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Instructors

Max Elder '13
Student Manager
craftcenter@kenyon.edu

Classes at the Craft Center are taught by community members from the Knox County area, as well as Kenyon students and staff. Interested in teaching a class or workshop? Contact us!

Kristina is a new instructor of sewing at the Craft Center in 2012-13. She has been fascinated by fiber and fabric since childhood, when she taught herself to knit and made doll clothes the brutal way--sewing right through the arms and legs of naked dolls! She was ahead of her time in the use of glue. She has advanced to more civilized methods with a lot of reading and practice, occasional classes with experts, and everyday trial and error in sewing for her home, her family, and herself.

Sewing is a challenging combination of solid geometry, flexibility, technical accomplishment, and art. Kris hopes to share her enthusiasm for making things from fabric with students. She especially enjoys the versatility of sewing; it can be artful, but also very practical, and she is an expert in mending, recycling, and thrifty fabric finding. The sewing class is best suited for beginning and intermediate students because of space limitations, but students are encouraged to finish at least one personal project during the semester. Students will finish the semester with basic skills in hand sewing and in using a sewing machine, plus information on sewing tools and how to plan a project.

One of the first graduates of the University of California at Santa Cruz, Kris enjoys long friendships with many of her classmates 42 years later. She graduated with a B.A. in history and pursued graduate studies in history, and later in journalism. She has worked in several capacities as researcher, writer, musician, teacher, secretary, journalist, translator, and editor.

Kris came to Kenyon in 1991 with her husband, who is now a full professor at Kenyon. She retired from teaching at Ohio State University in 2012. She is well traveled and cherishes her childhood in Vietnam and Thailand. Her very favorite fabric is Indonesian batik, of which she has a collection scooped up during a great trip in 2005.


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Robin attended school at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. She graduated with a B.A. in 1984, majoring in art and studying pots under Dean Schwarz, who was a student of master potter Marguerite Wildenhien. The emphasis was on functional thrown stoneware. After graduation, Robin served two apprenticeships with professional studio potters, where she really began to learn how to make pots. Then she returned to Luther to finish her teaching certification for art, grades K-12. She has worked as a teacher at the Columbus Salesian Boys' and Girls' Club as well as a substitute teacher in Iowa, Minnesota, and Ohio.

She approaches clay as a marvelous playground for self-discovery, art therapy, and good sloppy fun. She believes that working with clay has great therapeutic benefits and is a terrific stress reliever, no matter what your technical skill level. Robin hopes that students come away from their time in the clay studio with something satisfying that they have made, but more than that, she hopes they experience a welcoming, nurturing and inspiring environment.

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Liz Keeney grew up in Rhode Island and Washington, DC, before sojourns in Washington State, Wisconsin, Massachusetts and, since 1991, Gambier. Her Knox County roots are deep, however, as her grandfather was born in Mount Vernon and the bike path passes through the land several generations farmed.

Liz began cooking young, helping to make her own birthday cake from the age of four. By high school she was contributing to the family table regularly, largely in self-defense as her parents were not good good cooks. Cooking is a form of relaxation for Liz, who especially likes baking and creating things with fresh ingredients. In college and as a young professional, the need for quick, inexpensive food, taught her to be creative, a skill she loves passing on to less experienced cooks.

Liz's classes focus as much on techniques as on recipes. Students of all cooking levels are welcome. Fun will be had and good food will be created and eaten.


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Carol has taught at the Craft Center since 1984. In alternate semesters she teaches glass bead making/fused glass jewelry and stained glass windowmaking.

Carol studied fine arts for four years at the University of Cincinnati and Kent State University. She had a two-year apprenticeship with a German craftsman. She spent three months traveling and researching in Germany, during which she documented the contemporary stained glass development of the country.

Carol has held guest lectureships at Kenyon College and Capital University. Additionally, she held a six-month Visiting Artist position at Kent State University teaching Architectural Glass in their Fine Arts Department.

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Marilyn is a retired Kenyon community member who came to the United States from England nearly 34 years ago and has taught knitting at the Craft Center for more than 20 of those years. She learned to knit at about 5 years old and became really excited by the process of making yarn when a student teacher in one of her grade school classes took the class on a field trip to gather sheep's wool from barbed wire fences! Marilyn knits for Wisp, a new yarn store in Granville, Ohio, and for Fringe in Salida, Colorado where she spends the winter. She belongs to fiber arts groups in both states.

Marilyn is delighted that knitting is now receiving the recognition she believes it deserves as an art form, and her class at the Craft center focuses on learning the skills needed to produce a garment or project to be proud of, and to give the student the tools to think beyond a printed pattern.

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April and her family live in Gambier, where her husband, Kent (Class of '93), works in the Office of Alumni and Parent Programs for the College. She has taught beginning knitting for three semesters at the Craft Center and very much enjoys working with the students to learn the basic skills necessary for knitting.

April is a self-taught knitter and often learns as much from her students as she teaches them. Currently, she stays home full-time caring for her two young children. Previously, April was a broker with the Huntington Investment Company and trainer with Huntington Bank in Columbus.

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Deborah started with knitting and simple weaving at about age eight, and has been fascinated by fiber ever since. She attended Iowa State University and received a B.S. in Applied Art. At ISU, she studied interiors and surface design (dyeing and printing), but really learned to weave in the year after graduation. She spent three years in a weaving program in Denver, CO, and has taken classes whenever possible with well-known weavers, spinners, and dyers in the years since.

Deborah has worked in Chicago as a textile R&D specialist, and has raised her own sheep and angora goats. She currently owns a retail yarn store in Knox County, Craftsman Hill Fibers, and teaches knitting, weaving, spinning, and other crafts.

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Rick attended high school at the Colegio Americano de Quito in Ecuador, then returned to the US to major in psychology at Kenyon. During his time here, he was the theater shop manager. He then went on to earn an MFA in Theater Design and Technology at Ohio University.

He gained experience in design and construction as a technical director in Kansas and Illinois, and in twelve years as a cabinet maker and furniture designer in Chicago and Champaign, IL. He now works in marketing for product management and new product development, and is currently a Business Unit Manager for new color technology in the plastics industry.

Rick has taught woodworking at the Craft Center for nineteen years. He and his wife Deborah, Craft Center weaving instructor, have just built a new house, which is dominated by studio spaces for each of them. He continues to design and build furniture for the new house and for a variety of charitable causes.

Rick can be reached at ryorde@gmail.com.

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Born in New York, Willie is a senior Studio Art major. He is currently the teaching assistant for the Craft Center's wood-shop and has been a part of the class since his freshman year at Kenyon.

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Max is a senior Philosophy major from Manchester, MA. This is his second year managing, after a hiatus while abroad in England. He particularly enjoys the pottery classes at the Craft Center, although has taken the Stained Glass Window-Making class as well.

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