AMY JOY HOSTERMAN (she/they) is a ceramic artist from Minnesota, now maintaining a studio practice in Colorado. Amy received her BFA in ceramics from the University of Minnesota in 2010. She has since been harvesting wild clays, teaching workshops, performing traveling raku firings, and exhibiting her work across the country. In 2013 Amy Co-Founded the Visitor Center Artist Camp, where she has developed programming and studio facilities to utilize the local clay for pottery and sculpture. She is the Lead Instructor for VCAC’s annual Local Clay Workshop.

Amy is the Creative Director of non-profit Art Shape Mammoth, for which she has curated many exhibitions and led workshops nationally and internationally, including a Wild Clay and Wood-firing Workshop in Tuscany, Italy. She has received grants for her work in both Minnesota and Michigan, including Irrigate Arts, Awesome Without Borders, Pollination Project, and MCACA Arts Project Minigrants. stinkycheeseceramics.com

LINSEY MOE (she/they) earned her BA in psychology from the University of Minnesota. In her day job she works in early childhood education. She finds great inspiration from these little beings and their excitement for new experiences. She believes in cultivating curiosity in children and enjoys working to create engaging environments for her students.

Linsey is the VCAC Culinary Team Lead and Event Coordinator. She is a lifelong camper and environmental enthusiast who got her start spending summers at camp in Minnesota. Her love of gardening and fresh produce was passed on to her by her mother, who also taught her to prepare, can, and preserve those foods to be enjoyed (and shared!) throughout the year. She learned how to sew at an early age and has now been quilting for more than two decades. She enjoys using both machine piecing techniques and hand quilting. artshapemammoth.org/linsey-moe

CAITLIN ZACHOW (she/her) is a ceramics artist who until recently has been based just outside Detroit. Her work focuses on themes of identity and self-exploration with an overarching focus on storytelling. Born and raised in Michigan, she is heavily inspired by place, nature, and how these relate to self-identity. She received her BFA in Ceramics as well as a BA in psychology from Wayne State University in 2021. She has worked as an instructor with Paint Creek Center for the Arts in Rochester, MI and as a ceramics technician with Oakland Community College in Auburn Hills MI. She now attends Western Michigan University‘s Frostic School of Arts earning an MFA in ceramics. instagram.com/caitlinzachowceramics

EVAN LANESE (he/they) originally hails from Cleveland Heights, Ohio, and grew up in and around the arts and the outdoors. He followed these passions in school studying geology and minoring in photography, and continued education to get his masters in geologic hazard mitigation as part of the since-retired Peace Corps Master's Program where he lived in a small farming village in Ghana for three years as an agriculture volunteer. Now residing in Ojibwe homelands on Copper Island (Hancock, Michigan), after working as a backpack seamstress for a few years, he now works as a GIS/Planning Technician for the regional planning agency for the western Upper Peninsula working on projects involving community compost, climate adaptation, flood mapping, waste systems, food systems, and recreation.

Evan also enjoys gardening, woodworking (timber framing and spoon carving), hiking, foraging, camping, skiing, and trying out new recipes. Intent on communal living they are a member of Churning Rapids Community, a small developing intentional community with seven members. In their free time they play guitar and sing in a band, are on the board for Keweenaw Land Trust, and co-organize the Portage Lake Seed Library.

STEPHANIE MAE HOWELLS (she/her) is a multimedia artist, educator and community arts curator in Detroit with a BA in Honors Psychology / Art Minor from Wayne State University (2010). She has been an independent Teaching Artist for 10 years working in classrooms, after-school programs, hospital settings and carceral spaces. Her pedagogy incorporates therapeutic approaches with technical skill building. She loves supporting youth in their creative process as they master techniques, process complex emotions, challenge the ‘inner-critic’ and uncover their unique artistic style/voice.

As a VCAC Independent Project Resident in 2022 and 2023, Stephanie collaborated closely with the natural environment creating land-art installations, botanical illustrations and a healing Altar space for fellow campers. She is excited to join the VCAC staff this year, holding it down in the Kitchen and supporting Independent Projects! In her free time she enjoys hula hooping, gardening, rollerblading and hanging with her 3 cats.

MEL SEEGER has worked in the logging industry and run sawmills his entire life in Northern Minnesota and the UP. He builds barns, saunas, yurts and boats of his own designs; the Visitor Center's studio barn is one of his. He also makes various types of heaters, furnaces, ovens, and stoves and has been experimenting with creating insulating bricks from local clay and sawdust from his mill. He's a master of hand craft and is also tech savvy, using CAD and CNC to create utilitarian designs and visual art. He also farms and plays traditional Finnish music with his wife, Aileen. Mel collaborates with VCAC artists during our Sustainable Building projects.

MARY CAROL AND CAMERON COLEMAN bought 120 acres of primarily forested land in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in 2005 after living in an RV for five years while volunteering for the Forest Service and National Park Service. The north end of the property borders the Ottawa National Forest, along a scenic river corridor.

This property had previously been irresponsibly logged, leaving a damaged ecosystem and uneven terrain, and so the Colemans have been working to restore the land and it’s wildlife habitats. With the help of grants from the Department of Agriculture, they have planted thousands of native trees. They maintain the growth of certain trees to allow for different age classes, and among other land improvements have built a pond, put up bat houses and bird houses, made habitat for deer, turkey, bear, and snowshoe hare, and built an extensive trail system. "We won't live to see much of the results of all this, but we have the satisfaction of knowing that we have tried to be stewards and to help restore the land's natural beauty."