Essay | Handmade Crafts Shape Artists and Build Community

This is the second of two articles about the art show, Made by Hand: How Craft Shapes the Maker.

WINONA COUNTY, MINN. — As we sat at her dining table surrounded by myriad bowls, mugs, trays and other objects she’s made over her long career, ceramist Teresa Schumaker told me, “Working with clay calls for inventiveness and problem solving.” 

Schumaker has been throwing clay at Schumaker Pottery for more than four decades and still shows up in the studio with curiosity and a desire to explore and experiment.

I first met her in 2024, not as an aspiring ceramicist, but through an experimental investigation of my own: I’ve been a woodworker for several years, and in 2024 had begun to think about the impact that this craft had on my own life. How it was shaping me just as much as I was shaping the wood I used into cabinets, tables and decor. 

These questions led me to reach out to and connect with other craft makers, to learn if their experiences were similar. I wanted to deepen my own understanding of what craft can do to the maker. Schumaker, well known in the Winona community as an expert ceramist, was one of the first people I spoke to about my ideas.

A mug in process by potter Teresa Schumaker. (Photo by Taliesin Nyala)

“The aspect of pottery that most resonates with me is experimentation,” Schumaker told me. “I am a playful person. I love problem solving and games. Trying different forms, glazes and methods of firing provides a great playground and an endless search.”

Craft is a physical manifestation of Schumaker’s inherent nature. Her curiosity is embodied in her hands. 

While it results in beautiful work – from sgraffito (a decorative technique involving scratching through a top layer of slip, underglaze or plaster to reveal a contrasting color beneath) mugs to bird baths, bowls and five-foot-tall fountains – for Schumaker, the process of making is as vital as the specific items she makes. 

Teresa Schumaker’s pieces await the next stage of the process. (Photo by Taliesin Nyala)

This attitude resonates with me, as a woodworker, as well as with the other artisans I spoke with as my project began to take shape. The ideas of 2024 took shape in a grant application I submitted in February 2025. In December 2025, I was awarded a Creative Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board to bring these ideas to shape in a show for the community. 

I reached out to four artisans, including Schumaker, and they agreed to have their words and work featured in an exhibition exploring how craft shapes us as makers.

“Part of doing a craft is stepping in and saying, ‘I’m going to make the mistakes and experiment,’ and that opens it up for other people to join in and try making too,” woodworker Megan McCarthy told me.

She and Schumaker, along with fiber artist Lindsay Krage and printmaker Zak Fellman, are all showcased in the exhibition. (Learn more about Krage and Fellman in Root River Current’s story, How Craft Builds Connections from the Past Into the Future.)

Woodworker Megan McCarthy holds a piece she’s working on in her home studio. (Photo by Taliesin Nyala)

McCarthy recently received a grant from the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council (SEMAC) that allowed her to explore straw marquetry, a sixteenth century art form created in France. She set up her studio in her dining room, a basket of unprocessed rye sitting next to a work desk filled with multi-colored straws, a cutting mat, heavy stones, small wood blocks and hand tools. 

A major component of McCarthy’s process is that she’s responsible for every part of the creative evolution: from harvesting the rye, to processing and dyeing it, to making artful objects with it.

(Left) Undyed and unprocessed rye McCarthy harvested. (Right) Brightly colored rye ready for projects. (Photo by Taliesin Nyala)

“Straw marquetry takes so much time, it’s so slow,” McCarthy said. Pursuing this art was a steep learning curve. This was true for each of the artisans, whose efforts took time to come to fruition, who dedicated months and years to learning. 

With her solid base as a woodworker experienced in cabinetry, McCarthy creates a variety of objects, from mirrors to lamps to decorative items. The support she received from her family and from the SEMAC grant increased her confidence. In 2025 she led a workshop teaching straw marquetry to others in Winona. 

“All these layers of support sustain you through the difficulties of being a craftsperson,” she told me. Difficulties such as figuring out a viable financial path, sourcing good materials, carving out the time in a hectic life to spend slowly working toward something distinct.

A practice piece by woodworker Megan McCarthy is taking shape. (Photo by Taliesin Nyala)

Craft requires connection to others, an openness to learning from what others are doing and using it to inform your own curiosity and creations. 

While I’ve never created an exhibition like this before, the skills I’ve gained as a woodworker — patience, the ability to slow down and make sure I’m doing the next step right, the playfulness necessary to incorporate others’ ideas into the piece, the sense to pare back and not overdo the whole project — have been essential to my own growth as an artisan. 

My hope with the exhibition is for visitors to experience the craft-making process. To feel what it takes to work with one’s hands, heart and mind (to paraphrase woodworker and writer Peter Korn) to make ideas take shape in the real world. 

Taliesin Nyala is a fiscal year 2026 recipient of a Creative Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.