Meet our Instructors

Cori Austin

A woman in love with paper, Cori Austin has been an art journaler, handmade book artist, sketchbook artist, calligrapher, and mixed media artist for a long time. She is at home in the wild, and camps every summer for several months as she explores the US and Canada. Color is her thing, and she loves taking plain papers and turning them into colorful paste papers and gelli prints so they can be used in her books and art journals. Cori hosts a monthly art journalers’ gathering at Mendenhall community center for anyone who is interested.

Melissa Aytenfisu

Melissa Aytenfisu is a Canadian artist who specializes in oil paintings, digital print media, photography, printmaking, and drawing. A native of Edmonton, she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Education at the University of Alberta, before moving to Montreal where she eventually received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Concordia University. During the years in between, Aytenfisu taught high school in Quebec, China and the United States while honing her craft and creating works that have appeared in exhibitions across multiple continents. Her experiences growing up in a multiracial family of nine and traveling through Africa, Asia, and North America have directed her artistic practice toward themes of identity, mobility and social justice. Melissa is currently a teaching artist at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. She lives in Houston, Texas with her two children Tyson Bedilu and Zara Tsedenia.

Missy Bosch

Missy earned her BFA in Sculpture from the University of Houston with a personal focus on found object collage and assemblage. Her fascination with ephemera led to her interest in book arts and box making, including creating a hand-made book that is on permanent exhibition at the UH Library’s Special Collections Rare Books Collection. Missy is an active member of the Houston Book Arts Guild and produces tools to aid other bookbinders. Her current work can be viewed on her website (missyboschstudio.com), Facebook (Missy Bosch Studio) and Instagram (@missyboschstudio).

Dan Boston

Dan is an active volunteer printer and instructor in the museum’s letterpress studio with long-time interests and experience in hand-set letterpress type and platen press operation.  Currently, he prints in his own studio using lead type and photopolymer plates on tabletop presses, entirely for enjoyment.  As a teen, he had a very active letterpress printing business producing tickets, announcements, and stationery. Through the years, he has owned and used a variety of presses.  Dan has especially enjoyed demonstrating printing for visitors to the museum’s letterpress studio as well as refurbishing several of the museum’s presses.

Danelle Cass

I am a small batch functional potter and porcelain jeweler, and have been working in ceramics for more than 20 years. I handcraft each piece from porcelain clay in my home studio. I throw pottery on the wheel, as well as using some alteration and hand building techniques. I use various traditional techniques such as silkscreen, mono printing, 22K Gold luster glazing, and incised design carving for a contemporary take on functional pottery. I have a BA in Art & Design from the University of North Texas. I use my educational and professional backgrounds in Ceramics, Studio Art, Art History, and Anthropology to incorporate design elements used throughout history into my work. As a potter, I feel that functionality is essential. There are some great sculptural ceramicists, but for me, ceramic housewares combine artistic beauty with functionality, and increase the enjoyment of the food and drinks people use them for.

Alejandra Castaño

Alejandra (Allie for short) is an engineer by day and a creative at any other time. She’s the artist behind Paper Grotto Studio and got her start in printmaking when she was gifted a Speedball Block Printing Starter Kit. Along with her love of writing letters, Paper Grotto Studio was born. You can follow her on instagram @papergrotto.

Rebecca Chamlee

Rebecca Chamlee is a self-taught naturalist, citizen scientist, writer, letterpress printer and book binder who has published letterpress printed fine press and artist’s books under the imprint of Pie in the Sky Press since 1986. Her award-winning work is in prominent special and private collections and has been exhibited widely. Rebecca’s limited edition books examine the intersection of her artistic and scientific interests by collecting and cataloging the natural world. As a life-long amateur naturalist, she studies the rich and diverse elements of the natural world that her native California has to offer. From the unique flora and fauna of the arid inland valley that she calls home to the rocky tidepools of her childhood; Rebecca is inspired to record, interpret and celebrate nature.

Chelsea Clarke

Chelsea Clarke is a recent graduate of the University of Kentucky in Lexington, where she investigated the intersections of various media such as print, fibers, ceramics, and drawing. Her conceptual practice mirrors this multidisciplinary approach as it focuses on discrete yet intertwining identities and their effect on her daily life. She attended undergraduate at Virginia Commonwealth University where she also finished a post-Baccalaureate degree in Nonprofit Management, which she plans to use in order to found a radically accessible artist residency. As a Houston native, she is thrilled to return to her hometown and become a part of Texas’ vibrant artistic community.

Charles Criner

Charles Criner is the Artist in Residence at The Printing Museum. Charles is the kind of artist that likes to “exhaust” the medium. He “pulls” his prints in black and white, then in color, and on top of that he sometimes adds acrylic over the print to produce original paintings on paper. He, however, is also parsimonious, or rather, enjoys the limitations of using only three colors and no more to make his prints. Furthermore, he is the kind of artist / craftsman who prizes the concrete relationship between himself and his work. Criner always pulls prints himself, never letting other professional printers do this for him.

Janine Delgado

In past years I have focused mainly on figurative art with an emphasis on portraiture. More recently, I have been enjoying printmaking and have gained experience in Serigraphy, Stone Lithography, and Risograph techniques. My work also includes the use of textiles and fiber art, and I like to experiment and combine mediums, often screen printing on fabrics. Many of my recent works have an emphasis on examining different cultural influences and the role they have played in forming my identity. I often create bright or colorful works based on nostalgia, with references to personal history and various moments in pop culture.

Kathy Gurwell

Kathy Gurwell has years of experience in the fields of paper and printing, beginning with her graphic arts study in Paris and continuing as a Curator Fellow at Tamarind Lithography Institute in Albuquerque, NM, at the Museo della Carta in Fabriano, Italy and the Awagami Paper Factory on Shikoku Island, Japan. She has demonstrated papermaking in San Francisco, Santa Fe, and Houston, where she now lives. She makes paper in both Western and Japanese styles, working with fibers such as cotton, linen, kozo, abaca, and flax. She has taught workshops in Houston and the surrounding area for the past 20 years. More of her work can be viewed at kathygurwellhandmadepaper.com

Gaby Hurtado-Ramos

Gaby Hurtado-Ramos is an artist, printmaker, and illustrator. She is a 2020 Fall artist-in-residence at the Printing Museum in Houston and an art instructor at the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and the Art League. Gaby majored in Studio Art at Oberlin College and teaches workshops in a variety of digital, printmaking, and bookmaking techniques. Before moving back to her hometown, Gaby was an artist-in-residence at an art collective space in Providence, Rhode Island and a print studio monitor at the Drawing Studio in Tucson, Arizona. Gaby’s work has exhibited in community spaces as well as traditional art galleries. She specializes in screenprinting and relief printing, and has books and zines in multiple private and public collections. Her illustration collaborations include work for ProPublica, the Highlander Research and Education Center, the Tucson Jewish History Museum, and Girls for Gender Equity NYC.

Katherine Danielle Jenings

As an artist, I am immediately drawn to intricate and even meticulous techniques and processes. It stems from my philosophy to be continually learning and being open to new information from any individuals. As an educator, I am always looking for new and exciting ways to share the knowledge I have been able receive from talented artists, professors, and friends about art making.

Adrianne O’Donnell

Adrianne came by bookbinding while volunteering in the Book Conservation Lab at the University of Texas during her undergrad. She is a member of the Houston Book Arts Group and Guild of Book Workers. She teaches bookbinding classes at The Printing Museum where she is also the Educations Program Manager.

Caroline Roberts

Caroline’s work explores our relationship with the natural world, particularly the world of plants. Working with photograms, her photographic installations play on well-established knowledge systems, such as the herbarium, the museum display, and the field guide. Often found hiking in state and national parks, her interest in landscape and the natural world is heightened by managing fifteen acres of wild, riparian forest in rural Texas.

Jessica Snow

Houston based printmaker and graphic designer, Jessica Snow, has been working with relief printing methods since childhood. She loves combining modern and traditional techniques to create images that reflect her curiosity about the world, our relationship to it and each other, and the stories we tell ourselves about that interplay. She is the studio manager for The Printing Museum and teaches courses in letterpress and relief printing.

Alexander Squier

Alexander Squier is native Houston artist and printmaker. After receiving his MFA degree in
Printmaking and Sculpture at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Squier returned
to Houston, where he has continued his artistic practice out of his studio at BOX 13 ArtSpace in
the city’s East End. Pulling mostly from critical study of the Houston landscape, Squier’s work
embraces all forms of printing including screen printing, relief, lithography, and etching, as well
as pushes traditional ideas of print into the sculpture or design realm. Harboring a deep passion
for teaching, Squier has taught at Art League Houston, Strake Jesuit, the University of Houston,
and the Glassell School of Art. He currently teaches printmaking at Art League and the Museum
of Printing History, as well as privately.

Kseniya Thomas

Kseniya Thomas is the owner of Thomas Printers, a commercial letterpress print and design shop, where she has produced letterpress social stationery and fine art for 15 years. She’s the co-founder of Ladies of Letterpress, an organization founded in 2008 and dedicated to the promotion and continuance of the art and craft of letterpress printing. Trained at the print shop of the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, Germany, Kseniya got her start setting type by hand and enjoys teaching and encouraging others to share their skills. Her work has been featured in numerous letterpress books, design periodicals, trade journals, and blogs. Kseniya lives and works in Ogden, Utah.

Tony Vela

Tony Vela is part of a 2nd generation family of bookbinders that have proudly served the greater Houston area for nearly 50 years. He splits his time between the two binderies, the family business in Missouri City, The Bookbindery, and Vela Custom Bookmakers in Houston at Spring Street Studios. At Vela Custom Bookmakers, their specialty and what they are known for is their restoration and rebind services. They are most proud of their attention to detail and craftsmanship, and their family heritage as bookbinders. They hope to continue that with their children for the next generation.

Syd Webb

Syd Webb is the owner of 4 Acre Press, a private printmaking studio in Argyle, TX. She graduated from Herron School of Art and Design in 2010 with a BFA in Printmaking and earned her MFA in Intermedia from the University of Texas at Arlington in 2014. She has worked as a printer’s assistant, hosted studio workshops in letterpress and bookbinding, and as an adjunct professor. Syd currently divides her time as a studio artist and adjunct professor at the University of North Texas. In her work she wants to inspire hope, build community and show love for her country.

Melissa Wendt

Michelle Wiebe

Michelle Wiebe is a Cochrane, Alberta based artist focused primarily on painting, printmaking and letterpress. Her work is characterized by simple subject matter rendered with bold colour and line work.  Michelle is also a passionate instructor with a deep love for teaching, she makes it her goal that students leave her class with quality work and the confidence to continue building their new skills. She is on the Board of Directors for Alberta Printmakers and learned the craft of letterpress printing and repair at Heritage Park, Calgary as well as the Canadian Museum of Making.

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