meet our instructors
meet our instructors
Natalie Baxter
Natalie Baxter is an artist, educator, and founder of Cottage Courses based in Wassaic, New York. Working primarily with fabric, she creates soft sculptures and quilted works rooted in generations of quilting traditions passed down through the women in her Kentucky family. Her grandmother taught her to piece her first quilt, and that shared knowledge continues to inform both her artwork and her approach to teaching. Natalie loves bringing people together through making, sharing skills, and discovering the joy of learning something new.
She received her MFA from the University of Kentucky in 2012 and her BA in Fine Art from the University of the South in 2007. Her work has been exhibited internationally at institutions and galleries including the Mattatuck Museum, Denny Dimin Gallery in New York and Hong Kong, the New-York Historical Society, and Supermarket Art Fair in Stockholm. Her work and career have been supported by residencies and grants including the Wassaic Project, Arrowmont, Haystack, Vermont Studio Center, IASPIS in Gothenburg, NYSCA, and Arts Mid-Hudson. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Guardian, and BOMB Magazine.
Roxanne Jackson
Roxanne Jackson was born in California’s East Bay and currently lives in New York. Press for her work includes the New York Times, the New Yorker, the LA Times, Juxtapoz Magazine, Hyperallergic, Sculpture Magazine, Forbes, Metal Magazine, Cool Hunting and Ceramics Monthly, among others. She has attended residencies at Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park, Koka City Shiga Pref., Japan; the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE; Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, NY; the Center for Contemporary Ceramics, California State University Long Beach, CA; Plop Residency, London, UK; the Ceramic Center of Berlin, Berlin, DE (funded by a Jerome Project Grant); and the Pottery Workshop, Jingdezhen, China (funded by an NCECA fellowship). Her work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Arts and Design, NY, NY and the Gardiner Museum, Toronto, CAN. Selected museum exhibitions include the Arter Museum, Istanbul, TRKY; the Schloss Museum, Linz, Austria; Craft Contemporary, Los Angeles, CA; the Mütter Museum, Philadelphia, PA; the Grassi Museum, Leipzig, DE; and the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN. Selected New York City exhibitions include Anton Kern Gallery, The Armory Show with Night Gallery, The Hole, R & Company, Underdonk, Elijah Wheat Showroom, Ortega y Gasset Projects, Sardine, Dinner Gallery and Frieze Art Fair. Other exhibitions include The Pit and Sargent’s Daughters, Los Angeles, CA; Brigitte Mulholland Gallery, Paris, FR; David Lewis Gallery, East Hampton, NY; Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago, IL; Louise Alexander Gallery, Sardinia, ITLY; Duve Berlin Gallery, Berlin, DE; Public Gallery and Cob Gallery, London, UK; Mindy Solomon Gallery, Miami, FL; and Anonymous Gallery, Mexico City, MX. Jackson’s solo exhibition, “Unknown Giants” was recently on view at Anton Kern Gallery Window in NYC and her solo show OVUM is currently on view at The Pit in Los Angeles, CA.
Kate Hawes
Kate Hawes has been working with wood for 25 years. They have worked as a custom furniture maker, founded and ran a cooperative wood shop in Brooklyn, and taught furniture making for over ten years. They have a certificate in Furniture and Cabinet Making from The North Bennet Street School and recently was awarded a Masters in Craft History and Theory from Warren Wilson College with a research focus on contemporary spoon carving community. They completed a residency at The Anderson Ranch Arts Center and their work has been exhibited in group shows in Brooklyn, The Fuller Museum, and Manifest Gallery. They have taught woodworking at The Crafts Student League, Makeville Studio, Snowfarm, Haystack, the Wooden Boat School at the Hudson Valley Maritime Museum, and The American Folk Art Museum. They split their time between teaching, making commissioned work, and carving spoons in their shop in the Catskills where they are inspired by the surrounding woods and all that dwells in them.
Courtney Childress
Courtney Childress is a New York City based artist whose work explores texture, memory, and the physical act of mark-making through sculpture, painting, and mixed media. Childress received her MFA from SUNY Purchase and her BFA from the University of Alabama, and her work has been exhibited internationally, including shows in New York, Germany, and Luxembourg.
In addition to her studio practice, Childress has been active in the art community as a curator and gallerist, co-founding the New York gallery Yours Mine & Ours and supporting emerging artists through exhibitions and advisory work. Her work has been featured in publications such as The New York Times, BOMB Magazine, and ART MAZE Magazine.
Angela Eastmann
Angela Eastmann is the artist behind Flag Mountain Studio, where weaving serves as the foundation of her creative practice. Working with foraged materials, cultivated basket willow, metal, fibers, and found objects, she creates baskets, sculptures, and installations that explore the intersections of industrial and natural material cultures. Rooted in the Piedmont of North Carolina, her work reflects a deep connection to place and a belief that sharing the processes of craft fosters meaningful connections to histories of labor, landscape, and community.
Renee Baumann
Renee is a Catskills-based designer, chef, and nature enthusiast with a passion for wild plants and fungi. Trained as both an architect and a chef, she brings a creative, interdisciplinary flair to everything she does—whether she’s crafting baskets from local plants, illustrating mushrooms in watercolor, or whipping up delicious meals from foraged ingredients. Renee teaches workshops and techniques working with local fibers, with an emphasis on creating three dimensional forms from bioregional components. Her work varies from traditional basketry practices in cattail and willow to sculptural felt and spinning foraged fibers. Renee teaches workshops on identifying, cooking with, and even weaving with plants and fungi growing in the Catskills.
Janis Stemmermann
Janis Stemmermann is a visual artist, and designer whose interdisciplinary practice includes sculpture, textiles, ceramics and printmaking. Creating immersive environments of individual, modular works, Stemmermann explores how objects move between—and are recontextualized by—natural and domestic spaces.
Stemmermann received a BFA in sculpture at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Her work has been supported by the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig in Ireland. Janis is the Creative Director and collaborative printmaker at Russell Janis, a Brooklyn-based project space focusing on prints based projects with various artists. She is currently the Chair of the Emily Mason and Alice Trumbull Foundation. Based in Brooklyn since 1988, she now divides her time between Williamsburg, Brooklyn and Sharon, Connecticut.