Board of Directors
Alison Castle
Educated at Columbia and NYU in philosophy, photography, and film, Alison has worked primarily as a book editor and author for the past two decades. Her books include The Stanley Kubrick Archives, Saturday Night Live: The Book, The Complete Jacques Tati, and Marc Newson: Works. She is also a contributor to publications including Gagosian Quarterly, The Road Rat, Chaos 69, and Vogue. Aside from photography and film, Alison is passionate about furniture and design. Preserving and promoting her father's legacy is now her main focus.
www.alisoncastle.com
Roger Wall
Roger has a long history in the furniture and design business, dating back to 1990 when he began working in sales at Knoll. Since 1994 he has been the president of Spinneybeck / FilzFelt, a division of MillerKnoll. An avid collector and champion of craft and design furniture, Roger also sits on the boards of the Harry Bertoia Foundation as well as Spinneybeck/Knoll nonprofits in North America, Ireland, and China.
Kathrine Page
Kathrine is the former Gretchen Hupfel Curator of Contemporary Art at the Delaware Contemporary museum in Wilmington. Prior to her curatorial position, she served as president of the board at the Delaware Contemporary. She is currently project director at John William Gallery in Wilmington.
Kathrine's enduring relationship with Nancy and Wendell Castle spans decades, having showcased the Jurs-Castle family's work at the Davison Gallery in Rochester, NY, The Delaware Contemporary, and Nancy’s work at Spencer Hill Gallery in Corning, NY. As a proud contributor to the Wendell Castle Project board, Kathrine maintains her deep commitment to the Castle legacy championing their artistic vision, firmly believing in the transformative power of art as catalyst for community engagement, dialogue, and discovery.
www.kathrinepage.com
Annalisa Barron
Annalisa Barron (b. 1987) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Rochester, NY. She graduated from Penn State University with a BFA in Painting and Drawing in 2013 and an MFA in Sculpture from the Pratt Institute in 2017. Prior to her studies, she served with the Washington State Department of Ecology through AmeriCorps. Barron has exhibited and screened work internationally, including at the Cooper Union, the Anthology Film Archives, the U.S. Embassy in Managua, the University of Rochester, and venues in Berlin and France. She was the inaugural artist in residence in the Metals Studio, continues to teach metals workshops at Wendell Castle Workshop, and is an art and art history instructor with the Bard Prison Initiative.
Marc Benda
Marc Benda was born in 1976 in Zurich, Switzerland. He studied at Sotheby’s Institute in London (1996-97) and economics and business at Hochschule St. Gallen (1997-2002). In 2002, he began working with Barry Friedman in New York, where he built a pioneering program of internationally renowned designers. The two co-founded Friedman Benda in 2007, specializing in contemporary and post-war design. The gallery’s collaboration with Wendell Castle dates back to 2006, with regular exhibitions both at the gallery and in institutional settings.
www.friedmanbenda.com
Stan Rickel
Stan is a distinguished industrial designer and educator. As co-founder of Rickel Jackson Design, Stan contributed to the creation of exhibits and products for renowned clients such as Anchor Hocking, Tiger, Mattel, Farberware, Conair, United Chair, and George Kovacs. Stan has been an influential faculty member at prestigious institutions including Pratt Institute, Syracuse University, and the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), where he has taught since 2001 and is currently the head of the undergraduate and graduate industrial design programs. Stan's impact extends beyond the classroom. He has co-founded and led initiatives such as Studio930 and the Livability Lab and launched the ArcWorks DS7 project. Stan is committed to mentoring the next generation of designers, fostering empathy in design and championing the transformative potential of education.
Honorary Board Members
Glenn Adamson
Glenn is a curator, writer and historian based in New York and London. He has previously been Director of the Museum of Arts and Design and Head of Research at the V&A.
Dr. Adamson’s publications include Thinking Through Craft (2007); The Craft Reader (2010); Postmodernism: Style and Subversion (2011, with Jane Pavitt); The Invention of Craft (2013); Art in the Making (2016, with Julia Bryan-Wilson); Fewer Better Things: The Hidden Wisdom of Objects (2018); Objects: USA 2020; and Craft: An American History (2021). His most recent book, A Century of Tomorrows, was published by Bloomsbury in December 2024.
Dr. Adamson is Artistic Director for Design Doha, a biennial in Qatar; curator at large for the Vitra Design Museum; and editor of Material Intelligence, a quarterly online journal published by the Chipstone Foundation.
His current curatorial projects include Toshiko Takaezu: Worlds Within for the Isamu Noguchi Museum and Nike: Form Follows Motion for the Vitra Design Museum.
Sarah Jesse
Sarah, the Mary W. and Donald R. Clark Director, came to the Memorial Art Gallery in 2024. Prior, she served as Director of the Academy Art Museum in Easton, Maryland, and Deputy Director, as well as Interim Director and CEO, of the Orange County Museum of Art.
She was also Associate Vice President of Education at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Bernsen Director of Education and Public Programs at the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Assistant Director of Public Programs at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Illinois. She holds a Master’s degree in art history from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Oberlin College.
She has worked in the museum field for over twenty years and has dedicated her career to making museums accessible to everyone.
Marc Newson
Marc Newson is an Australian industrial designer whose practice spans furniture, aviation, automotive, and marine design, as well as timepieces, luxury goods, jewelry, and fine-art installations. He is represented by Gagosian Gallery and Galerie kreo, and his work is held in the permanent collections of major museums worldwide, including MoMA, the Centre Pompidou, and the V&A.
Newson served as Designer for Special Projects at Apple, where he co-designed the Apple Watch with Jony Ive. In 2019 the two founded the creative collective LoveFrom, through which they designed Ferrari's first electric car, the Luce. He has been included in TIME's 100 Most Influential People and was awarded a CBE by Queen Elizabeth II in 2012. Newson is a friend to WCP through Alison Castle, who edited and authored two books on his work for TASCHEN.
ADvisory Board Members
Raul De Lara
Raul De Lara is a sculptor who explores the emotive and storytelling qualities of materials. His research preserves, honors and propels forward traditional uses of wood in Mexican and American culture while combining them with new developments in the global industry of woodworking. Fond of humor, magical realism and the uncanny, De Lara’s work references the visual language found in nature, furniture design and cultural artifacts. De Lara immigrated from Mexico to the United States at the age of 12, and has been a DACA recipient since 2012. After eight years of undocumented status, and currently still unable to freely travel outside the United States, his work reflects on transnational belonging, queer identity, and the immigrant experience. He is currently living and working in Queens, NY.
De Lara received his MFA in Sculpture + Extended Media from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2019, and a BFA in Studio Art from the University of Texas at Austin in 2015. In 2025, he is presenting two solo museum exhibitions at The Contemporary Austin and SCAD Museum of Art. His work has been included in exhibitions nationally and internationally at the Tucson Museum of Art, Wharton Esherick Museum, The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture, The Armory Show, Hermès Paris, Alexander Berggruen Gallery, The Hole, Honor Fraser Gallery, and Reynolds Gallery, among others.
De Lara’s selected awards include the Maxwell/Hanrahan Award in Craft, the NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Craft/Sculpture, and Art in America Magazine’s Top 20 Global New Talent, as well as residencies at Silver Art Projects, LMCC Governor’s Island, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Haystack Mountain School of Craft, Ox-Bow School of Art, Penland School of Craft, and Chicago Artists Coalition, among others.
Collin Erickson
Collin Erickson picked up photography after spending hundreds of hours in a darkroom around 2002. From this experience he bought his first digital SLR and could never put it down again. His eye is constantly searching for something that others may have overlooked. These are the moments that he finds the most incredible.
Collin graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Art & Graphic Design. Collin then went on to obtain a Master in Architecture. It was a grueling time but he took a lot from it and learned how to further refine his art and design background.
Collin's aim is to meld both photography and architecture together into one career. He has a unique love for both disciplines.
Collin is currently living in the New York Metropolitan area. He is an accomplished artist/photographer and has displayed his landscape/abstract photography & paintings in many galleries across the United States.
Andy Glantz
Andrew Glantz is a furniture designer and maker who lives and works in Scottsdale, Arizona. Born and raised on the East Coast, he graduated from the Frederic Gunn School, 1967 and Wesleyan University; BA, 1971 and MAT, 1972. After teaching Graphic Arts for ten years, he turned to period piece renovation and construction from 1978 to 1984. When he moved West in 1984, he began to devote his efforts solely to contemporary, sculptural furniture design and construction. He is the owner of Zenith Design, a one-person studio, and is responsible for all phases of design, construction and marketing. He is an arts activist and before moving to Scottsdale, he lived on the Navajo Nation from 1984 to 1987. He moved to Salt Lake City in 1987, and was involved with the Salt Lake Arts Council, the Salt Lake Arts Center, and the Utah Arts Council’s Endowment Fund Development Committee. He also ran the Vital Arts Gallery as volunteer executive director for three years and has curated several major exhibitions. He relocated to Scottsdale in 2002.
A longtime member of the Furniture Society, Andrew was tapped to serve as a trustee in 2005, and served as treasurer, vice president and president of the board of trustees, as well as chair of the development committee. His term of office ended in 2011. He is an active advisor for the Southwest School of Woodworking. He teaches furniture design and construction at the Southwest School of Woodworking in Phoenix and the Marc Adams School of Woodworking in Franklin, Indiana. He is a presenter committee member of he Yuma Art Symposium. His articles on furniture design and construction appear in several trade magazines. He delights in mentoring makers far and wide through teaching and Zoom meetings from Florida to Utah and locally.
Miles Gracey
Miles Gracey is a furniture maker, sculptor, and educator based in the Hudson Valley, NY. His work draws upon historical modes of high ornamentation to carve narrative into domestic objects. He received a BFA in Sculpture and New Genre from Otis College of Art and Design, a two year degree from The Krenov School of Fine Woodworking, and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Gracey has been a fellow at the The Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Maine, a teacher and resident at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, and a resident artist at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. His work has been exhibited in Los Angeles, Houston, Detroit, New York City, and San Francisco.
Grant Holcomb
Grant Holcomb was a longtime director of the Memorial Art Gallery and retired in 2014.
Under Holcomb's direction, the MAG initiated high profile exhibitions featuring the work of Maxfield Parrish, Edgar Degas, Georgia O'Keeffe and Jacob Lawrence. Holcomb also supported significant initiatives between the gallery and the University of Rochester Medical Center and other organizations.
Josh Owen
Josh Owen is the President of his design studio, Josh Owen LLC. He is also the Vignelli Distinguished Professor of Design and Director of the Vignelli Center for Design Studies at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Prior to joining the faculty at RIT in 2010, Owen held the title of Associate Professor and Craig R. Benson Chair for Innovation at Philadelphia University, where he spent ten years teaching while concurrently maintaining his studio practice. From 2008–2010 Owen was also a Lecturer in the Graduate Department of Architecture at The University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design, where he developed programming that served the Design, Engineering and Business Schools under the umbrella of Integrated Product Design. Owen spent his first decade at RIT leading the Industrial Design Department.
Josh Owen was born in the United States in 1970. The son of an archaeologist, he spent the summers of his youth on excavations in the Middle East learning from direct observation and participation in the mining of history through the lens of its material remains. Owen holds a BFA in Sculpture and a ba in Visual Studies from Cornell University and an MFA in Furniture Design from the Rhode Island School of Design. He has also studied at Tel Aviv University and Cornell University’s program in Rome. Owen’s studio practice is located where he lives in a small village a few miles down the Erie Canal from his office at RIT. He is the author of the book Lenses for Design and his retrospective exhibition Unboxed: the topography of Josh Owen is currently touring.
Staff
Ken Page
For over 25 years, Ken has been an avid furniture maker and admirer of Wendell Castle. He first met Wendell and Nancy through his wife, Kathrine. Ken volunteered to serve as the Director of the Wendell Castle Workshop with the objective of establishing a sustainably operating school, in line with Wendell’s spirit. He retired as an Engineering Program Director having managed space telescope, automation, and chemical facility projects and operations over a 40-year career.
