Our Instructors

Scip Barnhart, born in 1946, lives in Washington DC. and teaches Drawing, Printmaking and Art of the Book at Georgetown University and also is the Resident Printmaker at American University. He is director and Masterprinter for Union Printmakers Atelier and Capitol Letter Press Studio. He previously taught for GWU, The Corcoran, VCU and The National Gallery of Art.Last show of prints and drawings was at the Atlantic Gallery in NYC 2016. Work in collections of The National Gallery, Library of Congress, Phillips Collection, Georgetown University. 

Paige Billin-Frye is a Washington DC artist who illustrates for children's publishing and makes fine art that incorporates photography and hand-bookbinding. She enjoys exploring new materials and the cross-pollination of different ideas and techniques, moving between digital art and materials she can touch with her hands. Her passion for alternative photographic processes has her trying all the plants in her yard to see what colors emerge as she uses them to tone cyanotypes.

Xavier Byrdlee is an interdisciplinary artist and educator with a BFA in Printmaking and minor in Art History from the University of North Texas. Hoping to spread a love of craftsmanship and printmaking, their work focuses on the interconnectedness of the human experience through use of traditional and digital methods. Their work has been featured in the Surface Design Association Journal and they have exhibited their work in the DFW area. Having moved from Texas in 2024, they now reside in Hagerstown, MD.

Alexis Candelaria trained with and works under veteran bookbinder Jill Deiss at Cat Tail Run Hand Bookbinding of Winchester VA, where she specializes in clamshell box making and book restoration. Alexis has a dual degree in Japanese Language and Japanese Culture which culminated in a two-year residency in Japan. Her love of antiquarian books is in her family's DNA, and her literary interests are seemingly limitless. Alexis' passion for music, ethnic foods, fantasy role-playing games, and etymology make her the perfect fit for the quirky world of bookbinding.

Mac Cosgrove-Davies is a self taught photographer who since 1978 has been practicing historic photographic processes including gum bichromate, cyanotype, Van Dyke, palladium, carbon printing, oil printing, and wet plate collodion. Using medium and large format antique and self-made film cameras and equipment in various formats, he seeks to make unique prints which match his images to the beauty and elegance of the selected photographic process. He currently leads the Hand Made Photo program for Photoworks at Glen Echo Park, Maryland. He is represented in public and private collections including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Library of Congress, Smithsonian Museum of American History, Ogunquit Museum, etc.

Alexandra Garcia is a Maryland based photographer, printmaker, and art teacher. She graduated from Shepherd University with her Bachelors degree in photography and her Masters Degree in Art Education. Her artwork is heavily influenced by nature and often focuses on the relationship between the cycle of life and the natural world.

Eric Groff is a Maryland based artist whose work explores storytelling conveyed in single images and sequential art. Eric graduated from Frostburg State University with a BFA focusing in Printmaking and Illustration and a minor in Art History. Discovering Frederick Book Arts Center in 2021, Eric has since translated his linocuts to wood and textiles, and explored monoprinting, letterpress, and bookbinding.

Charlotte Mauler Hayes is a freelance photographer and graphic designer originally from North Carolina. She graduated from Warren Wilson College with concentration on book arts, printmaking and photography.  Her bookbinding and art is influenced by historic research of  european renaissance and medieval bookbinding forms while her photography and graphic design relies heavily on the use of computers and modern technology. She has received award recognition for her historic bookbinding and historic artwork through the regional chapter of an international historical society.​​

Kimberly’s became interested in Book as Art while working in the education department at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. There she was devoted to exploring their extensive book collection and taking every opportunity to develop education programs bringing book artists to the museum to teach. That lead her to focus her artistic pursuits in bookmaking and she has spent the past 25 years exploring this versatile art form. Recently retired after twenty years of service from Americans for the Arts after overseeing the organization’s technology, she now spends her time making books, teaching book making, and is reviving her interests from college in printmaking. As much as she loves learning new things about book making, she also loves teaching and helping kids and adults see possibilities and joy as they explore their creativity. You can see her bookmaking at https://www.techartbook.com.

Books have always been important to Dawn! She loves reading, learning, imagining, creating, studying, making, teaching about and sharing them! She is mostly a self taught bookbinder, printmaker, decorative paper and paper maker. She is also a metalsmith. Dawn loves to combine all of these things in her work. Her work can be found in various places from the White House collection of Crafts (silver punch bowl and ladle) to many private collections (various works). Teaching happens at various places; historic sites, schools, and other venues with hands-on and deep involvement emphasis no matter how short or long the course is!

Originally from the Appalachian foothills of Northwest Georgia, Lauren G. Koch graduated in 2016 from the University of West Georgia, with concentrations in sculpture, printmaking, and art history.  She has most recently immersed herself in the DMV area, while pursuing her MFA (2020) at the University of Maryland.  She is an interdisciplinary artist, in addition to a classically trained musician, who finds herself drawn more to songwriting and playing folk instruments.  Having been steeped in the traditions and crafts of Northern Europe and Appalachia, her artwork serves as a conduit for fleeting personal and collective memories.  As a nationally and internationally exhibiting artist, she has found herself attending artist residency and teaching workshops on mark making with ferrous metals and natural colorants, throughout the United States and Europe.

Judith Kornett is a Maryland artist with Masters- Degrees in both printmaking and education.

She taught art in Anne Arundel County Public Schools for 40 years, with experience teaching pre-k through 12th grade. Kornett also has experience teaching home-schoolers and adults.

Her work has been included in juried exhibits across the U.S., and has work included in major University collections.

Marcey Jastrab combines a love of the natural world with crafting traditions of old to create unique, handmade items. She can be found making brooms, blacksmithing, gardening, or lino printing.

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Marcey has also been a lifelong teacher. She started by teaching her little sister how to read on a chalkboard.  From there she taught college volunteers on archaeological digs, bio/chem/physics in public high school, STEM classes at the public library, and now medical research at a medical school in Maryland. Combining professional teaching with her practice of the old traditions, Marcey loves sharing the creative joy in making things by hand.

Cam's artistic journey started with scrapbooking, morphed into photography, and now, she finds the perfect way to blend an interest in paper crafting and photography is through book-making of all kinds. She loves creating her own custom papers with rust-dyeing, cyanotype chemicals, gelli plate printing, and image transfers, then using the results in collage, in book signatures, and in folded structures.

Sarah Matthews' work reflects her commitment to exploring the complex issues of race, equality, and gender, while shedding light on social injustice. Through her layered prints and artist books, she documents the struggles of breaking through societal barriers. As an African-American, Mrs. Matthews has experienced firsthand the impact of negative media images that portray her community as inferior. Through her art, she aims to challenge these stereotypes and empower her audience to recognize the beauty, intelligence, and importance of all individuals, regardless of race.

Sarah Matthews is a highly skilled printmaker and book artist with a background in art and business. She holds an MA in Art & the Book from the Corcoran College of Arts and Design at George Washington University, an MBA with a Marketing Concentration, and a BS in Sociology from Bowie State University. Her works have been exhibited internationally and are part of prestigious collections at institutions such as the National Museum of African American History & Culture Library, Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, George Washington University’s Gelman Library, University of Puget Sound, and Samford University. Mrs. Matthews is also a dedicated educator, teaching Artist Books at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and bookbinding and printmaking classes at various art centers and platforms.

Christopher Madden, a resident of Frederick, Maryland is a longtime working, teaching Artist. Chris earned a BFA in painting from the Ohio State University. He was recruited for a ten year apprenticeship at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington DC and became one of the few Banknote Picture Engravers in the United States. Chris retired as the Lead Engraver in 2019 after a long career that included engraving the intaglio images printed on U.S. currency, postage stamps and the official portrait of President Barack Obama.

Chris studied at the Columbus College of Art and Design, the Art Student League in New York City, Studio Incamminati in Pennsylvania, and at the Florence Academy of Art in Florence Italy. Chris is currently primarily focused on figurative painting. He is a member of the TAG Artists Gallery in Frederick Maryland and teaches in the Washington DC area as well as conducting art instruction on Cunard cruise operations world-wide. Chris is the President of the Master Art Copyists- a select group of artists permitted to paint and study in person from the master works at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.

His paintings have most recently been juried with distinction into the 2024 Maryland Bienniale and into the 2025 London Bienniale. Chris is also now represented by the Gagliardi Gallery in London England. Chris’ painting “The Hefflefinger”was awarded Best in Show at the Cumberland Valley Art exhibition at the Washington County Fine Art Museum through April 2026. Chris works primarily at his Rushing River Art Studio in Augusta West Virginia

Carol Moore is a Printmaker and works from her home studio in Clarksburg, MD. Her early career was in graphic design and residential mural painting. She received a certificate in Studio Printmaking from Montgomery College, Rockville, MD in 2016 after studying printmaking since 2010. Much of Carol's work is rooted in the natural world and how it relates to human experience. Carol is an award-winning printmaker both locally and nationally. 

Lee Newman is a painter and printmaker. He received his Masters of Fine Arts degree from American University in DC and continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Art in Vienna as a Fulbright Scholar. A dedicated educator, he founded the Washington Studio School with Joseph Kossow in 1984 and has been a visiting artist at a number of colleges and art schools.

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His work has been exhibited in various galleries and museums and is included in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the California Palace of the Legion of Honor and the Print Collection of the Library of Congress.

Tawn took bookbinding lessons with Linda Rollins in the early 2000s, which sparked a love for the craft. She has taken classes with Dea Sasso at the John C. Campbell Folk School, and with Karen Hanmer at the Folger Library. A member of the Guild of Bookworkers, Tawn served on the Potomac GBW Board as Secretary and Newsletter Editor for five years.

Tawn loves to repair and rebind study Bibles, cookbooks, and children’s books that people have treasured and used till they fell apart. She has created original bindings which were accepted into juried exhibits. One work, “Connecting Peninsulas,” was purchased by the Michigan State University library.

Her Heritage Book and Bible Repair blog features photographs of her work and comments on the process. She has done bookbinding demonstrations at Middletown’s Heritage Days for a decade. In fact, that’s where her business name originated—she needed a name for her bookbinding venture and launched it at the Heritage Day festival.

Cheryn is usually found blending nature illustration with the historical calligraphy and illumination styles of medieval manuscripts. Using a variety of period-accurate media has provided her a unique perspective on the process of calligraphy, illumination, and book arts as a whole, and several of her pieces are done with historically accurate materials and gold leaf. As a lifelong learner and professional instructional designer, she also teaches workshops on painting and ink drawing techniques.

Cheryn is also an award-winning game designer and mixed media crafter; when she's not hand-painting vintage-style maps, she may be found repairing thrift store dollhouses, sculpting fossilized ichthyosaurs from clay, experimenting with floral design, or constructing a human-sized model of a horseshoe crab.

Gregory Robison is the proprietor of the Peregrinus Press, a private letterpress shop founded in 1988 near Herod's Gate, Jerusalem and now in Bethesda, MD. He has been president of the Scottish Arts Club in Edinburgh, Scotland, and executive director of The Writer's Center in Bethesda, Maryland. He has exhibited relief prints and plein-air artwork and has taught the art of the circadian journal (and other forms of creative writing) through the Life Sentences Workshop, which meets primarily online now.

Linda’s passion for book binding started at John C. Campbell Folk School in North Carolina in the early 1990s.  An apprenticeship near her home in South Florida combined with study in Massachusetts led to the opening of her bindery, Capella Book Arts.  Linda moved her bindery to Silver Spring, Maryland, and joined Pyramid Atlantic Art Center as the Binder in Residence in 2002.

When Pyramid Atlantic moved to Hyattsville in 2016, she went with them as a studio holder and teacher.  Linda became a member of their board in 2021, continuing to teach bookbinding and box making to all levels of students

Ellen Winkler was born in the Midwest but came to the Washington, DC area to study drawing, painting and graphic design at George Washington University. She worked for many years as a graphic designer and served as Art Director for The Chronicle of Higher Education's Chronicle Review. She was a long-time member of the Washington Printmakers Gallery, and began making books in 2015.

Elissa Campbell has been making books for the past 26 years and sells her work professionally under the business name of Blue Roof Designs. She studied Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania and earned her M.A. in Expressive Therapies with a concentration in Art Therapy from Lesley University. It was during her graduate studies that she was introduced to and fell in love with the book arts. She is a big believer in the power of using books for self-expression. Elissa is currently chair of the Book Arts Guild of Vermont, serves on the board of the Vermont Crafts Council, and is on the Vermont Arts Council's Teaching Artist Roster.

Elaine G. Chu has taught students of all ages, in person and online. Her work has been featured in “Greencraft” and “Somerset Studio” magazines as well as “1000 Artists’ Books.” She co-authored “Wood Paper Scissors,” a how-to crafts book. Elaine received a B.A. in music at Yale University and a B.F.A. in graphic design at University of the Arts. View more art EGChuHandcrafted.etsy.com and on Instagram @egchu1

A lifelong book lover and avid enthusiast of the book arts, Nic Heersema first became interested in understanding the structure and conservation of books while working at the Virginia Tech University library. This interest morphed into a passion for researching and recreating historical bookbinding methods which Nic pursues and teaches as part of an international historic arts society.

Between painting alongside her grandmother and watching her father build reproduction antique furniture, Rosa Leff grew up seeing no distinction between fine art and craft.  What mattered was that things were made by hand and done well.  It is with that in mind that she creates her hand cut paper pieces.  Each of Leff’s papercuts is cut by hand from a single sheet of paper using a knife.  Her cityscapes are based on photos she’s taken in her neighborhood and all over the world.  While Leff is best known for her ability to capture thin tangles of powerlines and intricate brickwork, she also enjoys experimenting with novel media such as paper plates and paper towels.  Leff delights in bringing a modern, urban perspective to a traditional folk medium. 

Leff serves on the board of The Guild of American Papercutters.  She has exhibited her work throughout the East Coast and in China.  She resides in Baltimore with her husband and chihuahuas, Chalupa and Refrito. 

Shawn Sheehy has been teaching book arts courses and workshops on the national level since 2001. His broadsides and artist book editions have been collected by such institutions as Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, University of Chicago, Library of Congress, UCLA, and Harvard. Sheehy's trade pop-up books Welcome to the Neighborwood (2015) and Beyond the Sixth Extinction (2018) were published by Candlewick and both won numerous awards. He holds an MFA in the Book Arts from Columbia College Chicago.