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.

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.

Brian Ciesielczyk ~ Fly Tying and Fly Casting

I was born and raised in Bessemer Michigan. Upon graduating from A.D. Johnston High School I attended Gogebic Community College and Eastern Michigan University. I received a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics and Secondary Education in 1973 and moved my family back to the U.P. where I taught mathematics and coached at Ironwood High School until my retirement in 2003. I started fly tying and fly fishing when I was 20 years old and have been doing it for 35 years. Along with tying flies I also build my own fly rods. I started with building fiberglass and graphite rods from blanks and am no making handmade bamboo rods from scratch. I order the culms of bamboo and do all of the splitting and planning by hand. It takes about 80 hours to build a bamboo rod. Whenever I travel I always search for a fishing opportunity close at hand. I have fished in many areas of the U.S. and also in Scotland, Ireland and Argentina. My other hobbies include grouse hunting over pointing dogs and playing music preferably bluegrass bass and guitar.

Andrea Corpolongo Smith ~ Medicinal Plants
Andrea has a bachelor's degree in botany from Michigan State University and she has been collecting wild plants for food and medicine since 1998. She trained with experienced herbalist, Jim McDonald and worked at the Trillium Haven Farm in Jenison, MI, an organic CSA, where she offered her own series of classes about abundant aedible and medicinal wild plants of West Michigan. She enjoys creating plant medicines for herself and her loved ones and is always eager to teach others her methods.

Phyllis Fredendall ~ Felt Maker
Phyllis Fredendall learned to felt in Finland in 1997. She travels to Finland annually, each time deepening her understanding of the process through study with internationally acclaimed feltmakers. Her current work explores the relationship of place to memory. As assistant professor of fiber and fashion at Finlandia University's International School of Art and Design she teaches a wide range of fiber processes. Her mother was born in Ontonagon. Below Phyllis is in front of two pieces "Spring Flow" and "Ascent Through Light" on display in Jämsä, Finland. In the second photo, Phyllis is working on a piece in Petäjävesi, Finland where she her artist's residency in 2005.

 

Dar Fredrickson ~ Birch Bark Art
Dar took her M.Ed. in Art Education and Art Therapy from Wayne State University, Detroit in 1991. However, her art education began as she grew up in Skanee, attended L’Anse High School, and continued her study in fine arts at Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti. She completed her B.S. in Art and Design at Northern Michigan University, Marquette, where she obtained her teaching certificate in 1974. She has taught art to adults, and students K-12, in Illinois and Michigan. For two years she volunteered as an art therapist for Hospice of Southeast Michigan, facilitating expressive artwork to the terminally ill and bereft. Below Dar is pictured with some of her driftwood artwork.

 

Kathy Halvorsen ~ Organic Gardening
Kathy grew up in a family that raised most of its own food, including vegetables. She has been gardening organically for 12 years. Her passion is trying to grow as many of her own herbs, flowers, vegetables, and fruits and berries on her 60' by 110' West Hancock lot as possible. Her storage methods include drying, freezing, canning, and root cellaring a wide variety of fruits, herbs, and vegetables. She harvests from her garden every month of the year and gardens in a manner that attracts and feeds as many different birds and insects as possible. She sells her produce through the Keweenaw Co-op and published in their newsletter. Kathy also loves pushing the limits of the U.P.growing season. For instance, in 2006 her harvest included a bumper crop of heat-loving okra, melons, and sweet potatoes, as well as, tomatoes and peppers. She is a seed saver active in the Seed Savers Exchange network which, through the efforts of 1000's of members around the world, conserves about 20,000 rare fruit and vegetable varieties. Below Kathy is pictured with her garden in July! Beautiful!

 

Carol Lauhon ~ Writer

Carol Lauhon is an award-winning writer and educator. She holds Master’s degrees in education and writing, and earned her Ph.D. in English from the University of Iowa. She currently teaches creative nonfiction online for the University of Iowa. She consults with writers on book-length projects and manuscripts, and has taught and mentored a number of publishing writers.Carol’s workshops are known for the quality of the environment she creates: attentive, supportive, and deeply stimulating. One participant wrote, “I loved her passion for writing, her thoughtful criticism of technique, her warm heart, and the sense she always gave me that through writing we can touch each other and make the world a better place.”

Carol’s essays have appeared in Iowa Woman, the Iowa Journal of Literary Studies, a Greenwood Press collection of critical essays on the writer Tillie Olsen, and Courage in Evidence, a collection of short fiction and creative nonfiction sponsored by Quad-City Arts, Rock Island, Illinois. Her essays accompanying photographic images of Iowa women artists have appeared in exhibition at the Davenport Museum of Art and ARTS Iowa City. She has collaborated on a book-length social history of a credit union, and served as contributing editor for a book of photographs and literary essays entitled LifeWork: Women Artists in Iowa.

 

Carol was born and raised in Michigan, and is excited about returning to the beautiful Upper Peninsula for the 2007 Writers Workshop in the Porkies sponsored by the Friends of the Porkies Folk School and Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park. Although she likes to work with writers everywhere she meets them, she believes in the special inspiration of Michigan’s wilderness. As Carol puts it, “Offering workshop participants the time and space to write on the shores of Lake Superior, to share their writing, to receive helpful support and critiques, to enjoy friendly conversations around the fire, to take breaks in the most beautiful wilderness state park in the country – who could ask for more?” Carol lives in Chicago, where her writing room windows look out over one of Lake Superior’s smaller sisters.

Nancy McCabe ~ Watercolors
In my life before retirement, I taught art in both the Hancock and Calumet Public Schools. Since that time, I have been fortunate to be able to be both a student and a teacher in many watercolor classes. My inspiration for painting comes from the world that is close to me, the trees, flowers and scenery of the region that I love, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. My work has been exhibited in many juried shows in the Midwest including those in the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan, the Grand Rapids Art Gallery, Northern Michigan University, Michigan Technological University and in the city of Marquette. Below, Nancy is pictured wtih her daughter, Sherrie, walking along Lake Superior.

 

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.

Dan Perotti ~ Nature Painting
Dan is an award winning nature painter, working primarily with acrylics. In 1999, he was the designer of the winning Cancellation Stamp for the US Postal Service. In addition to his original paintings, Dan creates original sculptures of porcelain, stoneware, earthenware, logs, and antlers. He has been an art instructor for over 25 years, working with both adults and children.

Eric Pintar ~ Shaker Boxes and Canoe Paddles
Eric is a skilled woodworker who will be teaching Shaker box making and canoe paddle carving. Shaker oval boxes were first made over 200 years ago and were valued for their utility, quality, and grace. Eric and his colleagues at “The Home Shop Woodworking School” in Charlotte MI are dedicated to a modern revival of the production of these beautiful containers. See www.shakerovalbox.com for more info. Below is Eric shows off the strength of his functional and beautiful boxes!

 

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. April is shown on the far left with the first black ash basketry class at the Porkies.

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. Below, Jarrod is pictured speaking to participants at the start of the snowshoe making workshop.

 

Steve Stier ~ Timber Framing

The Porcupine Mountains Folk School (PMFS), the Friends of the Porkies (FOP), and the Artist-In-Residence Program (AIRP) are proud to feature Steve Stier as their inaugural artisan. Without Steve’s commitment to build a cabin, both the PMFS and the AIRP would still be daydreams. Under his guidance, participants in two summer timber-framing workshops and the undying FOP volunteers have sawed, hewed, bored, chiselled and sweated to raise a rustic, 16’x20’ timber framed cabin along the picturesque Little Union River Gorge.

Steve Stier is a Michigan licensed builder specializing in historic preservation, traditional construction methods and materials, and consultation for owners of elderly buildings since 1992. He teaches timber-frame construction at Tillers International (Kalamazoo, MI) leading workshops resulting in new but traditionally designed and constructed timber-framed structures. Steve has extensive experience in restoration and renovation of many types of historic structures along with specialized study and experience in repairing, restoring, and moving traditional barns. He has a Masters Degree in Historic Preservation from Eastern Michigan University (2000) and a Masters Degree in Industrial Arts Education from Western Michigan University (1974). Steve has a Research Associate appointment with the Traditional Arts Program at the Michigan State University Museum. He is a founding member of the Michigan Barn Preservation Network, and current board member of the Michigan Historic Preservation Network and serves on its Historic Resources Council, and the Outreach and Education Committee.

Steve has served a four-year term as an elected member of the Meridian Township (Ingham County) Board of Trustees (2000-2004) and currently serves on the Township Zoning Board of Appeals.

Dave Suttola ~ Timber Framing

The school was lucky to have the help of David Suttola, a professional timber framer, during the first two courses lead by Steve. Dave, an Ironwood native, runs his own timber-framing business, Great Lakes Woodworks in Kimball, WI (near Hurley). He started working on timber frames in the 1980s in Maine, building up a successful business there. Dave recently returned to the area, and we were fortunate to make his acquaintance! He helped us find oak timbers for the sill of our building, and introduced our classes to some of the techniques used in his business. Bore, Dave, bore!