About
of We are a crew of makers. Meagan, Binbin, Jess, and Don work together in the Minneapolis College of Art and Design's 3D shop. Normally, we spend our days as shop teachers, stewards of the space, and professional tool organizers. We come from various backgrounds and share experience with what might be termed "toxic shop culture". We are making our shop by all us and for all of us, marked makers.
Meagan Miller is a sculptor who works mostly in wood, but also experiments with casting, digital fabrication and book binding. Meagan received a fellowship at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts where she created an edition of handmade books on the experience of learning to use tools. Currently, she is working on a series of sculptures that explore boxes as aesthetic objects and their potential design and function in a post-apocalyptic society. Storage solutions are an indication of the objects that individuals and a society hold dear/important and their hierarchy among other objects. She is exploring what those storage solutions are for a society that has collapsed. What do these boxes look like when the objects an individual holds dear are objects in extreme multiples or things we currently consider garbage. What happens when we change around the hierarchy?
Jess Kiel-Wornson is a Minneapolis based multimedia artist. Using sculptural installation, collaged cultural artifact, text, drawing, and performance, she addresses the insidiousness of the systems of power in our surroundings. Her work speaks to the material consequence of trauma in our bodies and buildings and asks us to reframe our conversations about goodness, success, and identity away from individuals and toward the systems that allow and promote violence toward some bodies distinctly from others. She received her MFA from University of Illinois Champaign Urbana. Recent collaborations include Holy Doña (Cowles Center, Pedro Lander, 2019), Birds of the Future (Fresh Oysters, Charles Campbell, 2019), and Parking Ramp Project (Health Partners Parking Ramp, Pramilla Vasudevan, 2018). She is an activist, professor, auntie, and shop tech and sometimes wonders how her life would be different if she had found feminist theory before anti-depressants. She is tired of being told by the dominant paradigm that her heartbreak will make her stronger. Check her work out at jkwornson.com
Binbin Shen
She uses optimism, humor, and experience in the creation of her work through a careful and playful combining of forms, colors, and ideas. Influenced primarily by Pop art furniture design of the 1960s, her work echoes its smart and original design solutions. She creates furniture that not only provides the functional aspects for living, but also accommodates the playfulness and energetic lifestyles for people who are living in small spaces. Binbin Shen earned her BFA in Furniture and Interior Design from South China Agriculture University. She later received her MFA in Furniture Design from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design where she now an Academic Support Technician in the MCAD 3D shop. She provides technical support by demonstrating various shop procedures and processes and assists students with their various projects. Shen makes furniture as well as prototypes to present her designs. She enjoys this aspect as the most creative part of the different techniques and materials in the making process.
Check her work at https://binbinfurniture.wixsite.com/mysite
Don Myhre is a phenomenal sculptor, our fearless shop leader, banjo player, lover of history, buildings, gadgets, home improvement, and laser scanners. Frequently spotted shop-side with his head in the foundry. "What could go wrong?" He still needs to send a bio for our blog.
Meagan Miller is a sculptor who works mostly in wood, but also experiments with casting, digital fabrication and book binding. Meagan received a fellowship at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts where she created an edition of handmade books on the experience of learning to use tools. Currently, she is working on a series of sculptures that explore boxes as aesthetic objects and their potential design and function in a post-apocalyptic society. Storage solutions are an indication of the objects that individuals and a society hold dear/important and their hierarchy among other objects. She is exploring what those storage solutions are for a society that has collapsed. What do these boxes look like when the objects an individual holds dear are objects in extreme multiples or things we currently consider garbage. What happens when we change around the hierarchy?
Jess Kiel-Wornson is a Minneapolis based multimedia artist. Using sculptural installation, collaged cultural artifact, text, drawing, and performance, she addresses the insidiousness of the systems of power in our surroundings. Her work speaks to the material consequence of trauma in our bodies and buildings and asks us to reframe our conversations about goodness, success, and identity away from individuals and toward the systems that allow and promote violence toward some bodies distinctly from others. She received her MFA from University of Illinois Champaign Urbana. Recent collaborations include Holy Doña (Cowles Center, Pedro Lander, 2019), Birds of the Future (Fresh Oysters, Charles Campbell, 2019), and Parking Ramp Project (Health Partners Parking Ramp, Pramilla Vasudevan, 2018). She is an activist, professor, auntie, and shop tech and sometimes wonders how her life would be different if she had found feminist theory before anti-depressants. She is tired of being told by the dominant paradigm that her heartbreak will make her stronger. Check her work out at jkwornson.com
Binbin Shen
She uses optimism, humor, and experience in the creation of her work through a careful and playful combining of forms, colors, and ideas. Influenced primarily by Pop art furniture design of the 1960s, her work echoes its smart and original design solutions. She creates furniture that not only provides the functional aspects for living, but also accommodates the playfulness and energetic lifestyles for people who are living in small spaces. Binbin Shen earned her BFA in Furniture and Interior Design from South China Agriculture University. She later received her MFA in Furniture Design from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design where she now an Academic Support Technician in the MCAD 3D shop. She provides technical support by demonstrating various shop procedures and processes and assists students with their various projects. Shen makes furniture as well as prototypes to present her designs. She enjoys this aspect as the most creative part of the different techniques and materials in the making process.
Check her work at https://binbinfurniture.wixsite.com/mysite
Don Myhre is a phenomenal sculptor, our fearless shop leader, banjo player, lover of history, buildings, gadgets, home improvement, and laser scanners. Frequently spotted shop-side with his head in the foundry. "What could go wrong?" He still needs to send a bio for our blog.