For over 30 years, Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts has welcomed the next generation of great artists to campus through our Artists-in-Residence program. Each year the program offers five early-career artists the time, space and support needed to develop new work. Learn more about the AIR program here.
We are thrilled to announce our 2026-2027 residency and introduce our community to these up-and-coming artists. Joining us this summer:
After graduating from Pratt Institute with a BFA in Jewelry, Anna Koplik shifted her focus to blacksmithing and began traveling, working and teaching at crafts schools and as a journeyman architectural smith, and going on adventures whenever possible. Her personal work focuses mainly on tool and utensil making, and combining functionality with a refined, delicate aesthetic. Anna has worked at a variety of shops, including Atlas Forge, Caleb Kullman Studio, Spirit Ironworks, Davis Metalsmiths, and Kjellman-Chapin Smeder as well as taught at various craft schools such as Penland, Touchstone, Center for Metal Arts, Haystack, and John C. Campbell.
Annalee Davis is a Mississippi-based weaver who explores the intersections of craft, technology, and historical patterns. Her woven works translate and distort structures, such as overshot, using computer looms and drafting software. Davis received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Fiber from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2024 and recently completed a TC2 Weaving Residency at Berea College in Kentucky. Her aspiration as an artist and educator is to bridge the gap between digital textile design and traditional craft through teaching and community outreach.
Jana Ghezawi is a multidisciplinary artist working in oil paint, papier mâché, and ceramics. Jana grew up in Rocky Top, Tennessee, and received a BFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She recently completed her MFA at the University of Georgia. Jana’s current research includes the creation culture of cartoons, ancient mythologies, personal iconography, and reflective states of being between fiction and reality. In her most recent work, she explores time as a generative cycle instead of an oppressive machine that measures labor and productivity. Painted and papier-mâchéd creatures become guardians and symbols in this speculative world of timelessness and healing.
Lia Musante is a jeweler and metal fabricator working in Philadelphia. Since their undergraduate studies in community-based oral history, they link embodied storytelling with metalsmithing by making objects that serve as an archive and by teaching in accessible metal shops. They work with sentimental value in the era of industrial disposability through fabricating with steel, stone setting repaired electronics, and casting found object assemblages. These re-linkings and recontextualizations remember the kinship we share with our belongings and each other in the end times.
Liz Vukelich received an MFA from Alfred University in 2024 and a BA from Mary Baldwin College in 2011. She makes work for ritual, performance, and interaction as well as pots that interrogate function. Liz has been a resident artist at the Mendocino Arts Center, worked as an apprentice to Simon Levin, and served as an instructor at Sacramento State University.
