Register for Artists and Makers Camp!

Space is limited in each class, so register early to reserve your spot! Leave with your own handmade items and new skills. No prior experience necessary! Click on the classes below to view course descriptions.

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2026 Instructors

  • Jamie grew up canning and preserving foods with her mom and grandma. The foundation was set, but she really became passionate in her 20s, after she started her own garden. With the abundance from her home garden as well as local farmer’s markets, she has almost infinite raw materials to work with.

    Jamie turned her chemical engineering background and passion for recipes into a cottage food business in which her specialty is unique granola and a variety of preserved foods.

    When she isn’t actively cheering on her two student athletes, or volunteering with local groups, she loves being creative with the bounty that comes from her garden.

  • Tom Wicks spent 34 years in Youth Development work at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Minnesota. As Director of Operations, Tom was part of the team that helped the organization grow from one Boys & Girls Club to three new Boys & Girls Clubs and 12 school based program sites serving over 1,500 youth and teens per day. The more Tom heard and read about TimberNook the more he thought about his childhood that was spent mostly outdoors. With great enthusiasm he looks forward to sharing this opportunity to be outdoors with youth around Central Minnesota.

  • Sue Flanders first touched clay her senior year, 1981, at the College of St. Benedict, in St. Joseph, Minn. Under the watchful eye of Sr. Dennis Frandrup, she learned technical throwing skills. Frandrup wouldn’t allow students to keep any pots in the first month; she would slice each “masterpiece" to expose imperfections and lead her students to understand the goals of pot construction.

    Sue maintains a studio in Mora, Minnesota and is currently working with white stoneware and firing her pots to cone 6 in one of her two electric kilns.   “I get great satisfaction from working every step in the ceramic process”, says Sue.. Her studio name is “Kilns of Flanders”, where she shares the studio with her potter husband, Chuck.

    She also enjoys teaching workshops in East Central Minnesota at Sapsuckers Farms, Annandale Art and Textile Center, American Swedish Institute and Avon Hills Folk School.  

    Primarily self taught after attending an arts high school, I fell deeply in love with oil painting landscapes in 2021. In October 2023, I took a felting class and was smitten. Needle felting as fine art has allowed me to stretch and grow in new ways as an artist. Using the same principles & elements of design, color theory, and eye for detail that I apply to my paintings, I’m on a quest to blend and layer fibers to render realistic scenes in wool.

    I live in rural Buffalo, MN with my wonderful husband, 2 dogs, cat & 8 chickens. My garden compositions, oil paintings & felts can be seen at restaurants & homes around Minneapolis & west metro.

  • Josie is enamored with all things craft since childhood, when she attended programs at the local nature center making sumacade and wild blackberry jam with churn butter. In her twenties, an inordinate amount of time was spent in the pursuit of wild edibles and wild wine making, joined shortly thereafter by an insatiable interest for all things baskets. Throughout this, fiber has been the constant companion, a compendium of knowledge and experience on a slow boil. In backwards fashion, from knitting to fiber studies, to growing her own flax, the journey continues. Craft in all forms is the path to a greater connection with the earth, ourselves, and each other, all of which could use greater unity.

    Each year she teaches at the Lake Superior Traditional Ways Gathering, and taught/assisted classes as an intern at North House Folk School. Currently, she occasionally renovates turn of the century houses and endeavors to have a life full of learning, teaching, and creating craft.

  • In college, Shane began taking hands-on courses. He discovered a passion for making. It changed his life. He loves it. He wants others to also.

    Motivated by this, he creates and provides hands-on STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) learning experiences. By doing this, he harnesses the teaching power of direct experience.

    His making skills are plentiful. He’s done many forms of metal work. Primarily, he studied silversmithing and fabrication. For several years he taught at the Reno Gem and Mineral Society.

    As an artist, he focuses on found object sculpture, interactive art and automata.

  • Dan Horan is the craftsman behind Merchant Leather, a self-taught maker who found in leather the perfect balance of creativity, function, and timeless craft. Based in Minnesota, he builds each piece entirely by hand, emphasizing simplicity, durability, and the honest beauty of traditional techniques.

    Teaching is central to Dan’s work. He has shared leatherworking with more than 1,500 students—from children to adults—in settings ranging from folk schools to galleries to the American Craft Council. His classes are designed to be approachable for anyone picking up leather for the first time, while also structured to help students steadily build higher-level skills, confidence, and creativity with each project.