Craft Classes 2025

Michelle Brown

Cajun Cooking

I was born and raised in rural South Louisiana on a farm and I learned to cook at an early age. My mom was a homemaker and cooked 3 meals everyday. I watched and learned from her the ways of Cajun cooking. My culture is known for our great food and where there is food there are many friends. We talk about our next meal while we are eating the one we just prepared. I also like to bake and some of my pastries are served fresh at the local coffee shop downtown Eunice, LA. I am a retired school bus operator of 25 years service to rural schools in Acadia Parish. In my spare time I do sewing and alterations for the public. My passion for sewing began at the age of 9 and is a joyful hobby. Both of my girls wore wedding gowns designed by them and I fashioned the gowns to their unique specifications! I have since taken on quilting and old fashioned tatting. My husband Greg and I have 3 children and 6 grandchildren. Our 2 youngest children Megan Brown Constantin and Briggs Brown are both involved in Cajun music and preservation of our Cajun culture and heritage.

I am looking forward to making new friends thru my Cajun cooking demonstration here at Augusta.

Andy Wilkins

White Oak Basketry

Andy Wilkins learned to make white oak baskets from previous Augusta instructor Alan Miller. He enjoys reproducing the techniques he finds in heritage baskets from around his native West Virginia Potomac Highlands. He has demonstrated White Oak Basket techniques at several venues around his home area.

Cassidy Dickens

Songtelling: How to Spin Your Stories Into Song

Marrying a powerful sense of traditional Appalachian storytelling with a modern folk sound, West Virginian artist Cassidy Dickens brings a “unique fusion of vulnerability, resilience, unguarded sincerity, and soul-stirring melodies” to the world of acoustic Americana. (HONK MAGAZINE)

Soon after releasing her debut album, Ghosts, in 2015, Cassidy made the leap from small-town West Virginia to Music City, where she cut her teeth collaborating with up-and-coming Nashville recording artists and earned a Josie Music Award nomination for her songwriting. 

Today—with more than 15 years of touring, 7 years of professional songwriting, three full-length albums, and several songwriting awards under her belt—she’s thrilled to be back at home in the Mountain State. 

Her newest album, All I’m Missing, was inspired by the story of her journey back home, with songs that call back to the people and places that first inspired her music career. 

Annette Naber

Nature Reconnection: Cultivating a Deeper Bond With the Earth

Annette Naber, Ph.D. left a successful psychology career in Washington DC to become a homesteader and land steward in the Virginia Highlands. She teaches foraging classes and facilitates forest bathing tours and nature reconnection retreats. She is also a nature photographer and writer. Her first book, Seasons of a Wild Life, was published in 2024.

https://annettenaber.com/ and https://annettenaber.substack.com

Shoji Satake

Wheel-Throwing and Hand-Building For All

There is a materials fee of $140 for this class.

Shoji Satake is the J.Bernard Schultz Endowed Professor of Art and area head of ceramics at West Virginia University School of Art & Design and Coordinator of the School’s ceramics in China program. He has taught at Indiana University, Hope College, and Central Michigan University. Shoji has served as one of the Directors-at-Large for the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) Board, he was a co/on-site coordinator (NCECA Pittsburgh 2018), and he will serve in the NCECA Presidential Cycle from 2023-2027. Shoji has conducted workshops, given lectures, and exhibited nationally and internationally. His most recent activities have been included in the 2017 Whitney Biennial, group exhibition at Red Lodge Clay Center, a solo exhibition at the Eutectic Gallery, and the Taiwan International Ceramics Biennale. He is a member of the International Academy of Ceramics. His residencies have included numerous locales in China, Japan, Canada, and in the United States. Shoji in addition to teaching maintains an active studio practice with studios in West Virginia and Jingdezhen, China.

Curt Cable

Appalachian Broom Making

There is a materials fee of $85 for this class.

Curt has been making brooms about 20 years now. Curt and his family reside in the Appalachian hills of Southern Ohio. A place where unique natural materials are easily found everywhere, waiting to be made into a piece of his art. It has been a slow and steady journey over the years, to get his work accepted into some of the best craft shows in the state of Ohio. Curt enjoys working with his hands, playing music with his daughter Willa and hiking in the woods of Appalachia, always looking for broom handles.

Stellathena Gregory

Zero to Hero with Athena’s Stained Glass

There is a materials fee of $100 for this class.

Stellathena Vartheyanyos Gregory is a native and life-long resident of Braxton County WV. Her art and her passion is stained glass art in the Tiffany technique using West Virginia made glass from Wissmach Glass in Paden City. She has been doing this art for more than 22 years. Her work has appeared in juried art and craft venues such as Tamarack the Best of West Virginia, Augusta Festival in Elkins WV and many others. She does custom work. She makes stained glass panels, doorway transoms, interior sliding barn door murals in glass or paint,3-D pieces such as terrariums, kaleidoscopes, boxes and lamps (including Turkish lamps), Christmas villages and more. Her motto is: I do windows and much more. You dream it. I can do it in stained glass. She has a masters degree in Deaf Education. She recently retired from teaching after 32 years. She now teaches her craft in her studio in Braxton County WV and through Market on Main in Bridgeport, WV. Her classes take students from zero to hero in stained glass. She schedules group parties as well as private classes. She has a Facebook page: Athena’s Stained Glass. She also has a website in the works: www.athenastainedglass.com. She is currently producing on-line classes.

Suzi Nonn

Mixed Media with Gourds

There is a materials fee of $50 for this class.

Susan (Suzi) Nonn, artisan and author, loves gourds—their shapes, their mold patterns, even their defects. She has worked with gourds for more than twenty-five years and, through her classes and coaching, encourages others to try gourd crafting. She teaches gourd workshops at gourd festivals across the United States. (To see her current teaching schedule go to www.naturallyyoursgourds.com) Nonn is also the author of Cut-out Gourd Techniques, a book written to help gourd artists to improve their skills with the mini-saw. She also wrote Gourd Lights, How to make 9 Beautiful Lamp and Lantern Projects. When not teaching, she can be found in her studio/garage enhancing gourds.

Woody Woodcock

Screenprinting: Exploring Multiples

There is a materials fee of $10 for this class.

Kevin M. Woodcock was born and raised in the suburbs of New York City. After high school he traveled to West Virginia to visit a friend and was attracted to the mountainous beauty of the state. Kevin moved to Morgantown where he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from West Virginia University. He met his wife, Mel, in Elkins through mutual friends. Kevin and Mel moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana where he received his Master of Fine Arts degree in Printmaking and Painting at Louisiana State University. They moved back to West Virginia in 1989 and currently live in Elkins. Kevin creates his visual artworks at his home studio and at Davis & Elkins College where he is an Assistant Professor of Art and the Chair of the Creative Art Department. Kevin teaches Beginning Painting, 2D Design, Color Theory, Screen Printing, Intro to Printmaking, Senior Seminar, Senior Studio, Advanced Drawing and Advanced Painting. Kevin also is involved with the ArtsBank program where he is a board member.

A lot of Kevin’s work is inspired by hiking and camping trips in the Monongahela National Forest of West Virginia. There is a sense of wonder he experiences that compels him to visually express the emotions he feels at some of these places. He says “When a painting or print is going well I don’t think about my surroundings, I get into the piece as if I were there and lose track of time.” “I am interested in showing the movement of wind, light, water and sound that I experience in nature” Kevin says.” The phenomena of the natural environment intrigues me. When I was young the wilderness seemed like a place of mystery and adventure. This sense of mystery and adventure is still with me when I am creating artwork.” Kevin works in the mediums of screen, block and monoprinting as well as acrylic painting.