2026 Instructors
Ruco has been shearing for over 40 years. He started as a 14 year old. In 1995, he went to New Zealand and took week course at the college in Christchurch and worked for a contractor for the season. He did another course under the guidance of a New Zealand instructor in Canada for a week in the early 2000’s. He’s been shearing every year since. Ten year’s ago he started teaching this course with Peter Kedulka.
With over 15 years of hands-on experience in the timber frame industry in Eastern Ontario, Mark Duffe has spent the past 13 years teaching the log and timber frame component of the Heritage Carpentry Program at Algonquin College in Perth, Ontario. In addition to his teaching, he has led three log building and timber frame courses for Indigenous communities in the Yukon over the past six years. When he’s not in the classroom, he’s also dedicated to designing and building timber structures right from his home workshop.
Andrew has been growing shiitake mushrooms on his homestead for the past 10 years with logs from his FSC certified forest.
Teilhard is an outstanding Canadian multi-instrumentalist and instrument maker, specialising in traditional Appalachian old time music.
His latest solo recording, ‘Four and Twenty Blackbirds Dancing on a Deer Skin’, is a collection of traditional music found in the Appalachian highlands, early era banjo tunes, and harmonica songs.
Growing up on Manitoulin Island, Teilhard was surrounded by fiddle tunes and old songs, farming life and the bush. At the age of three he was given a harmonica by his father and his great-grandfather’s fiddle from his Mum. He danced ballet for his youth and would bust down with some flat foot clogging to let loose. When Teilhard moved to the city for secondary school he took up the baritone Saxophone, traps and percussion.
Teilhard tours the world as a solo act and with his band Sheesham, Lotus and ‘Son. He works regularly as a studio session musician playing a myriad of instruments and on stage supports other musicians and dancers as a guest.
These days, Teilhard lives on Wolfe Island in the St. Lawrence River where he makes banjos, his supper and his bed.
Peter Kudelka has been a part-time shearer for the last 45 years. He has attended the Shearing School at The Dryden Sheep Station of Cornell University for 14 years. These schools were instructed by New Zealand instructors teaching the system of the New Zealand Wool Board Way (the Bowen Method documented by Geoffery Bowen). He has attended and worked 5 different Shearing Schools under the auspices of the Ontario Sheep Farmers and Canadian Coop Wool Growers. For the last 15 years he has run a Shearing School for Beginners in Everet near Alliston Ontario supported by Ontario Dairy Farmers and The Canadian Coop Wool Growers. Peter tries to have an instructor for every three students. Peter has found patient instructors who will share knowledge, equipment, advice, safety and enthusiasm.
An interest in textiles and clothing grew into a fascination with felt and its seemingly magical process when Zoë spent a year cycling New Zealand with her partner in 2009. She took a private class with a local felt maker in the small town of Te Aroha. After that, her panniers just kept filling with fibres and whacky felting projects as she discovered this craft while they traveled around, apprenticing (wwoofing) on various farms; from big dairy to small homesteads. Once returning to Canada her apartments were more ‘felting studio’ than living space. Then in 2014 she moved back to her hometown of Perth, ON where she and Ben rented a small house where she was able to open her doors to her first felting students. She spent the next four years teaching, developing her craft, finding her place within diverse fibre arts communities and expanding her backyard veggie gardens.
Growing ever more passionate about growing good food and having the space to raise their own flock of sheep and start a homestead, Zoë and Ben’s dreams were realized when, in 2018, Dawn King (a former midwife, basket weaver and rustic furniture builder) offered them her property in the small community of Brooke Valley, a short distance from Perth. With a new space to create and teach, Zoë and Ben recognized the potential for other learning and hosting opportunities on this property. Zoë has an innate love for old craft, sharing skills, preserving folk arts and striving to live a more resilient and sustainable life. All these passions lead to the birth of the Cordwood Folk School & Homestead. They have two children now, a small flock of Icelandic sheep, year-round hens, meat birds during the warm months, two organic vegetable gardens and a dog named Billie.
Chenoa Marshall is a fruit tree grafting enthusiast who first attempted grafting (unsuccessfully) as a teenager. She finally succeeded years later after discovering detailed grafting instructions and stubbornly making repeated attempts, over a few years, analyzing results and researching the topic until her first grafts took. She has been growing her own rootstock and grafting actively for the last 8 years. Due to popular demand, she started putting on workshops in order to help fellow enthusiasts to try their hand at grafting.
Agnes is a visual artist (OCAD Sculpture/Installation graduate), small business owner and camp director of Mindful Makers. She offers hands-on arts programming to kids and adults in and around the Waterloo Region through day camps, workshops, festival events, craft kits, and her locally produced TV Show.
Agnes is passionate about teaching hands-on skills and spreading the joy of making through a multitude of crafting methods including: sewing, printmaking, felting, dyeing, weaving, electronics, 2D and 3D modeling, sculpture, mold making + casting, book binding, papermaking, cardboard and paper crafts. Many of her projects are now available as at-home kits and can be ordered through her website: www.mindfulmakers.ca
More recently Agnes’ love of stick work has led her back into the world of public art making where she collaborates with community groups to create woven sculptural installations. She is excited to continue down this path and to see where the weaving work will take her next.
Instagram: @agnesmakes @mindful_makers
Danielle’s path to tanning was meandering and certainly not the most obvious choice of a then vegetarian, budding biologist. However, upon seeing and treading that path, she was drawn in and continues to go deeper into this old and arguably endangered craft. Over the past 8 years, Danielle has sought out traditional and natural practitioners to apprentice under. Through much experiment, persistence and research, she continues to hone her practice and continues to fall deeper in love with the work.
She finds it an honour to do and share this craft, and has found that it really engages folks, and ignites an old remembering. Based in the lovely woods of Brooke Valley, Danielle wears a few hats but feels truly called to the tending of this ancient craft, as it satisfies many needs. The desire to learn, to share, to participate in something old with one’s hands, to keep something alive and to co-create things of beauty.
The art of brain and smoke tanning is a practice that mostly carried forward on turtle island. Many communities still have very skilled practitioners and Danielle is ever thankful for the chance to share in this craft, as a settler, especially knowing that this craft and its remembering have slipped from some communities.
Johnny is a willow grower, basketmaker and hand-craft enthusiast. He can often be found tending willow coppice, gathering sticks, foraging for weaving materials, making baskets, and generally being a keen basketry sponge. Since 2018, he has been exploring this heritage craft and spreading his love for basketry. Starting his own willow coppice in 2022, he is now growing willow for use in his work, and making cuttings available for people who would like to grow their own. Descendant of English and German Mennonite ancestors, he currently resides in Paris, Ontario.
www.instagram.com/thevillagemaker/
Sammy is deeply passionate about the living earth and is ever-weaving earth-infused crafts into her life. She is a seed saver, farmer of willow and budding botanist that aspires to be as good as squirrels at planting and processing nuts. She works in ecological restoration, outdoor education, farming and leading as many crafty-plant-filled events she can.
Sammy grew up in Toronto and thanks to some wonderful mentors and an innate and never-ending curiosity, she got jazzed about plants through events like Wild Foragers Society Frolics, city tree walks and through participating in various herbalist, bushcraft and outdoor classes. She now lives by abundant brambles, hemlock trees and a creek in Michi Saagiig Anishinaabe territory near Warkworth, ON. Sammy is an
enthusiast, not and expert on any one-thing and is always excited to learn more and dig into the mysteries around us.
Amy Lou is the owner of TAoTaT’s Mystic Tea & Brooms and The Museum of Tasseomancy. She is a certified tea sommelier, horticulturist, organic gardener, community herbalist, hedgewitch, and author. She facilitates many programs about Tea and Brooms, some of which she has been teaching for over 20 years. Amy has always been an artist who chooses to create with things found in nature. She has been making brooms for over 20 years, but when her father passed in 2012, she lost her muse. In late 2020, after rediscovering a 20lb box of broom corn in her basement, Amy rekindled her love for creating with this natural material.
Amy Lou sees much value in making her own tools and engaging with tool makers who are experienced in their craft. She finds broom making very satisfying and loves to share her knowledge and experience with others excited to learn this craft.
John Wager is Michi Saagiig Anishinaabe, from the Curve Lake First Nation. He lives on the Curve Lake First Nation reserve and loves his community. He makes his living selling a variety of handmade wares; including wooden spoons, baskets, knives, bowls, cups, canoe paddles, and leatherwork. He enjoys sharing what he has learned along his creative life’s journey through teaching workshops.
Amber Westfall (she/her) is a registered herbalist, plant-lover, medicine maker, seasoned gardener, and wildcrafter. She is a passionate educator, eager to invite people into relationship with plants. The intersections of herbalism, sustainability, environmental ethics and social justice are deeply rooted in her work. She strives to provide accessible herbal care and purposeful education that is in service to plants, people and the environment. She is the steward of a 1.65 acre medicinal plant micro-sanctuary in what is now known as the Lanark Highlands of Ontario.
