CSSC Instructors

  • Francis Anjo

    Francis Anjo received his MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, PA and BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, N.S.  He has enjoyed a career on both sides of the border working in the stone fabrication industry for over 15 years where he learned dimensional stone cutting starting from quarry block (as a sawyer) through to finished cut stone moldings and carved architectural detailing (as a banker mason). Francis uses his Fine Art education and technical skills for new construction, restoration of Heritage buildings, stone design and fabrication consultation, as well as pursuing a contemporary Studio Art practice. 

    2024 WORKSHOP:

    Stone Carving: Making Big Rocks Smaller with Style

    www.franjodesign.com 
  • Taylor Apostol

    Taylor Apostol earned her BA in Studio Art at the University of Vermont and MFA in Sculpture at Boston University. Two years studying in Florence and Carrara, Italy ignited her passion for marble carving and plaster casting.
    Apostol has attended residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, the Studios at MASS MoCA, and Sias International University in Xinzheng, China. She currently lives and works in the Boston area.

    2024 WORKSHOPS:

    Traditional & Alternative Finishing Techniques

    www.taylorapostol.com 
  • Andrew Brehm

    Andrew Brehm was born in Pennsylvania where he studied as a furniture maker and later received his MFA in Sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University. He currently teaches a sculpture class called "Ways Of Making" and manages the fine art workshops at Columbia University.  Andrew has an active sculpture studio in the Hudson Valley of New York.

    2024 WORKSHOPS:

    Sculpting with Paper

    www.andrewbrehm.info 
  • Anne Brisson

    Anne Brisson is a self-taught artist who is skilled in a wide variety of mediums including watercolor, acrylic, collage, painting, color pencil, pastel, clay, pulp paper and papier maché. Although she has been painting and drawing for over 30 years, she has crafted her sculptural methods in the last 15 years. Her pieces are built on her talent in figurative clay modelling and her love of all things paper and vintage. This mixture helps produce pieces that are both whimsical and realistic in their own way. She has shown at various galleries across Canada, and has many international collectors of her work. Anne currently resides in Montreal. Anne holds a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture, a Bachelor of Urban Design, a Bachelor of Adult Education in Creativity, and is currently finishing a Masters of Science of
    Creativity.

    2024 WORKSHOPS:

    Pulp Paper Sculpture

  • Fred X. Brownstein

    Fred X. Brownstein was educated at San Francisco Art Institute, where he received his BFA. Fred lived and worked in Italy as a figurative sculptor for 16 years. His contemporary figurative sculpture and public commissions have been exhibited in Italy, Canada, and the U.S. Working in bronze as well as marble, Fred brings a traditional approach to his carving instruction.

    www.fredxbrownstein.com 
  • Ben Caldwell

    Ben is a nationally known metalsmith and fine artist who exhibits in art shows and galleries all over the country and has been featured in many national publications including Southern Living, Cottage Journal, Garden & Gun, Oprah Magazine, Town & Country magazine, Glass on Metal magazine, along with many others.

    2024 WORKSHOPS:

    Flora and Fauna in Copper

    www.benandlael.com 
  • Ray Ciemny

    Metal Artist Ray Ciemny is the owner and founder of Artisan Iron. From his workshop/studio in Groton, he has been crafting exquisite custom architectural, landscape and sculptural metal works for more than 20 years. In addition to his inventory of projects gracing fortunate homes and businesses, Ray has also produced commissioned public art. He is represented by Three Stones Gallery in West Concord, Massachusetts.

    2024 WORKSHOPS:

    Metal Sculpture & Technique Immersion

    The Language of Metal Sculpture

    www.rayciemny.com 
  • Philippe Faraut

    Philippe Faraut received his degree in woodcarving and the construction of French fine furniture from Germaine Sommeillier in Annecy, France, his boyhood home.  After establishing residence in the Chesapeake Bay area of Virginia, he developed an interest in modelling the head in clay.  An avid traveler, Philippe's destinations have allowed him the opportunity to study the cultures of many countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean, thus influencing his work in portraiture.  In 1996, he relocated with his wife to the Finger Lakes Region of New York.

    Philippe has created numerous works ranging from six-inch porcelain figurines to over life-sized monuments in both stone and bronze and has exhibited his sculptures in various galleries and national and international competitions.

    For over twenty years, Philippe has traveled throughout the US and abroad to teach sculptors and aspiring sculptors how to render portraits and figures in clay at private studios and institutions including the Grand Central Academy in New York, Ringling School of Art in Florida and Pixar in California.  In addition, he has studied forensic facial reconstruction and anaplastology, and lectures at universities and medical conventions in the US and Europe on expressions and the aging process of the face.

    2024 WORKSHOPS:

    Portrait in Clay

    www.philippefaraut.com 
  • Kerry O. Furlani

    Kerry O. Furlani is a sculptor known for her expressive slate carvings of incised and burgeoning forms. She gives life to her work using mallets and chisels, traditional methods introduced to her while training at the Frink School of Figurative Sculpture, in Stoke-on-Trent, England, in the late 90s.

    Her work has been exhibited throughout Vermont, New York, and Washington DC, and is in the collections of the Shelburne Museum, in Shelburne, VT, and the Slate Valley Museum, in Granville, NY. Her slate carvings were selected for Sculpture 2010, an exhibition juried by Ryan Hill, curator at the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

    In the winter of 2011, Furlani received a grant from the Vermont Arts Council to return to the UK and study in Wales with a master letter carver.

    Furlani’s slate-wood furniture collaborations are featured in Lark design series publications: 500 Tables and Lark Studio Series: Table.

    For over a decade, Furlani has been teaching slate carving workshops and offering public demonstrations of relief and letter carving at schools and community events, in and around Vermont.

    www.kerryofurlani.com 
  • Zoë Marr Hilliard

    Zoë Marr Hilliard received her B.A. in dance and sculpture at Smith College, and has since been working as an independent
    artist, dancer, choreographer, and teaching artist in Vermont. Her recent work includes installation and site-specific performance pieces at SculptFest and S.P.A. Gallery's On the Planet, as well as dance performances with Vital Spark North and Cradle to Grave Arts. One of Zoë’s missions in life is to help children find their creative voices and have trust in their own artistic ideas. She has worked toward that end in her dance instruction at VT Center for Dance Education and Castleton State College; her work as an educator at Castleton Elementary School, Fort Hill Center for Early Childhood Education, and the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art; and through her workshops for teens and children through Rutland City Public Schools, Rutland Recreation, Castleton Recreation, Stone Valley Arts (Poultney Children’s Art Studio), and the Castleton Free Library.

    2024 WORKSHOPS:

    Sculpt Me a Story Art Camp Session 1

    Sculpt Me a Story Art Camp Session 2

  • Virginia Lee Montgomery

    VLM (Virginia Lee Montgomery) (b. 1986, Houston, TX) is a polymath and multimedia artist working between Austin, TX and New York, NY. She received her BFA from The University of Texas at Austin in 2008 and her MFA from Yale University in Sculpture in 2016. Working across video art, performance art, sound art, and sculpture, her artwork interrogates the complex relationship between physical and psychic structures. The multimedia artworks of VLM reveal the surreal connection between life's mental and material realms. She has exhibited extensively in galleries, museums, and film festivals; she exhibited with New Museum (NY), Times Square Arts (NY), Museum Folkwang (Germany), Wright Lab at Yale University (CT), The Lawndale Art Center (TX), False Flag (NY), and Hesse Flatow (NY). She has also participated in group exhibitions at institutions including Sculpture Center(NY), La Panacée-MoCo (France), The Hessel Museum at Bard College (NY), The Banff Centre (Canada), Socrates Sculpture Park (NY), The Menil Collection (TX), and Kunsthal Charlottenborg (Denmark), among others. She has held residencies at Socrates Sculpture Park (NY), The Shandaken Project at Storm King (NY), The Vermont Studio Center (VT), Coast Time (OR), The Carving Studio & Sculpture Center (VT). VLM is a current 2021 MRSEC Material Research Artist in Residence at the University of Texas at Austin's Department of Engineering (TX).

    2024 WORKSHOPS:

    Site-specificity, Land Art, and Magical Objects

    hellovlm.com 
  • Evan Morse

    Evan Morse is a sculptor, working primarily in clay, plaster and stone. He received a B.A. from Wheaton College and M.F.A. from Boston University. Morse has additionally studied in Florence and Carrara, Italy, where he gained experience with traditional sculpture techniques, including stone-carving. His figurative works have been recognized with two grants from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation and a fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Morse is a two-time recipient of the Dexter Jones Award from the National Sculpture Society, which is awarded for work in bas-relief. In addition to his studio practice, he has completed several large-scale public art commissions. Morse lives in Newton, Massachusetts.

    2024 WORKSHOPS:

    The Figure in Marble

    www.morsesculpture.com 
  • J. Angus Munro

    J. Angus Munro has taught studio arts in stone, glass, metal, and wood for over thirty years, beginning his career teaching at the New York Experimental Glass Workshop (UrbanGlass) in NYC. His classes have been with students from Parson’s and the New School, NYU, Pratt, FIT, Hunter College, and Columbia University, in NYC, Vermont College, in their Masters of Fine Art in visual art program (now Vermont College of Fine Art), Castleton State, Green Mountain College, Goddard College, in Vt.
    His own work crosses boundaries of disciplines, using earth, art, and energy work, casting, carving, and painting, to create many object and objectless works of art. It uses any medium including social sculpture in process facilitation. He holds the degree of MFA in Interdisciplinary Art from Goddard College.

  • Ryder Owens

    Ryder Owens has a BFA in sculpture from the University of Montevallo and was an Artist in Residence at the Vermont Marble Exhibit in Proctor for ten years. He is cofounder of Petra Terra, Inc, which specializes in historic stone masonry and conservation.

    2024 WORKSHOPS:

    Introductory Stone Carving (March)

    Introductory Stone Carving (May)

    Introductory Stone Carving (July)

    Introductory Stone Carving (October)

  • Gary Parzych

    Gary Parzych pursued a dual BFA degree in Sculpture and Art History at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. As a sculptor, he enjoys learning and practicing the hands on, physical efforts of working with metal, stone, and other materials. As an art historian, he values the academic side of the process, and continues to question and analyze. During his time at MassArt, he studied metal casting and fabrication extensively. He has since continued to work with Bronze, Iron, Copper, and Aluminum for various applications. Gary has worked on projects from full size castings to a functional furnace designed to melt iron at 3000 degrees. His knowledge of metal working led him to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Studio where he worked on monumental projects as a metal fabricator. He continues to create his own work and enjoys teaching those who are eager to learn. 

    2024 WORKSHOPS:

    Steel Sculpture

    www.garyparzych.com 
  • Rick Rothrock

    Rick Rothrock is a professional sculptor and holds a B.S. in Education, a Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture, and studied stone carving at Pelicani Blasco Studios in Italy. He has been active in the arts for over 40 years exhibiting internationally and represented in various corporate, public, and private collections. Rick has created several major public artworks, many of which are listed in the Smithsonian Art Inventories Catalog. Several of his large sculptures can be seen on the grounds of the CSSC.

    Rick is a long time instructor of stone sculpture workshops at The Carving Studio. He has been a frequent participate in SculptFest, curator of SculptFest'11, one of the five feature artist in the Marble Sculpture Symposium at CSSC, and was instructor for the California Sculptors Symposium 2017.

    2024 WORKSHOPS:

    Stone Carving: Tools & Techniques (Session 1)

    Stone Carving: Tools & Techniques (Session 2)

    www.rickrothrock.com 
  • John Tidd

    John Tidd received his BA in Chemistry from Middlebury College where he also studied design and printmaking. He has studied welding in London and the U.S. to create sculpture and manufacture snow-grooming equipment for the ski industry. His studio in West Bridgewater, Vermont is filled with bins of interesting steel shapes that he will share with his workshop participants.

    2024 WORKSHOPS:

    Welded Steel Assemblies

  • Ingrid Tremblay

    Ingrid Tremblay is a French Canadian/Syrian artist from Montreal, Canada. She completed an MFA in Sculpture at The University of Texas at Austin in 2018 where she received the Graduate School Recruitment Fellowship and the Quebec Research Fund Grant among numerous awards. Prior to her MFA, she earned a BFA from Concordia University (Montreal), and a B.Sc. and M.P.O. from University of Montreal. Tremblay’s sculptural practice includes a variety of materialsand techniques, from traditional stone carving to digital fabrication, and addresses the relationships between nature, material culture, language, perception,and experience. She is interested in the evocative power of objects, materials, and sites to recall memories, to create narratives and to generate affects. Tremblay was awarded the 2018-2019 Fountainhead Fellow in Sculpture at Virginia Commonwealth University. She also completed residencies at NARS Foundation (NY), Djerassi (California), the Carving Studio & Sculpture Center (Vermont), Vermont Studio Center (Vermont), ACRE Project (Wisconsin), Terra Vivente Art Studio (Campania, Italy) and 59 Rivoli (Paris, France). She has been the recipient of several grants through the Quebec Council for the Arts and Canada Council for the Arts. Her work was shown in institutions, including CentreClark (Montreal), Sediment Arts (Richmond), Visual Art Center (Austin), Centre d'exposition de l'Université de Montréal, Lawndale Art Center (Houston) and Phi Center (Montreal).

    2024 WORKSHOPS:

    Site-specificity, Land Art, and Magical Objects

    www.ingridtremblay.com 
  • Nora Valdez

    Nora Valdez, born in Argentina, has been living and working in the United States as an artist since 1986. In 1982, she graduated with the title of Professor of Fine Art from the College of Fine Arts in San Luis, Argentina. In 1984, she moved to Perugia, Italy, where she further developed and exhibited her work. In 1985, she started working in marble in Zaragoza, Spain, in a studio funded by the city of Zaragoza.

    Her work has been exhibited internationally in Europe, Asia, North, Central, and South America, including numerous international Sculpture Symposiums. She has more than 15 permanent Public Art pieces around the world and in the US. Valdez is the recipient of many awards and has been funded nationally and internationally. She has been a member of Boston Sculpture Gallery since 2012.
    Nora Valdez’s work is part of the permanent collection of The Fitchburg Art Museum, MA, The Art Complex Museum, MA, The University of Massachusetts permanent art collection, Boston and The Changchun World Sculpture Park and Museum, China, among others.

    2024 WORKSHOPS:

    Drawing to Sculpt

    Carving Alabaster

    Stone Bench Project

    Carving in Alabaster, Limestone, and Marble

    www.noravaldez.com 
  • Bill Wolff

    Bill Wolff grew up surrounded by trees and the collapse of the manufacturing economy in rural upstate New York. Prior to moving to the Eastern Shore of Maryland, he spent four formative years in Japan and three years in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, all the while observing, producing and exhibiting sculpture made primarily from discarded tree parts.

    Since an early experience working on a landfill in the early 1990s, and literally watching the sun rise over a mountain of garbage, Wolff’s work has been a direct response to consumer culture. He holds an MFA from Louisiana State University and an MA in Wood Sculpture from the Tokyo University of the Arts.

    He has worked as an educator since 2009 and has been carving his work since the mid-90s. He is currently an Assistant Professor and head of the sculpture area at Salisbury University on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

    2024 WORKSHOPS:

    Wood Sculpture- Reshaping trees, logs, and branches

    www.billwolff.net 
  • Jiannan Wu

    Jiannan Wu (b.1990) is a Chinese born, New York-based artist specializing in sculpture. He is an adjunct faculty of New York Academy of Art, an Elected Member of the American National Sculpture Society, a member of the American Medallic Sculpture Association, and the World Economic Forum Global Shaper of Dalian Hub. Jiannan Wu received his BFA Degree in Sculpture from China Academy of Art and his MFA Degree in Sculpture from New York Academy of Art. Through formats of sculpture and wall relief, Jiannan Wu presents the theme of contemporary urban life and social events such as politics and sports with a focus on realism and a strong narrative.

    2024 WORKSHOPS:

    Bas-relief in Clay

    www.jiannanwu.com 
  • Bob Yorburg

    Bob Yorburg's fascination with turn-of the-19th-century amusement arts began as a child. The fancy carvings and magical displays captured his imagination. Those whimsical and enchanting influences are entirely represented in his work today.

    With an early interest in magic, Bob designed and built most of his own props. He learned his woodworking and design skills from his father and grandfather, both of whom built furniture.

    Bob earned his B.A. at Wesleyan University, and studied design at Harvard Graduate School of Design, Parsons School of Design and the Institute of Architecture and Urban Studies with Peter Eisenman.

    Early in his career Bob headed Dakota Jackson’s custom built furniture shop which included design, construction, finishing and complex restorations.

    Bob founded one of New York’s top event companies producing elaborate sets and props for live shows, film and television. Re-creating a turn of-the-19th-century Coney Island environment complete with a hand-carved fantasy park earned him public recognition throughout the United States. This environment was featured numerous times on ABC and Disney Television.

    Currently Bob is lecturing and demonstrating throughout the U.S., writing for various publications, teaching carving to adults and children while completing projects and restorations.

    2024 WORKSHOPS:

    Lettering

    Greenman

    Acanthus Design and Carving

    www.bobyorburg.com 
  • Jim Zingarelli

    Jim Zingarelli (B.F.A. Pratt Institute, M.A. Trinity College, Ct., Nicoli Botteghe Artistici di Scultura, Cararra, Italy) is a painter and sculptor who has been teaching art for over 40 years.  He has taught at The Barrington Center for the Arts (Wenham, MA), The Salzburg Institute,(Salzburg, Austria)as well as The Orvieto Semester (Orvieto,Italy) and The Carving Studio & Sculpture Center (West Rutland, VT). His work has been exhibited at The Kingston Gallery (Boston), The Andrea Marquit Gallery (Boston), Pepper Gallery (Boston), 3S Artspace (Portsmouth, NH), Vorpal Gallery (NY), Dartmouth College, Yale University, Berklee College of Music, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and the Attleboro Museum. He resides and works in Amesbury, Mass. 

    2024 WORKSHOPS:

    Carving in Stone

    www.jimzingarelli.com