Cathi Belcher is a writer and a fiber artist who lives at her mini-homestead Moonhaven in Mid-coast Maine. She is a certified Weaving a Life Circle Leader and trainer, and a certified Zentangle instructor, who also enjoys bookbinding, gardening, long walks, and her family and friends. She works part time at Bowdoin College, and is the creator and organizer of “Harriet Lives”, an organization dedicated to Social Justice and accurate interpretations of history as it really happened. This will be her 4th year at Medomak.
Rachel Bingham Kessler is a plant dye educator, writer, sewist, and painter with a degree in Art Education. She runs 44Clovers, a small batch yarn company specializing in Maine primitive wool breeds and plant dyes. She’s taught fiber and plant dye workshops at venues such as Squam Art Workshops, Portfiber, and The Maine Fiber Frolic. Her work has been published in Taproot Magazine and Northern Journeys Magazine. She lives on Peaks Island off the coast of Portland, Maine with her husband and two kids. You can follow her at 44clovers.com and @44Clovers on Instagram.
Sarah Bond comes from a family of quilt makers stretching back to the early 19th century. She has been quilting since her early 20s and loves immersing herself in old quilts and quilt books, looking for inspiration and listening for wisdom from her quilting for mothers. She is obsessed with shapes and colors and while her inspirations are classic and traditional, she renders her own work with a modern or contemporary flair. She loves nothing better than being in a room full of quilters and makers because the creativity that is generated is so intoxicating. Her mission when teaching is to break design and method down to their components to demystify them so that students can master those components, bend them to their will and design their own masterpieces. Sarah grew up in Chicago but now lives in Philadelphia near her family and in the company of her ninja cat Jinks.
Katherine Ferrier is a poet, dancer, maker, teacher, curator, and community organizer, and has been the Director of the Medomak Fiberarts Retreat since 2018. Her research grows out of a deep practice of paying poetic attention to the world, and lives in the intersecting communities of movers, makers, writers and activists. A self-taught quilter, she has improvisationally designed and constructed nearly 100 quilts, drawing on her years of study, both formal and independent, of movement, poetics, painting and architecture, among other forms. She regularly teaches and performs throughout the US and abroad, and believes in patchwork as a radical practice of being patient, saying yes, and making space for everyone at the table.
Bristol Ivy is a knitting designer, teacher, and author from Bangor, Maine. Her work has been published with PomPom Magazine, amirisu, Quince & Co., Making Magazine, and her own eponymous pattern line. She has taught at such events as Squam Art Workshops, Edinburgh Yarn Festival, and Vogue Knitting Live, as well as yarn shops worldwide. Her recent books, Knitting Outside the Box and Knitting Outside the Box: Drape and Fold, both with PomPom Press, explore her lifelong commitment to breaking rules and finding beauty in unexpected places. When not knitting, she’s sewing, running, watching far too many British murder mysteries, and baking a mean loaf of oatmeal honey bread. Find her on Instagram and Twitter as @bristolivy.
Cal Patch has been making, designing and teaching all things textile-related in New York City since 1991. She sews, crochets, embroiders, spins, prints, knits, dyes, and more. She designed clothing for Urban Outfitters, Free People, Gap, and Old Navy before developing her own line of one-off pieces called “hodge podge”, which she currently sells at craft fairs and in her Etsy shop. After owning a boutique for four years which showcased her own and other local indie designers’ work, she opened one of the nation’s first craft schools in 2002. She contributes to books and magazines such as Stitch N’ Bitch: The Happy Hooker, Mend It Better, Applique Your Way, Made by Hand, Crochet Today and Sew Stylish. In 2009 Cal relocated to upstate New York where she is learning to be a crafty farmer. She offers classes in the Hudson Valley, and travels to teach at retreats and events like Squam Art Worshops, the Makerie, and Lucky Star Art Camp. Her first book, Design-It-Yourself Clothes: Patternmaking Simplified, was published by Potter Craft.
Casey Ryder is the owner of PortFiber, a fiber arts supply shop in Portland, Maine that serves as a hub for spinners, weavers, felters, knitters, dyers, and other makers. Casey regularly teaches wheel and drop spindle spinning, and rigid heddle weaving classes, and invites other fiber arts instructors from around Maine and New England to inspire her community, hosting workshops throughout the year at her shop. In 2016, Casey became the US Distributor of Cashmere People Yarns, a women-run business of hand spinners in Tajikistan & Afghanistan. She has since traveled to Tajikistan to meet the women she represents. This experience lives in her heart while she travels the US promoting their handspun cashmere and cashgora yarns. You can read about her travels in Tajikistan in the Trade issue of Taproot Magazine. In her spare time, Casey likes to knit, dance, drink coffee, read fantasy novels, and bike around town.
Sarah Sockbeson is an award winning Native American Artist, culture bearer, and member of the Penobscot tribe, creating traditional yet contemporary brown ash and sweetgrass baskets. She is part of a new generation of basketmakers who’ve pushed the boundaries of Wabanaki cultural art to an exciting new level. Growing up within the homelands of the Penobscot, Sarah always had a deep appreciation for traditional art, baskets in particular. Coming from a long line of basketmakers, it was unfortunate the line of knowledge stopped when her great-grandmother passed away before teaching her generation. In 2004, Sarah was introduced to the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance, an organization dedicated to preserving cultural knowledge, and it was then she had the opportunity to apprentice with renowned basketmaker Jennifer Sapiel, Penobscot. Since then, Sarah has honed her skills with each basket woven, becoming an integral part of the Wabanaki arts community. She continues to serve as an active participant, teacher/ mentor, and innovator among her tribe and the national Indigenous arts community. While her work is undeniable tied to cultural tradition, she infuses a style all her own, in the hopes that her work will serve as an inspiration to future generations of Native American artists.
Medomak Fiberarts Retreat 