Greenwood Class Instructors (2024)

We’re excited to bring you top-notch carving and woodworking instructors this year’s Greenwood Wrights’Fest.

Keynote Instructor: Roy Underhill

Roy is known to many in the hand tool woodworking community as “Saint Roy”. As kind and generous as Roy is, he is no saint but his knowledge of traditional woodworking is practically encyclopedic, making him a true scholar of old school woodworking. Roy’s mission is to reach out into the wider community and demonstrate a more self reliant sustainable way of living in the world. In hopes that more people in the community will choose craftsmanship over consumerism.

Roy is the author of seven books and has inspired enthusiasm for traditional craftsmanship at The Woodwright’s School since 2014, where he has been doing what he calls “subversive woodworking” by having interesting woodworking tools and items in the windows of his school on Main Street in Pittsboro, attracting locals into the school as they conduct classes. He has a large collection of vintage woodworking texts at his school and in his small vintage cottage next to his meticulously restored three story mill house.

Roy studied theater and worked on sets at UNC. He came back to the area from a stint at a commune in New Mexico with his wife, Jane. Then he got a Multidisciplinary Masters in Forestry from Duke, where his thesis was on muscle powered tools. In Durham he had a small shop called the Woodwright’s Shop, where he coined the term and taught hand tool woodworking. Roy pitched the concept of a “how to show” to UNC TV and the Woodwright’s Shop debuted in 1979. Roy’s show entertained generations for 37 years on National Public TV.

Roy has a historical interest and tremendous respect for early African American craftsmen and tool makers who “turned nature into culture” despite the brutal difficulties they faced building much of the south. During the pandemic, Roy held many classes at his school via Zoom and did a podcast with Cut the Craft, and helped Jasper Mayer, a young very talented hand tool enthusiast, build and raise a timber frame shop, and guided him to do research on an African American joiner, William Hamilton Cummings. Mortise & Tenon magazine in Issue VIII published an article about Roy, “Subversive Woodwright.”

“We are creators and teachers. The confidence of humankind is based not on superior strength or speed but on our abilities to shape the materials of our environment and to communicate our experiences. With each swing of the axe, each joining of the wood, you build and preserve within you the living memory of this timeless trade. The satisfaction you gain is well deserved.”

Additional Instructors

Elia Bizzarri

Using traditional tools and techniques, Elia Bizzarri rives, hews, shaves, and turns elegant Windsor chairs in his workshop in central North Carolina. Known for the quality and elegance of his turning technique, his chairs reflect an integral understanding of the intrinsic qualities of maple, poplar, hickory, and oak.

Reid Beverly

Bespoke furniture maker, educator, video store clerk, and occasional stunt driver

Callan Burton-Shore

Callan is a hide tanner, farmer, and spoon carver. She has been carving spoons since she was 8 years old and carving professionally for the last few years. Along with other traditional skills, she has taught carving to people of all ages (even 5 year olds) at various schools throughout the south east. She teaches at John C. Campbell Folk School, Forest Floor Wilderness Programs, The Living Earth School, various earth skills gatherings, and beyond. She especially loves to carve forks and tiny spoons!

Daniel Clay

Daniel Clay is a woodworker, designer and artist living and working in Knoxville. He has written for Fine Woodworking magazine and is the author of Chip Carving: Techniques For Carving Beautiful Patterns By Hand. In addition to his full-time woodwork/art/design practice in Knoxville, Daniel travels the U.S. teaching chip carving.

Angela Eastman

Angela Eastman is a basketweaver and metalworker based in Hillsborough, North Carolina. She has a background in sculpture and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, and completed the Core Fellowship program at Penland School of Crafts in 2014. She now works primarily as a basketweaver and teacher of weaving, blacksmithing, and ceramics, in addition to designing a small jewelry line every year. For the last several years, Angela has been weaving baskets with foraged material, often invasive vines such as kudzu, wisteria, and honeysuckle. She is also cultivating five different varieties of basket willow plants on her land in the Piedmont.

Eric Goodson

Eric Goodson is a woodturner and carver based out of Newburyport, MA. Eric began his green woodworking journey in 2013 after building his first pole lathe. Since then he has focused on turning bowls, cups, plates and locking lidded boxes, as well as carving spoons, shrink pots, and other woodenware for the home. A high school history teacher until the spring of 2022, he is now a full-time craftsperson and instructor, teaching spoon carving and pole-lathe turning at the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, MA, the Eliot School for Fine and Applied Arts in Boston, MA, and at his shop in Newburyport.

Dan Green

Dan Green runs Woodcrest Farm, a working farm and blacksmith’s forge in Hillsborough, NC, practicing sustainable agriculture and offering camps, classes, events, and tours.

Earl Ijames

Tad Kepley

Tad picked up his grandfather’s whittling knife in 2015 and is now a greenwood spoon carver. Kepley is passionate about spreading the joy of spoon carving and has carved over 2,500 spoons since beginning his journey. Tad enjoys carving other small greenwood projects like cups, bowls, hooks, and bag clips. Tad has taught Spoon Carving at John C. Campbell Folk School and won three awards for his hand-carved spoons. When not carving spoons he is a school director for advanced law enforcement training.

Fred Livesay

Fred Livesay made his first spoon at age seven and has focused his life and career on traditional handwork ever since. He trained formally as a wheelwright and carriage-builder and then went on to study Scandinavian Folk Art, Decorative Arts and Art History, and received his M.A. in History Museum Studies. Forty years of teaching and study in the United States, the Nordic Countries and Europe give him a clear understanding of the joy handmade objects bring to everyday life, the healing art of craft & the mediative connection between head, hands & heart. Fred is a founding instructor of North House Folk School and the Spoon Gathering, Milan, MN. He is a widely respected, sought after teacher of craft both nationally and internationally. Fred is Associate Professor of Fine Handcrafts at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa.

Jason Lonon

Jason Lonon is a craftsman and teacher living and working in the same valley his ancestors have called home since the 1840s. Concurrent to serving an apprenticeship in traditional woodworking, Jason began blacksmithing as a teenager in the late 1990s. Today Jason and a team of highly skilled craftsmen produce a line of specialty carving tools for traditional woodworkers. Over the years, Jason has taught welding, blacksmithing, woodcarving and other skills in a wide variety of settings from the community college system to wilderness camps.

Photo by Peter Taylor Photography

Tom Lubber and Socha Rockwood

Lubbers & Sons tree care is a family owned and operated small business dedicated to serving the local community. With a combined 14+ years of experience in the tree care industry, and a genuine love of trees, we deal with all things trees! Removals (climbing, felling, or crane), pruning, planting, tree pest & disease diagnosis & treatment, planting, consulting/planning, and more. Sosha is an ISA certified arborist with experience in plant health care. She has worked on many crews, mostly supporting climbers from the ground, although enjoying a chance to play in the canopy from time to time. Tommy is a skilled climber and lifelong learner, notorious for taking great care and pride in his work. Safety and exceeding client expectations are always his priorities, and it is clear to anyone watching him work that he loves his job. Together, we are living our dream of earning a living doing what we love while making a lasting positive impact on our community.

Cynthia Main

Cynthia Main is the founder of Sunhouse Craft, an artisan craft house in Berea Kentucky with a focus on brooms. She is an artist/maker whose work focuses on relating to land as part of an integral view of a more sustainable society. Cynthia’s strong background in woodworking and traditional craft surfaces in most of her projects, work that often uses traditional techniques for work that is collaborative, community building and strengthens connection to a place. Cynthia learned traditional broom making at Tillers International in 2013 and has practiced the art ever since. She weaves thousands of brooms a year at her studio located in Berea, Kentucky.

Mozzy Marzano

Jasper Mayer

Jasper is an amateur timbersport competitor who is passionate about sustainable living and hand tool woodworking. He was sixteen when he decided to build his own timberframe shop in Pittsboro, NC, with traditional techniques.

Caleb Miller

Caleb has been a timber framer for the past 10 years and co-owner with his brother of JCM Timberworks in the Appalachian foothills of Killbuck, Ohio. His expertise lies in the repair and restoration of historic timber framed barns of the midwest, which are predominantly German built in the 19th century using square rule joinery. Caleb has helped create and develop a timber framing and leadership camp with The Light Foundation for teenagers that is in its sixth year. He is also the president of Friends of Ohio Barns, a statewide non-profit dedicated to the education and stewardship of Ohio’s historic barns.

Oliver Moss

Oliver is a craftsmanship junky. He loves all things made with an intelligent, thoughtful, creative mind and body. He has been fascinated with craft and greenwood working for ten years and spent the majority of that time turning bowls on a pole lathe. His work is inspired by many traditions, but primarily Scandinavian craft, Japanese craft, Norwegian ale bowls, as well as many contemporary craftspeople. He works to balance proportion, line, and flow to create beautiful craft for everyday use. Oliver lives in the Catskill Mountains of New York, on the traditional lands of the Lenape peoples.

Don Nalezyty

Don Nalezyty has been carving since he was a child. Despite a day job in the IT world, he studied arts and design at university and has always had the need to make things with his hands. For the last 14 years, he has focused on carving, kolrosing, and finishing greenwood spoons and other treen. He has studied with woodworkers from across the globe learning traditional methods for working with green or unseasoned wood. As an internationally recognized spoon carver, Don has taught workshops in spoon carving and decoration across the US and abroad.

Levi O'Brien

Levi O’Brien is a Certified arborist and a faculty member at the New York Botanical Garden, where he teaches classes on trees and shrubs, horticulture, and the history, mythology, and uses of trees. He has worked for years as a garden and arborist consultant and completed his undergraduate work at SUNY ESF, a reputed forestry school. In his personal time, he works with and studies wood.

Damien Ossi

Damien is a spoon carver and a nature nerd from the Washington, DC area. He started whittling before he was ten years old and began figure carving in his teens. He got into greenwoodworking ten years ago, but he still carves dry wood occasionally. For his day job he’s a wildlife biologist who conserves and restores habitats for rare animal wildlife in DC.

Cara O'Connell

Cara’s love of nature and hand tool woodworking was developed at a young age working on a remote family camp in Maine. As a young woman she completed a carpentry apprenticeship and worked as a carpenter before becoming a Physical Therapist. Cara met Roy Underhill turning spindles on a spring pole lathe under a big oak tree at Shakori Hills, in 2014. After experiencing the Greenwood Festival in Plymouth in 2017, she knew that this was what she was meant to do. Cara taught green woodworking classes at the Woodwright’s School before it closed in 2023. Since 2021 she has been organizing the GreenWood Wrights’Fest and the Kick Back and Carve Gathering as well as finding her artisan niche. Cara is currently excited about exploring spring pole lathe bowl turning, and exploring new ways to use hickory bark in her art.

Joel Paul

Joel Paul is a full time green woodworker and chairmaker from Stratham NH. Operating on an 1812 Dairy farm, he spends much of his time working on farm buildings and tending organic gardens. Joel teaches spoon carving, bowl carving and shrinkpot making.

Joel will not be teaching at this festival due to a tree felling accident earlier this year. Please consider contributing to his GoFundMe campaign to help support his family as he recovers.

Nico Piedrahita

Since he was a kid, Nico’s always wanted to live in the woods. For the last 10 years, he’s been fulfilling that dream, living off-grid in the mountains around Asheville, and studying the skills and knowledge it takes to meet his own needs from the land. That “simple” act, of meeting a need for himself, ties him closer to the land and all the beings around him. His main areas of focus have been hide tanning and woodworking, and he now runs a business tanning hides, carving spoons and bowls, and teaching these skills to the local community. You can see what classes are coming up, and what products he has available, at woodlandworkshopnc.com, or by finding him @woodlandworkshopnc on Instagram.

Dan Raber

Dan grew up in a commercial wood shop, building furniture since age 12. After meeting hand tool woodworker and NMLRA President, Mike Yazel, Dan switched entirely to hand tools in 2012 and sold his commercial business. With only $5,000 and a dream, Dan started Colonial Homestead in Millersburg, Ohio in 2014. Dan currently builds furniture full-time and mentors a growing group of journeymen and apprentices in every aspect of green woodworking, timber framing, cabinetmaking, joinery, chair making, and fine woodworking.

Caleb Raber

I am 30, married to my wife Marlena for 6 years with a 2 year old son. I currently build custom cabinetry full-time and operate a tree service on the side.

B. Terry Ratliff

Terry is a craftsman, inspired by southern Appalachian chair makers like Irvine Messer and Chester Cornett. Like them, he is a lifelong post and rung chair maker whose work reflects the inspiration he garnered from his mentors. Terry is passionate about his journey making functional heirloom quality chairs, and sharing his skills. He gathers materials from local forests and produces heirloom quality chairs with timeless green wood joinery techniques, using no metal fasteners or glues. Using wet to dry joinery techniques that employ natural shrinkage are historically proven designs that hold chair frames solid. This hand craft utilizes raw local materials with no outsourcing other than finishes. In his forty plus years of chair making Terry has worked from local art shows to the National Wholesale Craft Market in Washington DC. Now with the pandemic and approaching retirement years his woodworking focus is closer to home in his log cabin in the Eastern Kentucky foothills. Terry is also an avid whitewater adventurer.

Photo: Malcolm J. Wilson – malcolmjwilson.com

Peter Ross

Peter Ross is the preeminent whitesmith for museum-quality locks and tools and former head blacksmith for Williamsburg. He specializes in reproductions of 17th and 18th century English American wrought ironwork, black and bright. He now works making teaching, and selling hand-forged historic hardware and tools in Chatham County, NC.

Johnny Ruhl

Johnny Ruhl is a 74-year-old horse trainer, craftsman, outdoor educator, currently an djunt professor teaching hiking and backpacking at Middle Tennessee State University. For 6 years, he taught knife sharpening and tool restoration a the Rivercane Earthskills gatherings. He is a 3-time Gee Haw Whimmy Diddle World Champion and has demonstrated wooden spoon carving at the Tennessee State Fair, White Oak Celebration, and Centennial Park Craft Fair, among others. He is the author of Horse Stories from the Man Who Plays with Sticks. He lives without electricity in a handmade house tucked into a hollow on a hillfarm in Tennessee.

Aaron Sparks

Aaron has been carving spoons for about five years and dabbles, mostly unsuccessfully, in greenwood chair and stool making. He picked up spoon carving after moving to rural Ohio after spending five years in Santa Barbara. Aaron’s favorite spoons to carve are for eating and prefers cherry, walnut, and birch. When not carving or parenting two young daughters, he is a political science professor.

Ty Thornock

Ty grew up in the desert valleys of Washington State amidst orchards and onions. He grew up around woodworking but hadn’t discovered greenwood carving until 2013 while watching an episode of the Woodwright’s Shop in which they carved a spoon. With a couple of cheap knives and an old carpenter’s hatchet, he began his carving journey. With six children and a limited time and a limited budget, spoon carving made the perfect entry point into carving.

Now living in Iowa, Ty is a teacher of talented and gifted students at a rural school where he also runs an after-school carving club for students in 4th through 8th grade. In the carving community, Ty is best known for his kolrosed spoons. His passion is making carving accessible to children and much of his time is devoted to this endeavor.