2025 Demonstrating Artisan

Madigan, Cindy

Cinder Goods LLC

Leather

Modern American Leather Goods -Taking a new twist in leather work. Personally creating beautifully crafted items that are long lasting and artfully designed.

I Primarily use chrome tanned premium full and top grain leathers for my projects. Each hide has its own unique characteristics and personality…when breaking down a new hide , I start with my larger patterns first then taking it down to the smallest increments – nothing goes to waste!

All of my creations are my own designs and patterns, hand cutting each piece. My goods are assembled using an industrial sewing machine (Proud Mary). Incorporating vintage decorator fabrics for the linings and interiors.

My line is constantly evolving, taking inspiration from our travels and family life.

cindergoods.com

Hughes, Bob & Sally

River Rat Pottery

Clay

We are a husband and wife team who love living history and sharing our passion for traditional American crafts. We create redware pottery—both utilitarian and decorative—inspired by early American redware, using traditional materials and processes. Often, our inspiration comes from early American folk art created in other mediums such as wood or leather. Fraktur has been a great reference for decorative ideas.

Our work is used and sold at many museums and historic sites. We hope to keep traditional crafts relevant by adapting our work so it appeals to a changing market. For example, we create traditional Pennsylvania German feather trees that are displayed in wheel-thrown redware bases with impressed decoration created using leatherworking tools.

Often, my wife brings her antique box looms to shows and weaves linen tape using both historical and contemporary colors. This handwoven tape is sometimes used to embellish our pottery.

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Staton, Amy

Amy’s Wool Applique

Fiber

This artisan has been making penny rugs and other wool applique pieces for 15 years, and began selling her work on Etsy about 10 years ago. For the past four years, she has been selected into the Early American Life Directory of Traditional Crafts. She enjoys showing and selling her work at juried traditional artisan shows.

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Clark, Altyn

Altyn Clark Stained Glass

Glass

Discover landscapes that come alive through glass!

Each of my stained-glass panels captures a moment in nature – from rolling waves to desert skies. Feel the wind, warmth, and raw emotion in every intricate piece.

Handcrafted with copper foil technique, these aren’t just art, they’re experiences waiting to be hung in your space.

Applicant is an impressionist using glass to capture a landscape’s color, line, motion, and season—inviting you to feel wind in your hair, warmth on your face, water flowing around you, rough hide on your fingertips.

Landscapes may be real or imagined places.

Patrons often exclaim, “I’ve been there! You captured my place!”

The first step is selecting rolled art glass sheets whose texture, pattern, and color invoke land, water, and sky.

Applicant then draws a landscape jigsaw puzzle and cuts each glass piece to fit exactly. He cuts simple lines using traditional hand-held glass scoring tools. Intricate, high-risk lines are cut with a wet ring-saw.

Each piece of cut glass is foiled on the edge using copper tape. The cut and foiled pieces are soldered into place and a copper patina applied to the solder before framing in solid copper.

The making process is an invitation for the artist to flow, fully absorbed in the immediacy of vision, tactile response, and emerging result. .

altynclarkglass.com

Grotheer, Jacob

Georgia Colony Smiths

Metal

Jacob Grotheer

My trades-partner and I have both been participating in living history for over 20 years. He gravitated towards teaching himself blacksmithing, while I learned from a friend how to cast pewter. When big projects or ideas come about in either trade, we help each other to make the ideas reality. Due to the intensive labor it takes to smith steel, the majority of what we sell is pewter, including toy soldiers both painted and unpainted, musket ball dice, reproduction coins, historic necklace charms, salt cellars, chess sets, and spoons cast in original bronze molds or copies of original spoons of which I make molds.

georgiacolonysmiths.etsy.com

Wertheim, Peggy

Mixed Media

Peggy Wertheim

My fifty-year career as a Surface Design Artist, Colorist and Master Teaching Artist began with the artforms of traditional batik & silk batiking. I then continued by develop;ing my techniques of Complex Dyeing and Discharge with my Wearable Art designs including jackets, tunic dresses and shirts. In addition, my colorist’s eye was fascinated by Traditional Marbling using carrageenen and acrylics. I took the incricacies of marbling and applied the techniques and my designs to papers, cottons, silks and ceramic. Throughout my career, color and design create a fascinating palette of interest.

https://www.peggywertheim.com

Botchlet, Heather

The Springerle House

Heritage Foods

My joy and goal in my work is to preserve and spread the knowledge and enjoyment of
traditional springerle cookies to others. I do this through making the cookies, cookie mold casting, handpainting ornaments made from the cookie molds, teaching cookie making classes, and lecturing on the history of springerle cookies.

The tradition of pressing painstakingly-carved designs into food goes back many centuries in the human story, and in nothing is it expressed so beautifully and deliciously as in springerle cookies. Enfolding life’s joys, setbacks, triumphs, and whimsies into intensely-flavored cake-like pillows, these little morsels are truly edible art and I am still – after 27 years – enamored of them

www.thespringerlehouse.com

Pittman, Jessica

Buddy Leather

Leather

Our work is a celebration of craftsmanship, sustainability, and timeless design. Using both new and vintage leather, we create timeless pieces of leather artistry that can be passed down to future generations.

The design process begins with an exploration of the materials at hand—vintage saddles, bridles, halters and reins. Each piece is carefully inspected to utilize the aspects with the most character. By repurposing these pieces of personal history, I believe that honors and commemorates the many memories created between horse and rider. Each saddle is a blank canvas, waiting to be reimagined. After design, it is then brought to life as a handbag to be used and loved for many years to come. We enjoy working to restore and repurpose tack into something fresh and beautiful, giving new life to items that might otherwise go to waste.

We also create unique items utilizing newly tanned leather. From wallets to belts, handbags to home decor, the utmost care is taken to produce the finest of accessories.

Our goal is not only to create accessories that are practical and durable but also to craft objects that carry an emotional connection and a sense of individuality. Each leather bag or accessory is a one-of-a-kind piece, meant to be cherished and appreciated for its artistry and sustainability. As we continue to experiment with textures, shapes, and techniques, our commitment remains to producing leather goods that transcend trends and endure through time.

https://buddyleather.net/