Making Center Staff

Alec Snow is a multidisciplinary artist working in sculpture, drawing, collage, and sound. Their work is concerned with the material and aesthetic properties of rural environments and the way these properties act as structures or strictures that support and inhibit those who move around and through them. Alec graduated from Parsons School of Design with a BFA in Fine Arts. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, and Southwick, Massachusetts.

Alex Ingle is an artist from North Georgia. Her work is informed by personal, social, and regional narratives. In 2014, she received her BFA with a concentration in Ceramics and Printmaking from the University of West Georgia; in 2017, she received her MFA in Ceramics from East Carolina University. She taught as a professor at her Georgia alma mater and recently worked as an operations manager and glaze technician at New York Stoneware, a ceramic production studio located in the Bronx, New York. She and her creative practice reside in Brooklyn, New York.

Ali Rufrano-Ruffner (she/they) is an artist, muralist, sculptor, social activist, and art educator living in Brooklyn. Influenced by graffiti, glamor, hip-hop, funk, techno, magic, the internet, and her friends, ALI fuses these elements with found, fabricated, and handmade objects. Continuously interested in rigorous, authentic, one-on-one, human-spirited approaches to public space, their practice is dedicated to a culture of revolution. ALI focuses on creating art and sculpture that help us radically imagine worlds where we can truly care about each other.

Alika Potts is a designer and maker hailing from the Tri-State and Philly whose studio practice is rooted in her diasporic identity. She spent her undergrad years studying fiber art, printmaking, and fashion. Alika’s professional career has included working in fine arts education; designing and fabricating large-scale installations; creating block-printed textiles, upholstery, apparel, and home decor design; and managing retail and projects. She enjoys creating environments and learning how to use new tools to hone her craft. Alika can’t resist an invitation to any kind of travel adventure.

Andrew Kimbro graduated from Virginia Tech with a BS in Industrial Design in 2016. While in college, he discovered his desire to design and build furniture and just be in a shop as much as possible. Since graduating, he has spent time in a wide array of shop environments. He has designed and built custom furniture in Richmond and Baltimore, taught woodworking, and overseen shops at MICA and NYIT. Over the years, he came to realize that he enjoys sharing craft with others, and he is excited to continue to do so at Parsons.

Arly Amaya is an interdisciplinary artist, freelance designer, and sewing instructor based in Queens, New York. She holds a BFA in Fashion Design, with a specialization in Sportswear, from the Fashion Institute of Technology. Her interests include but are not limited to patternmaking, machine knitting, and production management. Through her own journey in fashion and sewing, she has realized the true joy of imparting her knowledge to others.

Casey is a teacher and photographic artist with an affinity for older cameras and film processes. After earning his MFA at Parsons School of Design, he shifted to a conceptual photo practice, focusing on investigating his family’s Jewish history as a vehicle for understanding how certain narratives become part of national history and how others are left in the past. Bring Casey a broken camera or equipment, and he will enthusiastically try to fix it.

Catherine McCulloch (pronounced Katrine) (she/her) is a maker and designer, focusing on functional objects in a wide variety of materials. She lived and worked in Chicago for more than ten years running making spaces for the School of the Art Institute in Chicago and now calls Brooklyn home. When not making, she loves to cook, garden, and pet cats.

Danielle Clare Pomorski is a ceramics artist and playwright from Erie, Pennsylvania. Danielle attended Ohio Wesleyan University, focusing on ceramics and theater, and continued with her ceramics studies in Athens and later in Brooklyn, New York, where she currently lives. Danielle worked as a ceramics technician and instructor at Choplet Ceramics Studio for four years and has collaborated on facilitating a ceramics knowledge exchange program in Oaxaca, Mexico, where she led Raku workshops and worked with raw glaze materials. Her work was featured in a solo show and has been included in many group exhibitions. Her ceramics work is largely inspired by the environmental challenges and invasive species of the Great Lakes.

Deanna Siguenza is a multidisciplinary artist born and raised in Queens, New York. Her identity as an artist is informed by the history of craft and making. Her interests range from 3D technologies to textiles. Deanna has worked in art education and nonprofit art organizations. She enjoys working with new media and is excited to continue learning alongside her colleagues here at The New School.

Ella Desmond is a printmaker and performance artist originally from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She holds a BFA in Printmaking from Louisiana State University and an MFA in Fine Arts from Pratt Institute. She excels in lithography and letterpress and recently completed a color-reduction relief print at the Vermont Studio Center, where she was a resident in 2019. Desmond has performed multiple times with the avant-strange ersatz music group Hide the Knives at Picasso Machinery in Williamsburg. She is currently working on a series of prints exploring the intersection between tragedy, comedy, and public service. Desmond lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

• http://www.edesmond.com

Emma is a carpenter and multidisciplinary folk artist from Wisconsin. Her art includes woodworking, painting, ceramics, and neon lighting. She graduated with a Bachelor of Social Work in 2013 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her activism mainly centered on people living with HIV/AIDS and Queer populations. Emma then graduated from Madison Area Technical College in 2021 with a diploma in cabinetmaking and millwork. Her work has ranged from creating custom furniture to architectural millwork. She has spent time living in New Orleans and Cape Town, South Africa, but has been in Flatbush, Brooklyn, since 2016. Go ride Deno’s Wonder Wheel!

Erik is an artist and designer from Washington State. He gets a kick out of developing tools and processes and using found materials. His favorite tool is the carpenter square. He is excited to learn and share as a member of the Parsons Making Center community.

Eva Warne is a carpenter and mixed-media artist whose work exists in the realm between furniture design and functional art. They graduated from TNS with a BFA in Product Design and have experience with wood and metal working, glass casting, CNC milling, and ceramics. Eva enjoys the lathe, working large scale, and 80 grit sandpaper.

Gabriela is an interdisciplinary textile artist and recent graduate of Wellesley College, where she received a B.A. in Studio Art and Middle Eastern Studies. Her work examines the traditions of textile-based practices in SWANA, with a particular focus on the Levant. Primarily a weaver, she also enjoys quilting, embroidering, and printmaking.

Hashem Eaddy is an artist who lives and works in New York City. He received his BFA in Studio Art and BA in Art History from Queens College in 2012. He has worked as a professional printer for more than ten years while making art, riding bikes, traveling, exhibiting, hiking, and helping people figure stuff out. You can research him on the World Wide Web if you would like to know more about him, but it’s probably better to ask him if you see him.

Henry Portillo is a printmaker and 2D animator born and educated in the Bronx. He enjoys demystifying printmaking processes and assisting developing artists whenever he can. He is currently working on a mythological narrative with his pantheon of “Gawds,” a family of flawed, vulnerable deities of color. Part self-portrait, these figures embark on a journey while enduring an existential crisis like the one that plagues so many of us, embracing vices to suppress these emotions, and, ultimately, realizing their ability to adapt and persevere.
 
Portillo earned a BA and an MFA in Printmaking from Lehman College. He currently manages a print shop in The Gowanus Studio Space.

• www.henryportillo.com

Jelisa Brown, a Chicago plus-size apparel designer and entrepreneur, received her bachelor’s degree in fine arts from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) with an emphasis in fashion design. Jelisa spent the last eight years as a facilities supervisor at SAIC. She has more than a decade of fashion industry experience as a designer and tailor at one of the top plus-size boutiques in Chicago, formerly known as Curve Culture (Culture’s Closet). Jelisa showcased her designs in collaboration with Full-Figured Fashion Week in New York City. She enjoys working with other small businesses, boutiques, churches, designers, and musicians in Atlanta, Chicago, and Texas. Jelisa’s work investigates unexplored territory in fashion, offering a unique one-on-one collaborative experience involving consumer and designer. Jelisa currently creates custom pieces for her brand, titled JBMarie, while working as the facilities manager in the MFA Fashion Design and Textiles studios at Parsons School of Design.

Jillian Hurley is an interdisciplinary fibers artist and textile designer. She has worked in a range of industries relating to art, education, textiles, and design since earning her BFA in Fibers from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2012. Prints, patterns, and textures bring her joy on a daily basis. Jillian’s favorite works accentuate the interplay between sculpture, installation, and product design.

Joe Hirsch received a BFA in Illustration from Parsons School of Design and has been part of the school ever since. Originally from Japan, he traveled to North America to study arts. He is passionate about visual design and narrative.

Jordon Soper is a New York City-based artist, photographer, and educator from Downeast Maine. Her art practice explores perception, natural history, the illusive boundary between the real and the unreal, and the power of the unknown. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in photography from Bard College.

Kasia Hope is a Polish interdisciplinary artist and recent graduate from the Rhode Island School of Design where she received a BFA in Textiles. Working mostly with textiles, archival family photos, and different sculptural media, she explores how transforming materials and creating environments can represent memory, identity, and human relationships. She is happy to call New York her new home, having moved here recently after completing residencies in Berlin and Iceland. 

Kat Nash is a decorative artist and designer. They are a recent graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, where they earned a BFA in Craft and Material Studies with a concentration in Woodworking and Furniture Design. As a craft artist, they explore many different media including but not limited to wood, ceramics, fibers, metals, and glass. Kat’s greatest interest is in creating playful, functional home objects. Creating furniture with the user’s body position in mind allows Kat to alter the way in which users interact with the world around them. Integral to Kat’s practice is their desire to encourage play in themself and others.

Kelly Chang is a multidisciplinary artist and maker of many types of things. With a background in product design, 3D animation, motion design, and visual effects for television and film, Kelly has broad experience with a variety of digital tools. He is currently working on developing his fine art practice working in ceramics and mold making. Kelly is a bicycle person and a dog person.

Lacie Garnes (she/her) is an artist, educator, and arts administrator who works primarily with photography and video. Her work has been shown nationally and abroad and involves familial landscapes, surveillance and voyeurism, and queer belonging and identity. Lacie has an MFA in Art and Technology Studies from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA in Photography and Digital Arts from Bowling Green State University.

Lauren Phillips is a sculptor from Sacramento, California. She received her bachelor's degree in fine arts from Parsons School of Design. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

• www.laurenrosephillips.com

Leah Wolff received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2006 and her MFA from Columbia University in 2011. She has managed ceramic studios and taught at Columbia University, Drew University, New Jersey City University, RISD, and MoMA. Leah is a co-founding director of Meta Meta Meta LLC, a Brooklyn-based not-for-profit established to support underrepresented artists through collaboration and community engagement. A recent participant in Two Trees’ Cultural Space Program, she was previously an artist-in-residence at Cooper Union and the Museum of Art and Design’s Artist Studios.

Madison Koczo is a multidisciplinary artist and instructor. After graduating with a BFA in Painting from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, she has used figures and animals in her work exploring the dismantling of memory. She has extensive knowledge of art history and experience in printmaking and sculpture (primarily clay, wood, and metal). She also received an accelerated fashion certificate from Made Institute in Philadelphia, where she developed her knowledge of sewing and garment construction and worked as a freelance fashion designer and illustrator. Koczo continues to expand her practice in art and fashion. She is passionate about creating and maintaining safe spaces in education and work environments and never shies away from difficult conversations in life or in her art. When she’s not making, Koczo can be found on her couch studying foreign languages with her two cats, Piper and Cheeto, at her side.

María del Mar Hernández Gil de Lamadrid is a Puerto Rican interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Using photography, video, and performance in a creative and conceptual process, she draws on her diasporic experiences as a migrant and on the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico in her work. She uses her body to metaphorically produce actions of resistance, emotion, and reclamation of power. Hernández’s work has been shown nationally and internationally.

Hernández completed a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, and a Master of Fine Arts in Photography at Parsons School of Design.

Megan Stroech is a visual artist whose work explores the dichotomies between realness and imitation, image and object, and luxury and the common through references from pop culture, still life, and domestic spaces. Stroech constructs unusual arrangements of readily available materials, subverting conventional understanding of their utility in order to spark new dialogues between them. Often using inexpensive, widely available "luxury" items, such as Styrofoam food and marble-printed Contact paper, as materials, she invites the viewer to draw on their own experience, whether in connection with a specific material or with the overall form of a piece.

Stroech received her MFA in Printmaking with Exceptional Merit from Illinois State University in 2012 and her BFA in Studio Art from the University of Texas at Austin in 2008.

Mick Hondlik has extensive professional and academic leadership experience in technology and design, business and marketing, and nonprofit and volunteer organizations. He is always seeking project opportunities as a problem solver with groups that require experience in human factors, solid technical and engineering ability, an understanding of marketing and communications, and a passion for social and educational impact and change.

Hondlik holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering and a BS in Physics from the University of Wisconsin, an MBA with Sustainability Focus from the University of Cincinnati, and an MPS in Interactive Design/Technology from NYU. His specialties include design and technology; business and marketing strategy; social impact; sustainability; leadership, organization, and coordination; rapid prototyping and manufacturing; and technology education.

Mick Hondlik—Director, Making Center

Nate is an artist and maker from Delaware. He loves mashing media together and seeing what sticks. His practice revolves around empathy, experimentation and adaptive design, and solving fiddly problems with fiddlier solutions.

Nate received his BFA from the University of Delaware in 2021 and earned an MS in Fashion and Apparel Studies in 2023.

Nicholas is a designer based in New York City, originally from Sydney and Hong Kong. A graduate of the BFA Product Design program at Parsons School of Design, he is interested in how the discipline of product design overlaps with sustainability, emerging technologies, and social issues. His work is largely informed by modernist and human-centered design. In his spare time, Nicholas plays volleyball and soccer, enjoys creative writing, and plays the saxophone.

Olivia Krewer is a designer and maker originally from Illinois. She studied architecture and has worked in academia, furniture design, and architectural design. She is excited to support students in their creative processes. Her cat is named Katya.

Oscar Gracida is a visual artist based in Brooklyn who uses drawing, photography, video, and sound to develop his research-based practice. Before completing his MFA in Fine Arts at Parsons School of Design, he worked on the visualization and photographic documentation of architectural lighting projects at a Mexico City-based lighting design studio. He arrives at the Light Lab after spending some time helping to materialize a wide range of art exhibitions at MoMA PS1 and a few galleries in NYC. He wants to foster an inclusive, safe, and stimulating environment at the Lab.

Rocco Morabito is an artist and educator who produces photography, sculpture, and video works. Within his practice, Rocco investigates the romanticization and preservation of obsolete technology through reconceptualization. He also interweaves his own familial tragedies with fictive narratives of other authors as a means of processing grief—one vignette at a time.

I am an emerging designer in my junior year of study in the Product Design program at Parsons School of Design. I work primarily with wood but have branched out to experiment with felt and cork. As a designer, I gravitate toward the Scandinavian Modern and Postmodern design styles. Creative problem solving and collaboration are central to my design approach.

Sebastian Alexander Bass is a photographer, filmmaker, artist, and educator based in New York City. With a concentration in portraits and live music photography, Sebastian strives to freeze unforgettable moments in time and tell untold stories needed to be told. His art practice extends from the vulnerability of his connections to his sitters and subject matter. He holds his BFA and MFA from SUNY Purchase College.

Shai Tingo is a New York–based artist working with a wide range of materials and processes, from darkroom analog and non-silver photography to sculptural installations and metalworking. Tingo graduated with a BFA from SUNY Purchase and has since been working in art and design fabrication in various foundries and studios. Their work currently revolves around themes of erosion and decay through the patination of metals.

Teke Cocina is an interdisciplinary artist living in New York who makes prints, books, sculptures, stickers, videos, interventions, statements, whispers, etc. about stars, being queer, aliens, love, the weather, friendship, photographs,  trees, Hendrik Goltzius, Hercules, moire, shadows, etc.

Timothy Colose is a photographer based in NYC. His work is fundamentally portrait photography, and he has specialized in the use of analog processes and darkroom techniques to personalize the work. Timothy received his BFA from the Fashion Institute of Technology in Photography and he recently graduated from the School of Visual Arts with an MFA in Photography and Related Media.

Walker is a multifaceted artist from Atlanta, Georgia. His practice utilizes painting, sculpture, and installation art via a continual rethinking of the art object. As a true believer in the importance of experimentation in art-making, Walker welcomes opportunities to explore new materials and processes.

Weichen Leslie Hwang is an American-Taiwanese interdisciplinary artist from New Jersey. As a practice, they survey the sentimental and the love embedded to carefully examine their standings in grey spaces and in-betweens. Their work looks to demand a moment for the quiet, the mundane, and the common miracle. They are a MICA BFA graduate still studying a lot of things— but mostly interdisciplinary sculpture, printmaking, and graphic design.

Zarrin Karimi is a mixed-media artist and designer focusing primarily in print media. Their pronouns are they, he, and she. Zarrin graduated from Parsons with a BFA in Communication Design and a BA in History from Eugene Lang College. Their work focuses on queer identity and is rooted in anti-capitalism. He is the co-founder of Roller Ink Riso, a risograph practice based in Brooklyn, New York. Zarrin’s cat, Bernie, is the prettiest devil you ever did see.