Summer Professional Development Residents
Summer Residency - 2 Month Pre-Professional Emerging Artist Residency
Each spring, The Nova Scotia Centre for Craft and Design accepts applications for the Summer Professional Development Residencies in the Ceramics, Wood, Glass, Metal/Jewellery, and Weaving/Textile Studios 2s
- 2020 Summer Residents
- 2019 Summer Residents
- 2018 Summer Residents
- 2017 Summer Residents
- 2016 Summer Residents
- 2015 Summer Residents
- 2014 Summer Reisdents
- 2013 Summer Residents
2020 Summer Residents
SOLSKIN BRASK
Solskin Brask is a ceramicist and illustrator. Ze graduated from OCADU in 2019. Solskin combines elements of illustration, fiber, clay and other found materials to create a visual language exploring themes of identity and gender. Solskin is influenced by intersections of identity and shared memory.
ROSALIND HENNENFENT
Rosalind Hennenfent is a focused metalsmith and jewellery designer. She completed her BFA at the Nova Scotia Craft and Design (NSCAD) University in 2020. She creates jewellery using an array of traditional and alternative materials. Continuing with paper pulp in her current body of work, integrating native materials from her surroundings. Creating jewellery with organics from various locations important from growing up in Nova Scotia, as well as significant material that represents the natural beauty of her home. Attending NSCAD her work was featured in multiple group shows and a solo show at the Anna LeonOwens Gallery. Locally her work has been included in Nocturne Halifax 2018 and 2019 and Starfish 2019. Her work has been accepted in international and juried exhibitions, including the 2019 Silver Triennial International and Co-Adorn Placement 2020.
SAMI LEMPERGER
Sami’s work in textiles derives from landscape and nature; focusing on the atmosphere of a location and channeling that feeling into the weaving. She works more texturally and with wool to sculpt a new landscape, one inspired from the mind, or her photographs. Her goal is to share with the viewer her perspective on the world and to bring forth the same feelings within yourself as she has when in the presence of nature. Originally from Ontario, Sami brings the beautiful inspiration of Ontario’s landscape to Nova Scotia through textiles, she continues to explore Canada as inspiration for the soul and her work.
FREN PELLERIN
Fern Pellerin is a nonbinary lesbian interdisciplinary artist from McKinney Texas, land of the Wichita, Tawakoni and Kiikaapoi Indigenous peoples. They are currently based in K’jipuktuk, Mi’kma’ki (Halifax, Nova Scotia). They are a graduate of NSCAD University with a major in interdisciplinary arts and a minor in illustration and art history. Fern’s illustration and textile art practice is currently influenced by past experiences growing up LGBTQ+ and overcoming past hardships. They are inspired by comics and cartoons, nostalgia, dreams, memory and their own queer Romani identity.
MEGGIE RICHARDS
Meggie Richards is an intermediate artist currently based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Richards’ main area of focus and interest for the past 3 years has been ceramics. Through the medium she utilizes both the words “Lift” and “Line” to express her emotions towards self-clarity. Drawing inspiration from her poetry, photography, and past experiences. Richards’ creates organic forms that unravel, intertwine, and flow around our environments as well as our minds.
EUNJI SHIN
Eunji Shin is a Korean artist. She completed her Major in Jewellery and Metalsmithing in 2020 at Nscad University. “Oil and Water”, is a series of resin work, inspired by a common phenomenon that oil does not mix with water. This prompted her to create a series of works investigating the experience of being a foreign student in Canada; and the feeling of not being part of society. Currently, influenced by “Oil and Water”, she is working with “Iridescence”, exploring its color and reflection. It displays such a delightful dreamlike scene that its colors seem to change depending on angle of view.
ERIN WELLS
Originally from Hershey, Pennsylvania, Erin started her studies at Harrisburg Area Community College (HACC) where she fell in love with clay. Working with HACC she created an exchange program with the world renowned Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute and entered classes at JCI as their first western exchange student. From Jingdezhen she transferred to NSCAD University where she completed her BA in Fine Art: Ceramics. She worked in Montreal under figurative sculptor Joel A Prevost for 2 years while teaching classes and workshops. She continues to teach ceramics from the North Preston Community Center. Her works in this summer residency draw from florid Rococo and flower paintings to infuse femine mark-making into contemporary fine-craft.
Details and accents on each mug will be hard to notice at a fast glance; an intimate relationship with the cup you take home uncovers all of the hidden surprises over-time.
WENJING YAN / 燕文静
Wenjing Yan graduated in 2020 from Nova Scotia College of Arts and Design (NSCAD) University in Halifax with a BFA major in Jewellery Design and Metalsmithing program. During her studies, she did an exchange in Germany at Pforzheim Hochschule.
Wenjing Yan jewelery usually reflects "stories" and "memories." She was inspired by the Asian culture the most because she grew up in China. However, with the development of modernization and the Changes in people’s minds, some Chinese culture signs or skills is disappearing. A thing that disappears sounds sad which nobody wants to, but everything has two sides. The rise of one skill may represent the disappearance of another. So, she wants to keep those cultural things in her pieces, which create a new medium to carry those memories.
2019 Summer Residents
ANNA FERGUSON
Anna Ferguson grew up in rural Ontario and moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia in 2014 to attend NSCAD University where she majored in jewellery and metalsmithing. While studying at NSCAD, Anna produced a range of jewellery and holloware works demonstrating different skills and techniques. During the fall of 2017, Anna completed a semester abroad at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KHiO) in Oslo, Norway where she broadened her understanding of the metal arts and also the use of alternative materials in jewellery. This experience greatly influenced her practice. During her final semester at NSCAD, Anna became interested in combining textile and metal while experimenting with storytelling in her work, and developed a style she continues to work in. In December 2018 she graduated with a BFA degree majoring in Jewellery Design and Metalsmithing.
Undine Foulds
Drawn to the spaces inbetween mediums, Undine is excitedby the potential for collaboration and strangeness that live in these undefined places. Recently, her work hasbeen focusedin creating multiples, and in understanding the larger sum of many parts.Ultimately trying to interpret and translate her relationships to people and place, this curious and stubborn ex-goth-hippie kid from the west coast has her work cut out for her.About to enter her fourth year at NSCAD with amajor in Intermedia, Undine works primarily in clay,integrating elements of drawing, video, performance, and installation.Before committing to this formal education, she enjoyed working with alternative education programs for children and youth, often held in remote locations and heavily centering arts-based programming.
Danielle Harris
Danielle Harris became interested in Ceramics and Textiles in her home town of London Ontario. While attending H.B Beal secondary school she began experimenting with large scale figurative sculptureusing a variety of materials and techniques. This experimentation led Harris to NSCAD University where she is pursuing her Bachelor of Fine Arts, majoring in Ceramics with a minor in Textiles. Harris has displayed her work in Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia. Focusing on feminist and environmentalist subject matter for several years, Harris’s textile work is made from recycled and environmentally conscious materials; while her subject matter is primarily feminist in nature.
Olivia (Liv) Mansveld
Olivia was born in Nelson, British Columbia. She received her diploma from the Kootenay School of the Arts (Selkirk College) Textile Department in British Columbia, as well as attended Concordia University in Montreal, before transferring to NSCAD for the final two years of her undergraduate degree. Olivia graduated from NSCAD in April, 2019 with a BFA in Fashion & Textiles. In other professional projects, she has exhibited work and participated in community workshops in both her home community of Nelson, as well as in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver. She has drawn plenty of inspiration from her workplaces as a seamstress and in art facilitation. In her future work, she hopes to share the therapeutic nature of handwork in textiles.
Emily May
Emily May feels most at home when she is in the studio, a place where she often works until she is truly a starving artist. Originally from Vancouver, BC, May received a Fine Arts Diploma with accolades in ceramics from Langara College in 2016. She currently is pursuing her Bachelor of Fine Arts, majoring in ceramics at NSCAD University in Halifax, NS. Although May primarily communicates her ideas through ceramics, her multidisciplinary practice includes painting, film, photography and performance. May has displayed work across Canada in British Columbia, Nova Scotia, and Alberta.
Luke Mohan
Luke Mohan is an interdisciplinary artist and curator originally from Toronto. He is a graduate of NSCAD University with degrees in Interdisciplinary Fine Arts and Art History. While at NSCAD he was the recipient of the Creative Innovators of Tomorrow scholarship. He has curated multiple exhibitions and has exhibited his work at galleries in Canada and the United States. Mohan’s art practice is situated between ceramics and textiles, exploring domestic structures and objects that play with perception and familiarity. An interest in the sleight-of-hand involved in magic tricks, Mohan’s sculptures render everyday objects fantastical. His practice sits at the intersection of textiles and ceramics, relying on moments of visual magic that explore the tension between absence and presence. His main influences come from domesticity and illusion, blending these two sources to create sculptures and installations that explore theatricality, queerness and the body.
Kim Paquet
Few years ago, Kim Paquet working as a social worker for the Child Protection Services. In 2014, she took distance from her career and started a jewelry program at Ecole de Joaillerie de Montreal. Unable to stay away from these human contacts, she involved herself working with homeless drugs addicts. Confronting herself with this new profession while she engaged her thoughts in a first creative process was a fascinating way to express her concerns towards these wearable pieces of art. She received the Excellence Award 3 years in a row, the Janis Kerman Selection award and aspecial mention for the originality and quality technique of her work. Since, her jewelry has been exhibited in art galleries in France, Portugal, Italy and around Canada.
Michelle Plamondon
Michelle Plamondon, a French-Canadian Artist/Jeweler from Winnipeg, Manitoba. Received her BFA from University of Manitoba in 2015 focusing in installation art and sculpture. She actively volunteered in Studio Programs at the Winnipeg Art Gallery from 2006 -2009. She has displayed sculptures, paintings and jewelry at La Maison des Artistes, Ace Art Gallery and SOFA (2012-2015). She participated in “Nuit Blanche” all night exploration of contemporary art in 2013 to 2015. In 2013, she was awarded third place in the “Emerging Voices”competition at Nuit Blanche for her work “Environment Revolt” examining nature reclaiming spaces. Michelle was strongly influenced by photographer David McMillan’s Exclusion Zone series. In 2015, she was awarded agrant with the Untitled Artist Collective from La Maison des Artistes Francophone during Nuit Blanche, to develop the public interactive installation “REST STOP”. Michelle is currently working on her second degree majoring in Jewelry Design and Metalsmithing at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University (NSCAD). She has participated “All in NSCAD” group show in 2018 at the Anna Leowens Gallery. She is member Co-Adorn in Halifax and Vancouver Metal Arts Association and was selected to take part in exhibitions with both associations in 2019. Her main influences in her current work is material play especially with industrial materials, exploring clean minimalist style and industrial architecture. The elegance of simple forms is prominent aesthetic to her work. Using enamel, metalwork, cement, resin and other found materials she incorporates them into wearable jewelry pieces.
Tamara Oake
Tamara Oake is a Nova Scotia-born artist living and working in Halifax. After completing her studies as an interior decorator, she focused her career in Fine Arts at NSCAD University. In 2017 she graduated with a major in Textiles. Her interest in creating natural/tactile art began with a passion for natural dyeing and eventually led her to flower and foliage pressing. Tamara’s work currently focuses on her connection to the Nova Scotia landscape. She aims to reconnect people with their natural surroundings by thoughtfully bringing the environment into our everyday lives.
Kirsti Smith
Kirsti is originally from Ontario and received most of her education from Sheridan College, and is currently finishing her degree at NSCAD. She uses a series of different mediums including oil paint, ceramics and textiles to create compelling combinations of colours and textiles in her body of work. She has worked as a Studio Potter, Ceramic Instructor and Studio Technician. Kirsti uses the skills developed during these experiences to help design and build an artful body of functional ceramics.
Sorrel Van Allen
Sorrel Van Allenis a Canadian jeweller with a background in industrial welding and artist blacksmithing. She is currently studying Jewellery Design and Metalsmithing at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Designin Halifax. During her time at NSCAD Sorrel Participated in an international exchange in Jewellery and Objects at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin, Ireland.
2018 Summer Residents

Annabel Biro is an emerging Artist residing in Canada. Her work explores themes surrounding function and material. She is fascinated with creating work that encourages participation through use. She is interested with challenging our perception of ceramics and functionality through her work. She likes to play with humour, trust and anticipation within her practice.
Annabel received a BFA with a Major in Ceramics and Minor in Art History at NSCAD University. During her time at NSCAD she was awarded the Professor David B. Smith Creative Innovators of Tomorrow Scholarship, the 2016 Medalta Student Residency Award and was the Ceramics Starfish finalist for 2017. Most recently, Annabel was the Nova Scotia regional winner for the BMO 1st Art Competition 2017.

Kelsey Borden is a born and raised Haligonian who has been drawing ever since she could hold a pencil. Following a long line of textile traditions in her family, her mother and grandmother taught her many skills including embroidery, sewing, and knitting. She has recently graduated from NSCAD University with a BFA, Major in Textiles/Fashion.
Her work combines her love of illustrating with textiles and storytelling. The piece that she has created as part of this residency explores the narratives she has shared around the table, her grandmother, and craft.

NAT chantel is a primarily self-taught interdisciplinary artist who engages subtle movements and repetitive processes to recall memory and personal history as a way of reclaiming the body and voice. Lineal disruption and displacement from land and home claim permanence in her art. NAT was selected into the 2017-2018 VANS Mentorship Program and the upcoming CFAT Media Scholarship (2018.) She is a Nova Scotia Talent Trust scholarship recipient (2017 & 2018) and an active member in Black Artists Network of Nova Scotia, Visual Arts Nova Scotia, and Nova Scotia Basketry Guild.

Halifax artist, Krista Grunsky, attended NSCAD University and received her BFA in April, 2018. Her work consists of ceramic forms inspired by objects observed in her daily surroundings. With consideration to form, line, and colour, Grunsky creates assemblages of these objects that prompt the viewer to appreciate the mundane.
This work titled Kitchen Cupboard is inspired by drawings of items in my kitchen. I was interested in the translation of object as a picture and object as a three-dimensional form. In the quasi kitchen installation, these objects exist as relics of my domestic living space.

Shaya Ishaq is an interdisciplinary designer, craftswoman, and community organizer currently based in Halifax. Working with ceramics and textiles, she explores how these craft disciplines connect lives through culture, tradition, material and function. As a Kenyan-Canadian born into a legacy of weavers, Shaya is fascinated by fibre-based and ceramic techniques which enable storytelling in the craft traditions of her homeland.

Songhee Lee was born in Daegu South Korea in 1992. She is a jeweller/metal smith from Daegu, Korea. She graduated a B.F.A in 2014 majoring in the jewellery design program of industrial design, at the Catholic University of Daegu, South Korea and M.F.A in Craft Art. She studied at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University in Halifax, NS, Canada for the second semester as an exchange student with major of Jewelry Design & Metalsmithing. Now she is working for her works in summer residency program at Nova Scotia Centre for Craft and Design.

Jiaqi Li is a Chinese jeweler-metalsmith who is based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. She completed a BFA, majoring in Jewelry & Metalsmithing at the NSCAD University in 2018. During her studies at NSCAD University Jiaqi become interested in exploring resin as her main material for simple but intricate jewelry. In this summer residency, she is continuing to develop more resin jewelry pieces. Her love of colour have led her to experiment with resin. She aims create interesting and delicate visual texture in her work by combining clean resin with the color and texture of cotton threads.
Through this exploration, Jiaqi enjoys the process of resin casting that can't control completely. For example, the visual texture and color of threads can be manipulated while resin is pouring. In her work, each pieces are unique, and cannot be duplicated.

Katja was born in Switzerland and raised in Ontario, Canada, she recently graduated from Sheridan College in 2018 from their Craft and Design program - majoring in Furniture Design and minoring in Textiles. She is currently joyfully adjusting to her new life here, in Nova Scotia.
Her work so far has followed an aesthetic and emotional investigation of her personal history and growth, allowing each piece to embody a story or narrative from a memory in her life. As a maker, she tries to learn about, and incorporate, new materials and techniques to add to the originality of each piece. Overall, Katja aims to use honest design and manufacturing processes to create pieces that will touch the heart and showcase the material’s inherent energy.
2017 Summer Residents:
2015 Summer Residents:
SHELBEY DODDS
Born and raised in the rural southern Ontario town of Erin, Shelbey Dodds has found a new home in Atlantic Canada’s hidden gem, Halifax. She recently received her Bachelor of Fine Art in Jewellery Design and Metalsmithing from NSCAD University.
Shelbey creates contemporary jewellery objects exploring the concepts of discipline and fluidity and how these terms relate to identity, intimacy, and connection. The exhibited work examines the delicate balance one struggles to maintain upon the spectrum between discipline and rigidity, fluidity, and play.
Her time spent in the Nova Scotia Center for Craft and Design’s Residency program has presented a number of very welcome challenges. Dodds would like to thank her fellow residents and all the members of the NSCCD for their continued support.
LUX HABRICH
Originally from Montréal, Quebec, Lux Habrich recently graduated with an Interdisciplinary BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University.
Lux employs the immensely meditative qualities in craft processes and performative experimental mark making to record personal histories of inherited trauma. Her work involves investigations of temporality, subversive gender, concepts of family and the home, disability, and cultural hybridization - introducing an identity in all the complexities and contradictions that together formulate an individual. Committed to expressing social justice issues and participating in support work, Lux externalizes intense internal grievances, to open up collective issues and larger community struggles to receive moments of healing and empowerment.
TWYLA HEUVEL-BERNIER
Born in Victoria, BC, Twyla Zoe studied art at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and graduated with an Interdisciplinary Bachelor of Fine Arts.
As an interdisciplinary artist, Twyla works in a variety of media but has foundations in ceramics, drawing, and printmaking. Her work is largely informed by an ever-changing relationship between psychology, fairytales, dreams, and personal narrative. Her objects and imagery frequently explore childhood memories, obsessions, and irrational fears, blurring the boundaries between real and imagined, dream and nightmare.
Meaning-making has long been a compulsion of our species, exercised through literature, art, and storytelling. We continually search to contextualize our identity and place in the world in an ever-widening diversity of expressive venues. In this series of work, meaning-making will take place through internal investigation. It explores an inner realm of dream, fears, anxieties and fractured narratives and attempts to express a fluid logic that references the beautiful and sometimes dark world of the unconscious.
JENN MAGUIRE
Jennifer Maguire is origin
ally a mixed media artist from St. Catharines, Ontario. She received her Fine Art Degree in 2012 from Fanshawe College, and went on to complete her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the NSCAD University where she majored in ceramics.
Jenn’s work highlights an ongoing disconnect between humans and livestock. With industry taking over how animals are produced and raised, treatment and living conditions have declined as consumer demand has risen. Her work reflects an ongoing exploration of what has become known as factory farming, and highlights the mistreatment and flaws of a large industrial system.
NATHALIE MAIELLO
Nathalie Maiello is originally from Montreal, Quebec. She received her diploma from the Vancouver Community College Jewellery Art and Design program in 2008 and is currently living in Halifax, Nova Scotia where she is completing her BFA in Jewellery and Metalsmithing at NSCAD University.
Nathalie’s current work focuses on the connection between ceramic and metal. She uses traditional techniques to combine the two materials to create body adornments. Minimalist shapes and forms enable her to develop simple functional connections between materials to create a continuous disposition that showcases each component without creating discord between the two. Subtle nuances of the shapes create a morphing series that evoke mutation, transformation, and evolution.
ANDREEA MURGU
Andreea Murgu holds a Jewelry and Textile major from NSCAD University.
Her work is an exploration of form, balance, and expression. She creates pieces that have elements of both harmony and tension. Andreea often incorporates tactile qualities in her jewelry, and enjoys working with fur, leather, hair, and other natural materials.
ANNE-SOPHIE VALLEE
Anne-Sophie Vallée works primarily with metal and ceramics to create pieces of jewellery. She first started her training as a goldsmith in Taxco, Mexico. She received a degree from Le Cégep du Vieux-Montréal in Jewellery in 2011, and is currently completing a BFA with a major in Jewellery Design and Metalsmithing at NSCAD University.
Anne-Sophie is interested in the tension between organic and inorganic life in artificially built environments and how this conflict generates a struggle for space. She uses jewellery as a way to make connections between individual identity, society, and culture. Within her work she aims to question the human body acting as a support and notions of scale. Her work questions the possibility for small objects to call for distance and space while creating intimacy and strong psychological links. Anne-Sophie references architecture and landscape through a minimalist approach to form, as well as, human intervention and appropriation of technologies and material. Simple mark-making can proficiently change the meaning an object conveys. Do we have to stop, control, or free the sprawling of both natural and artificial growth in order to create balance?
NATALIE VANDERZAND
Natalie Vanderzand was born in Waterloo, Ontario. She lived on the West Coast of Canada before moving to Halifax, Nova Scotia to attend NSCAD University. She current lives in Halifax as a recent graduate and is continuing her practice as a studio jeweler.
Her solo exhibition titled MAKE CAMP, explores ideas of temporary shelter in an object base observation of the natural world. Natalie’s practice is shifting into wearable pieces that incorporate delicate beaded embroidery, colour, scale and form.

Greg Bauer’s work currently explores the integration of sculptural forms within functional jewellery. He looks to create jewellery whose function is disguised within its form until worn. He hopes to invoke the viewer’s curiosity and challenge their understanding of the piece's function and form.





Jennifer would like to work towards a “know your neighbor” grass roots community movement by creating and bringing hand crafted pottery into your home to inspire everyday life.









Yan believes that art is very personal and emotional. Everything made out of the artists’ hands will represent the artists themselves. She also believes that there must be connections between the artist and the viewer through the art production.






















