Instructors

Marc is a podcaster, video producer, woodworking enthusiast, and author of the books Hybrid Woodworking and Essential Joinery. He has contributed articles and video content to FineWoodworking.com, Popular Woodworking Magazine, WOOD Magazine, and Woodcraft Magazine. He is also the host of The Wood Whisperer, an instructional woodworking video series that’s been going strong since 2006. He is also the owner and operator of The Wood Whisperer Guild and the Wood Talk Podcast. He has taught classes at the William Ng School, Marc Adams School, Weekend with Wood, Fine Woodworking Live, as well as Rockler and Woodcraft stores. He also speaks periodically at woodworking events like AWFS and IWF.

When not woodworking and building furniture, Marc can usually be found in a tattoo shop, reading comic books, and telling his kids fart jokes. You can follow him on Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook.

Matt is a classic log to furniture woodworker. In 2017 he made his own bandsaw mill and uses it to create massive slabs for himself and other woodworkers to turn into beautiful furniture. He started his YouTube channel in 2014 and has a large and dedicated following. His woodworking style ranges from modern to classic reproductions.

Matt has been a Guild instructor since 2016 and a co-host of the Wood Talk podcast since 2016. He travels to teach periodically at local Guild meetings as well as woodworking events like Woodworking in America. You can keep up with his antics on Instagram, YouTube, and his website.

Jory Brigham is a California-born artist, designer and builder with a passion for creating lasting works by hand. Growing up among generations of woodworkers and craftsmen, Jory discovered his own creative voice within the family trade at an early age. Though his artistic inspiration pulls from decades throughout the twentieth century, many of Jory’s designs play with colors and textures to pair unique perspectives with classic, mid-century balance.

Jory now creates in his dream shop located in Paso Robles, California, where he pulls inspiration from the beautiful landscape that surrounds him. He loves sharing his knowledge and space while teaching workshops for woodworking and furniture design, along with running his primary furniture business. His main motivation is to show his two children the value of hard work and passion for their chosen career path, while constantly growing personally and pushing the limits as an artist.

You can catch him on Instagram, or his website.

Philip Morley was born in London, England. After a rough academic start, struggling with dyslexia, he found his true passion in trade school where he studied for four years to become a joiner under the City and Guilds program. Once graduated, Philip worked as joiner doing restoration work on various prestigious historical buildings in central London. After moving to the US, he studied with furniture designer Richard Chillcott in Ruskin, Florida for three years before moving to Texas where he apprenticed with Michael Colca for 7 years. He is now a contributing author to Fine Woodworking Magazine and has been published in Woodworker West and Woodskills Magazine. He has taught at Austin Community College, Marc Adams School of Woodworking and Austin School of Furniture and Design. Phil continues to build one-of-a-kind pieces in his small studio located on his property where he can be close to his family.

You can catch him on Instagram, or his website.

Anne Briggs learned to love woodworking at her grandfather’s workbench as a child. Six years ago, upon moving to Seattle, Anne decided to begin pursuing woodworking seriously as a hobby, and her obsession grew quickly. Anne writes for Furniture and Cabinet Making Magazine and travels with Lie-Nielsen Toolworks’ Hand Tool Event staff to offer guidance for hand tool woodworkers interested in the craft. In 2015 she was hired as the Wood Studio Manager at Pratt Fine Arts Center to develop their woodworking education and artist access program. She has had features published about her in Wood Magazine, Modern Farmer, Flavorwire, Lee Valley and more. In January 2018 she resigned her position at Pratt so she could finish writing her book on preserving traditional craft and life rhythms, do more teaching, and to pursue her furniture building and educational content creation business full-time. 

If you’d like to follow Anne’s work and her precious menagerie of fluffy friends on her farm in Seattle, you can find her on Instagram, YouTube, or on her blog anneofalltrades.com. 

Darrell Peart started his career in the early 1970’s making and selling small wooden items at Seattle’s Pike Place Market. To broaden his experience, he then went on to work for various high-end custom shops throughout the Puget Sound area gaining an extensive background in both commercial and custom furniture making.

Exploring new design ideas is where Darrell’s passion lies. Although the influence of Greene and Greene can clearly be seen in his work – he draws inspiration from other varied sources as well.

Darrell also writes and lectures about design, woodworking, and the history of Greene & Greene. He has written articles for Home Furniture, Today’s Woodworker, Fine Woodworking, Woodwork, Popular Woodworking, American Woodworker, Woodworker West, Style 1900,  British Woodworking, 360 Woodworking, The SAPFM Journal, and Australian Wood Review.

His first book, Greene and Greene: Design Elements for the Workshop, was published in April 2006 by Linden Press followed by his second book In the Greene & Greene Style: Projects and Details for the Woodworker, in 2013.

Johnny started Crafted Workshop in May of 2016 and he’s built countless projects since then. He loves making things with his hands but, when he’s not in the shop, Johnny also loves craft beer, playing music, and hanging out with his wife. Johnny took Crafted Workshop full time in July of 2016 and hasn’t looked back since! You can catch him on Instagram, YouTube, or his website.

Ashley lives in Charleston, SC, where she creates her work and teaches at her personal studio. She has demonstrated and taught woodturning in a number of professional venues throughout the US and abroad, visiting seven other countries and traveling as far as Australia. She has been featured in various publications including the American Association of Woodturning’s Journal, Woodturning magazine, Popular Woodworking magazine, and Charleston magazine. Her teaching focuses on fine spindle turning and the Push Cut method of bowl turning along with the 40/40 grind on a bowl gouge, with a strong emphasis on tool control. She received a BFA from Carnegie Mellon with a focus in sculpture and installation art, and her design aesthetic is heavily influenced by her background in glassblowing. Find out more about Ashley by visiting her website: ashleyharwood.net,  on Instagram, or on Facebook.

Brian began his career in the trades as a young boy working alongside his father learning basic construction techniques. By the time he was 13, he was working in a steel fabrication shop for a bridge construction company.  Being the kid in the shop, the old grizzled welders took pride in teaching him how to weld, set up his work area to be safe and productive, build jigs for production, and how to properly lay out a workpiece from shop drawings.

In his mid 20’s he took a job as a project manager for a design remodel company designing and remodeling spaces for commercial and residential clients. The company had an in-house cabinet shop so they could design and build from the ground up anything they needed for a project. When Brian wasn’t actively on a job site, you could find him in the cabinet shop, working alongside a shop master creating custom cabinets and built-ins.

All these years of designing and building things honed his skills to give him the confidence he needed to start his own business.  In 2010 Brian started his design-build firm Benham Design Concepts, specializing in designing and building art and custom furniture. His drive to learn new things has helped his portfolio grow and attract clients who are looking for the unusual. Brian has been making plans for the Wood Whisperer and the Wood Whisperer Guild for several years now and often provides consultation on TWW and Guild designs.

While woodworking is Mike’s job, it’s also his hobby. He’s been woodworking professionally since he was a teenager. He worked his way through college in a cabinet shop. After getting a desk job out of college, he realized that wasn’t for him. So he fell back to cabinet making, shortly thereafter, he opened his own small-time, one man operation. As the years went by and the projects went out the door, he found that he had fallen in love with his craft. It became his vocation and his avocation. To this day he still loves the smell of his shop as he flips the lights on in the morning, coffee in hand. He still gets optimistic butterflies in his stomach as he’s unloading materials for a new project. He hopes to share with you some of the skills he’s learned along the way, and if he’s really lucky some of his passion for our craft.

Megan Fitzpatrick, a.k.a. @1snugthejoiner, is a woodworker and the editor at Lost Art Press. She is short one dissertation of a Ph.D. in English literature (focused on early modern drama), and a former editor of The Chronicle and of Popular Woodworking Magazine. When she’s not at the computer or teaching, you’ll find her building furniture (mostly tool chests) or at the bar alongside, Christopher Schwarz, publisher at Lost Art Press.

In addition to woodworking teaching woodworking, writing about woodworking, and editing writing about woodworking, Megan is restoring a circa-1905 four square in Cincinnati’s Northside neighborhood, and living amidst the chaos with her cat, Olivia the Greyt. Her personal blog is rudemechanicalspress.com.

Christopher Schwarz is a furniture maker, writer and publisher who works from a storefront in Covington, Ky. He is one of the founders and the editor of Lost Art Press, which publishes books on hand tool woodworking. And he is one of the founders of Crucible Tool. He is a former editor of Popular Woodworking Magazine, and has been published in Fine Woodworking, Mortise & Tenon Magazine and many other woodworking publications. He teaches hand-tool woodworking around the world. Christopher is the author of five Lost Art Press books and a contributor to two, “The Joiner and Cabinet Maker” and “The Art of Joinery.”