the Chesapeake Bay.
Since youth Ben was drawn to craft and working with his hands. Following this passion, he attended a technical school for machining and precision manufacturing. He then attended Salisbury University where he graduated with a BFA in glass. This union of metal and glass is ever present in Ben's work. Postgraduate he assisted at the Chrysler Museum Glass Studio in Norfolk, Virginia. Ben spent several years traveling the country working in different glass studios and continuing to cultivate a body of work. Ben now resides in Baltimore, Maryland where he teaches classes and makes his own artwork in a public studio.
Payton Pan
As a young and experimental photographer, Payton Pan blurs the lines between various genres in the art form, including international travel photography and photojournalism. He has previously taught nature photography courses at Irvine Nature Center. Using his camera, Payton has documented stories ranging from the deaths of migratory bird populations to the battle for renewable energy. With this focus on environmental conservation, his Maryland-based nature photography has been published by organizations such as NeighborSpace and Precision Camera. His outdoor photography benefits from a deep connection with the natural world; Payton is an Eagle Scout and his adventurous pursuits often open exciting new sights to photograph. He also combines photography with creative writing, and finds new ways to push the medium towards its poetic and fine art edges.
Website: paytonpan.com
Instagram: @paytonschreiberpan
Jillian Roper
Jillian Roper is a Maryland based printmaker and founder of Jump Jack Studio. Roper’s imagery is inspired by the nature that surrounds her Carroll County home. Her wood and linoleum block prints frequently include animal imagery and elements of storytelling, two of Roper’s greatest loves. A graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art with over 22 years of experience in public arts education, Roper is a highly trained artist and teacher, as committed to community engagement as she is to her own art practice.
Susan Weis-Bohlen
Susan Weis-Bohlen, the former owner of Breathe Books, has written three books on Ayurveda and is a contributor to several magazines and online forums. She is a certified Ayurvedic practitioner and Certified teacher of the Gateless Method of Writing. Learn more about Susan here.
Val Lucas
Val Lucas, artist and educator, is the proprietor of Bowerbox Press, specializing in woodcut and letterpress prints, bookbinding, and custom design and printing. She teaches Letterpress and Bookbinding at Towson University and offers related workshops. Val is a graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art, and lives in Monkton, MD.
Instagram: @bowerbox
Lynne Jones
After taking art and mechanical drawing classes in high school and college, working in a frame shop was a natural direction for me, combining the two studies.
I learned the basics of picture framing from 1976-78 in local shops.
In 1978 I opened my first frame studio and gallery in Towson.
Moved to Balto. in 1980 and operated another shop within an established gallery and helped train other framers.
After relocating back to the HZ, I continued to work in the framing industry, specializing in museum conservation practices.
Currently I assist other framers needing more technical insight into their projects.
Rog Hicks
Rog has been teaching art for more than 26 years. She has taught a wide variety of mediums from drawing and painting to fiber and clay arts.
Her philosophy is that everyone possesses that creative spark. One only needs to open one’s mind to the possibilities that artistic expression has to offer in order to light that spark.
Rog lives on a small alpaca farm near Bel Air, Maryland where she paints her alpacas and dogs with acrylic and oil paint but also enjoys using fiber to “paint” her creations
Rog holds a BFA from the Philadelphia College of Art. She is the middle school art teacher at St. James Academy.
Lucie Pentz
Everything is a potential craft material… that’s what Lucie discovered when “knitting” with grass at age four growing up in a creative family. This love for anything artsy-craftsy was deepened when she started taking art classes at Lidová Škola Umění in Czechoslovakia (modern day Czech Republic).
She’s tried it all, but she feels especially happy when working with yarn, fabric and a fun pair of socks. In 2009 she made her first sock monkey and has been hooked ever since. Yes, several hundreds of them (she stopped counting) are living all around the world spreading sock monkey happiness.
She loves incorporating crafts into her work with students as a Child Psychologist at St. James Academy in Monkton, MD.
instagram: @sock_monkey_familia
Nancy Fine
Nancy Fine’s interest in Plein Air painting has evolved over the past six years. In a transition from the detail of realism, Plein Air has provided the perfect vehicle for expressing her love of the outdoors and awareness of nature. The success of Nancy’s work is the result of not only her interpretation of the ever-changing natural surroundings, but of her use of lush colors, and freedom of brushwork and pallet knife.
How fortunate to have the 24,000 acre Pretty Boy Watershed in her backyard, a perfect spot to disappear for hours—just an artist, her easel, backpack, and her dog, Luna. Whether it’s a beaver pond, a stand of trees in winter, or a rushing stream in spring, Nancy finds a way to connect. From time to time, she is approached by passersby who observe her doing her artwork and want to buy her paintings.
Pam Miller
Cheesemaker Pam Miller, owner of Charlottetown Farm was raised on a farm in Monkton MD where she was an active member of the Sparks 4H club and the Hereford FFA chapter in her youth. Through these programs Pam learned the importance of agriculture and eating local.
In 2003 Pam‘s daughter Allison was involved in 4-H and showing cattle and goats. For the next 8 years she made cheese from the milk of those goats for her family and friends and eventually decided to turn it into a business.
Charlottetown Farm serves many restaurants, farmers market and community festivals and has been going strong for over 10 years.
Instagram: @Charlottetownfarm
Facebook Charlottetownfarm
Website: Charlottetownfarm.com
Sara Smigle
Sara Smigle is a stained glass artist based outside of Baltimore. She learned the craft almost accidentallythrough the continuing education program at CCBC, when the glass blowing course she was interested in didn't fit her schedule or budget, causing her to sign up for the "next best thing." Call it fate because there she fell in love with the deeply satisfying and therapeutic nature of the all the steps in the stained glass process and most importantly the beautiful colors and textures of the glass itself. It is virtually impossible to become bored or uninspired while working in this medium.
Sara specializes in modern stained glass design with tons of colors and texture. Her pieces have traveled into many homes all over the world, but especially in Baltimore where you can find many of her locally themed pieces such as the ever popular lemon stick.
What started as a hobby has become Sara's full time career and passion, which she would love to share with the world. What better way to achieve this goal than to teach others and hopefully ignite a fire in them as well.
instagram: @smiggart
Bo Willse
Bolling Willse is a local Monkton philosopher/photographer who has been capturing light for most of his life. He built his own darkroom when he was in middle school and dreamed of someday having the skill and resources to process and print color photographs. Bo spent much of his work life as a systems consultant for personal computers beginning in 1984. He spent his time building local area networks and teaching software applications. He developed and delivered computer literacy and advanced training courses for some of Baltimore’s most well knows companies. In 1997 Bo developed a strategy for capturing digital still images (using PC technology) from video sources. Finally, he could capture and print color photographs, which did not require a darkroom or toxic chemicals. Two years later he had acquired his first digital camera. Since then, he has captured and saved approximately 500,000 digital images, using a wide array of equipment. Bo has learned and used dozens of image editing software tools. Presently he employs smartphone, mirrorless, and traditional “DSLR” cameras in his craft.
Bo has developed a philosophy of photography in the age of social media and smartphone ubiquity.
David Powell
David Powell has been researching his own family history for over 25 years. Dave is the immediate past president of the Baltimore County Genealogical Society and he is currently treasurer of that organization. He is also a member of the Maryland Genealogical Society and a member of its Board of Directors.
Dave teaches genealogy courses at the Community College of Baltimore County and at local senior centers, libraries and genealogy societies. He has given numerous talks on genealogy, DNA, and foreign research throughout Maryland. He has done extensive research for himself and clients with family trees from France, Scotland, Wales, England, Canada, Poland, the United States and other countries.
Maxi Cifarelli
Maxi Cif Designs is a one-woman company, striving to create simple, ethical, sterling jewelry, inspired by the earth and moon. Formally trained in metal working and digital object design, Maxi began using her love of bright stones, crystals and flowers in her work, allowing the forms to speak for themselves.
Maxi earned a BFA in Interdisciplinary Object Design from Towson University, concentrating in CAD and metal working. Using her passion for silversmithing she designs and fabricates all Maxi Cif Designs pieces out of her home studio.
Influenced by the vastly unique essence of a wide variety of botanical species, the jewelry forms take their shape from the hand selected stones and delicate lines from each flower petal. All Maxi Cif Designs wire forms and components are designed and fabricated by the maker, and each piece is lovingly made by hand in Baltimore, MD.
Tarah Boyd
Since my childhood, I have followed the creative process fluidly and intuitively. It has only recently become a part of my professional practice. Each of my wallhangings is made with intention, patience, and love. Using only natural materials is important to me, to reflect the earth's organic process. Home is meant to be a safe, comforting place and that is why I choose ethically-sourced, non-mulesed, merino wool for my pieces; so that you can have peace of mind when choosing a Ore + Wool weaving for your home. Although many share similarities, no two pieces are exactly the same. Each dream weaving is smudged with Palo Santo before shipping, to ensure it brings you the purest energy.
Claire Jones
Owner of Claire Jones Landscapes, LLC, Claire's garden designs have been
featured in Chesapeake Home, Garden Design, and Wall Street Journal. A plant
geek and lover of nature, Claire leads garden centric tours all over the
world, most recently to Japan and Ireland.
A garden writer and communicator at her award-winning blog, The Garden
Diaries, and a recently published book, The Beekeeper's Field Guide, Claire
maintains an apiary in a meadow at her home in Maryland. A frequent
presenter on garden related subjects around the country, Claire practices
what she preaches in her own two-acre backyard with a meadow, apiary,
vegetable garden, greenhouse, cutting garden, ponds, perennial borders.
Chosen for many years to decorate the White House for Christmas, Claire is a
floral designer and has won multiple awards for her designs from National
Garden Clubs.
Instagram: thegardendiaries7