Ashley Eriksmoen is a California-born Australia-based furniture maker,

woodworker Woodworking is the skill of making items from wood, and includes cabinet making (cabinetry and furniture), wood carving, joinery, carpentry, and woodturning. History Along with stone, clay and animal parts, wood was one of the first materials ...

, artist, and

educator A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...

Early life and education

Eriksmoen was born in raised in southern California. Eriksmoen attended

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1863, the university has more than 9,300 full-time undergraduates and nearly 5,000 graduate students. Although Boston College is classifie ...

, receiving a BS in Geology in 1992. She took a year off during undergraduate to study art at the Istituto Lorenzo de' Medici in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

, Italy. Eriksmoen studied at the

College of the Redwoods College of the Redwoods (CR) is a public community college with its main campus in Eureka, California. It is part of the California Community Colleges System and serves three counties and has two branch campuses, as well as three additional sit ...

(now the Krenov School) from 1997 to 1998, receiving a Certificate of Fine Woodworking. She went on to receive a Masters in Fine Arts from the

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...

, graduating in 2000.

Career

Artist

Eriksmoen uses salvaged urban waste such as tables and chairs to create complex interwoven sculptures. She was included in a curated group exhibition in 2019 about humans and the environment titled ''I Thought I Heard a Bird'' at Craft ACT in

Canberra Canberra ( ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The ci ...

, Australia. Her series ''Feral: Rewilding Furniture,'' made with found broken timber, personifies and animates found furniture, comparing the living and built world. She was an artist-in-residence artist at

San Diego State University San Diego State University (SDSU) is a public research university in San Diego, California. Founded in 1897 as San Diego Normal School, it is the third-oldest university and southernmost in the 23-member California State University (CSU) system ...

and is a member of the Furniture Society and part of the Studio Furniture movement. Her artwork has been published in '' 500 Tables'', ''American Woodworker Magazine'', and ''With Wakened Hands'', a book on the students of James Krenov. She was awarded a Fuji Xerox Sustainable Art Award in 2014 Eriksmoen's piece ''Criogriff'' was featured in the exhibition ''Making a Seat at the Table: Women Transform Woodworking'' at the Center for Art in Wood in 2019 curated by Dierdre Visser and Laura Mays. She was also interviewed for the book ''Joinery, Joists and Gender: A History of Woodworking for the 21st Century,'' by Visser. In 2021 Eriksomen won Tasmania's Clarence Prize with her furniture piece "Following years of steady decline we are witnessing a period of unprecedented growth". Her "Meares Island Nurse Log''"'' furniture piece was selected for the 2022 Melbourne Design Fair, presented by the National Gallery of Victoria with the Melbourne Art Foundation. Her chaise, "The Dream or: the view from here is both bleak and resplendent" won the 2022 Australian Furniture Design Award, awarded by Stylecraft and the National Gallery of Victoria.

Educator

Eriksmoen is the Head of Furniture Workshop, Convenor of Craft and Design and Senior Lecturer in the College of Arts and Social Sciences,

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...

References

External links

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Ashley Eriksmoen: Constructing Feral
' {{DEFAULTSORT:Eriksmoen, Ashley Living people American woodworkers Women woodworkers California people in design American furniture makers American furniture designers Australian woodworkers Australian National University people Rhode Island School of Design alumni Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences alumni College of the Redwoods alumni American expatriates in Australia Year of birth missing (living people) Women carpenters Crafts educators Woodworkers