INSTRUCTORS

The success of the Porcupine Mountains Folk School depends heavily on the efforts and talents of our instructors and our volunteers. Read about our talented group below.

Heidi Bukoski
Heidi Bukoski has been involved with fiber arts since childhood. She started knitting and sewing in grade school. In high school her mother taught her to weave. (She comes from a family of artists in various mediums.) In college she studied weaving and learned to spin yarn. She has taken numerous classes in spinning, weaving, and felting, both traditional wet and dry (needle felting), over the years. 

In 1977 she taught her first class, which was in natural dyeing. Her teaching experience encompasses a wide range of skills and topics since that time. This includes lecturing and hands-on teaching at different guilds, Community Education classes, and currently as an instructor for the Michigan Fiber Festival. She has also done demonstrations for schools, libraries, and events. Her students have ranged in age from kindergarteners to retirees.

She has exhibited her work at art and county fairs throughout Lower Michigan. She has won State Show ribbons for both knitting and locker hooking. Her work was published in the book Approaching Design Through Nature.

Andrea Corpolongo Smith ~ Medicinal Plants
Andrea lives with her husband Scott on a “farm in progress” in Ontonagon. She began collecting plants for food and medicine in 1998, an interest that lead her to obtain her bachelor's degree in botany from Michigan State University and receive training in plant medicine from experienced herbalist Jim McDonald. She enjoys creating plant medicines for herself and her loved ones and is always eager to teach others her methods.

Ed Gray ~ Clay and Copper Working
Ed Gray tells about himself: Although my hands gather and shape elements of the earth, it is the primal force of the fire that completes my work. Earth, Air, Fire, and Water: the four sacred elements that are the breath of life.

These are the gifts with which I give honor to the teachings of my ancestors. It was in 1964 that Chief Little Elk, Mount Pleasant, Michigan, gave me my native name, Jikiwe (my friend), so it is with that name that I sign my work in remembrance of who I am and where I came from.

Ed works with pit-fired clay, smoke-fired clay, and red metal (copper). More can be learned at his website: www.edgraystudio.com.

Melissa Hronkin ~ Encaustics and Beeswax
Melissa Hronkin is an artist, teacher, and beekeeper. As an artist she works with beeswax and other found objects in the process of encaustic painting. Her most productive art-making time is winter. That is a time for repose and solitude when she turns inward. Melissa hopes that her work in encaustics and beeswax will bring awareness to the recent plight of the honeybee and its surrounding industry.

Melissa holds an MA in Art Education, MFA in Visual Studies, and BFA in Photography and Drawing. More can be found out by going to her blog: www.melissa-hronkin.blogspot.com.

Sherry Havela
I live in Bergland on Lake Gogebic with my husband of 48 years. We have two children and now have 6 grandchildren. I graduated from Gogebic Community College with a degree in accounting with a computer programming specialty. I went to work for the Forest Service in Ontonagon for approximately 16 years and then in Bessemer, MI until I retired in 2005.

Before going to college at the age of 43 I had been teaching needlework, crafts and landscape painting through the Intermediate School Offices. I taught at the Bergland and White Pine schools and also at the Ewen and Bruce Crossing Senior Centers.

Carol Huntoon ~ Container Gardening
After many years of sucessful gardening of a plot on my farm near Mass City, we moved to a new home on wooded Lake Superior beach property. The coolness of the lake and the lack of full sun throughout the day brought a halt to my many years of successful garden production. Through three years of trial and error next to the lake, we have figured out how to grow and harvest tomatoes, carrots, onions, string beans, salad greens, cucumbers, peppers, beets and assorted herbs. We grow these in containers that we move twice each day to catch as much direct sun as possible. We have also developed systems to minimize water evaporation. While moving the containers (all on wheels to make it easy) takes a little time, our systems pretty much eliminate weeds and are at a height that is not back breaking when thinning and harvesting the produce.

Nancy McCabe
The Keweenaw has been Nancy McCabe's life-long home, and it is the Keweenaw that has been her inspiration to create. Her paintings, glass sand-castings, and clay jewelry have their roots in her deep feelings for the area, the drifts of snow, the bend of branches, the moods of Lake Superior, and "objects of art" created by the Lake. Nancy has always had two enduring interests–art and kids, and she has had lots of both. In addition to her 4 children she taught all levels of art in the local public schools for many years.

Nancy has exhibited her works in galleries, colleges, and several juried shows in Michigan and Wisconsin. Over the years she has learned: "Don't take yourself too seriously. Keep your sense of humor. Really use your eyes to enjoy the glory of God's work."

Sherrie McCabe ~ Glass Bead Making
Sherrie graduated from Northern Michigan University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Art Education with emphasis on sculpture and silversmithing. About ten years ago she began working with hot glass and has studied with one of America’s leading glass artists, Loren Stump. She recently retired from teaching art in the public schools in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Hot glass is now her artistic passion. She is ever inspired by nature, the moods of Lake Superior and wild flowers found on the shoreline and uses those moods, colors and patterns in the creation of her glass beads. Her home, on the south shore of Lake Superior, has her small glass studio overlooking the beach and low dunes. Besides the several juried art shows in Northern Wisconsin and Michigan that she exhibits at each year, Sherrie now teaches lampworking to adults through evening and weekend classes in Ontonagon, Michigan. Sherrie is pictured above, walking with her mother, Nancy, along the shores of Lake Superior.

Linda Montonati ~ Soap Making
Linda Montonati lives in Hurley with her husband, Pete. Last year Linda retired from Gogebic Community College where she managed the bookstore. Since retirement she has been reading labels and feels strongly about using products without propylene glycol and many other endocrine disruptors found in cosmetics and products we use everyday. She became motivated to research and prepare her own cosmetics that are carcinogen-free. She has been assisting others to become more aware of natural approaches to personal care.

Peter (Pekka) Olson ~ Wood Carving
A Tapiola, Michigan, resident, Peter is a member of the Copper Country Wood Carvers Association. He provides students the opportunity to learn the ancient Scandinavian technique of carving. While he is skilled in many types of carving, he usually teaches how to carve from cedar the Finnish evergreen tree and the fan bird.

Eric Pintar ~ Shaker Boxes and Canoe Paddles
Eric Pintar has been making boxes for fifteen years under John Wilson of the Home Shop, Charlotte, Michigan. Partner in the business for four years now, John and Eric continue the Home Shop’s mission to spread the word of this traditional craft and back that up with a full supplies catalog to support the craftsmen in the trade.

April Stone-Dahl ~ Basket Maker
April started her study in Black Ash (aagimaak) basketry in the spring of 1998 when she was introduced to the craft by her husband, Jarrod. After one full year of watching a basket changes and get used, she wove her first basket in the spring of 1999 and has been learning and weaving ever since. She is mostly self-taught, having learned the characteristics of black ash through the process of weaving, and has a preference for creating ?utility? baskets. What she enjoys the most about teaching is what the student learn about themselves, and each other, and how they carry those lessons with them at the end of the day. April lives with her husband, Jarrod, and their four children on the Bad River reservation in northern Wisconsin.

Jarrod Stone-Dahl ~ Woodworker
Jarrod lives in northern Wisconsin with his wife, April, and their four children. He has been a professional woodworker since 1993, starting in carpentry then moving into log building and timber framing. He also served a loose apprenticeship in a wooden boat shop for two years and has been self-employed the majority of the time. Jarrod's passion is pre-industrial woodworking techniques, such as splitting or riving wood with wedges and froe, then dressing with axe and knife; these techniques he applies to the snowshoes, toboggans, bowls, spoons, and more recently, a birch bark canoes. His favorite tools are a razor sharp axe and a crooked knife. He and his wife have been teaching basketry and woodworking since 2000.

Sarah Wagner ~ Knitting
I was born and grew up in south western Ohio. In college, I studied forestry and Soil Science with Bachelor of Science in both. I worked as a professional for the United States Department of Agriculture: Forest Service as a Forester and Soil Scientist for 30 years, stationed in West Virginia and Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I learned to knit around 1995, and my favorite things to knit are cables, mittens and socks both felted and regular.

Pam Beal and Wayne Walma ~ Birch Twig Wreathes
Pam Beal and Wayne Walma live in Mass City Michigan. They have been making birch twig rustic wreaths for several years. Inspiration for the birch wreaths were East Branch neighbors who were describing how their parents made birch brooms for house and barn cleaning. Birch materials are from their 40 acre woods. Wayne is a custom cabinet and furniture maker. Pam specializes in traditional bear making and quilting.

Zona Wick ~ Soap Making
Zona Wick is the director of the Iron County Health Department in Hurley. She is a farmer at heart and raised and butchered her own chickens for about 15 years. She has been making soap from pig lard obtained from a farmer friend in Saxon for many years. Zona has a Masters degree in natural health from Clayton College of Natural Health in Birmingham Alabama. She is interested in promoting healthy, nature-friendly answers to diet and health care.