Matthew Shlian

09/29/17 • 19 min

Matthew Shlian is an artist/designer and founder of the Initiative Artist Studio in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His work ranges from drawings to large-scale installations to collaborations with scientists at the University of Michigan.

He's widely known for his work with folded paper, but as a maker he doesn’t see himself fitting into a particular category—he likes to work with what he has at hand—without being able to predict the results. He makes his work from what he calls ‘a place of not knowing’.

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Lily Yeh

Lily Yeh is a co-founder of The Village of Arts and Humanities, for which she also has served as executive director and lead artist. Founded in 1986, the Philadelphia-based, non-profit organization aims to build community through art, learning, land transformation, and economic development. In 2002, Lily began Barefoot Artists, which continues her style of community building through art on an international level, in places such as Rwanda, Kenya, Ghana, Ecuador, and China. Lily Yeh seeks to build a more compassionate future through her collaborative work. She told the Christian Science Monitor, “I have found that the broken spaces are my living canvas. In our brokenness, our hearts reach for beauty.”

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Jen Bervin

Jen Bervin’s interdisciplinary work often combines art, science and writing. One recent project is Silk Poems, a poem written nanoscale in the form of a silk biosensor in collaboration with Tufts University’s Silk Lab, and also published as a book. Another project, The Dickinson Composite Series, is a series of large-scale embroideries that depict the variant markings in Emily Dickinson’s original manuscripts. Jen's work as a poet and visual artist takes her in surprising directions. She says, “I love research because I don’t know what I’ll find.”

Make/Time shares conversations about craft, inspiration, and the creative process. Listen to leading makers and thinkers talk about where they came from, what they're making, and where they're going next. Make/Time is hosted by Stuart Kestenbaum and is a project of craftschools.us. Major funding is provided by the Windgate Charitable Foundation.