Visual Arts/Artist Row

Owner and Director of Connell Gallery, Atlanta, GA.

Martha Connell has been the owner and director of the Connell Gallery in Atlanta since 1985. She has also curated a number of museum exhibitions dealing with art quilts, figurative ceramics, studio furniture and woodworking, including an exhibition of turned wood that traveled in Europe as a cultural presentation of the United States through the USIA Arts America Program. Connell has served as a juror for many craft shows, including the Philadelphia Craft Show and Smithsonian Craft Show. She is currently on the Board of Governors of the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.

Assistant Director and Residency Program Director, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Gatlinburg, TN.

Ceramic artist Bill Griffith received a B.S. degree in Art Education from Indiana State University and an MA in Art Education/Ceramics from Miami University, Ohio. He was a participant in the first International Workshop for Ceramic Artists in Tokoname, Japan. His functional and sculptural ceramics have been exhibited and published in many international, national juried/invitational exhibitions and publications and is included in many private collections and the Tennessee State Museum, the Arkansas Arts Center, the San Angelo Museum of Fine Art, TX, the City of Orlando, FL Permanent Collection, the Tokoname Cultural Museum in Japan and the Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute in China. He is the 2003 recipient of an Individual Artists Fellowship awarded by the Tennessee Arts Commission. Recent exhibitions include “The Art of Tennessee” at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, TN; “21st Century Ceramics in the United States and Canada” at the Columbus College of Art & Design, OH; “Architectural Echoes”, Invitational Wood Fire Exhibition, Center for Craft, Creativity and Design, NC, the NCECA National Juried Exhibition, San Diego, CA and “Hoosier Expatriates: From Indiana to the World”, at the Indianapolis Art Center, IN. Bill currently serves on the Board of the American Craft Council Southeast Region and has been active as a juror for craft festivals and national exhibitions, most recently Craft Boston 2008. He has served on the jury panels for the Ohio Arts Council, the Kentucky Arts Council and the Arkansas Arts Council’s Individual Artists Fellowship Awards.

Director, UNC Asheville Craft Campus, Asheville, NC.

Brent Skidmore has a background in sculpture but primarily makes studio furniture these days. He has been teaching in many capacities for 18 years at universities and many of the craft programs across the nation such as Penland, Arrowmont, Anderson Ranch and Peter’s Valley. His work and processes are included in a recent Lark Publication entitled “The Penland Book of Woodworking”. He has shown his work extensively across the nation, Finland, UK, Canada and Dubai, UAE. Recent shows of Brent’s personal work have included the Smithsonian Craft Show and SOFA-Chicago. After running Brent Skidmore Studio for seven years, he returned in 2004 to teaching at Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids, Michigan but most recently has accepted the Directorship of the UNC Asheville Craft Campus. The Craft Campus will be a cross-disciplinary facility with a focus on Craft Studies situated in a region that sees over $207 million economic impact annually from the professional craft industry. Slated to open in the near future, the campus will be a leading center for innovative craft studies, interdisciplinary learning, creativity and scholarly research, while providing state-of-the-art studio facilities for UNC Asheville students, faculty and the community. Brent is also a board member of Craft Emergency Relief Fund, Montpelier, VT and the UNC Center for Craft, Creativity and Design in Hendersonville, NC and he is also a founding member of the Furniture Society, Asheville, NC. His work was recently added to the collection of the Mint Museum of Craft + Design, Charlotte, NC.

Owner and Executive Director of Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta, GA.

Marcia Wood began working in the arts in Atlanta in 1983 with the opening of her first gallery. In 1995 she founded Marcia Wood Gallery, which is currently in its 3rd location, the historic downtown loft district of Castleberry Hill. Representing emerging, mid-career and established artists who are based locally, nationally and abroad, Marcia Wood is dedicated to the exhibition, promotion and support of contemporary art. Marcia Wood Gallery has participated in internationally noted art fairs such as PULSE, Miami, PULSE NY, AAF, NY, Palm Beach 3, Palm Beach, FL, Chicago Art Fair, FLOW, Miami, Year07, London, Art212, NY and Affair at the Jupiter, Portland, OR. Wood is an ongoing member of the National Organization for Women in the Arts, ART TABLE, and has sat on numerous boards and done committee work with Atlanta institutions including ART PAPERS, the nation’s longest running non-profit contemporary art publication, The Contemporary, Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia and served as Vice-President of the Atlanta Gallery Association. She received a Georgia Women in the Arts Award in 1999 and has acted as a judge or panelist on art events since 1987 including the Art of Recycling Sculpture exhibit held in Atlanta City Hall (1998), consulting for the Decatur Arts Festival, Decatur, Georgia (1987, 1988,), The Georgia State University Art Gallery annual arts award, the 4 Bridges Arts Festival, Chattanooga, TN 2009, co-founding the popular Virginia Highland Art Walk (1995 – 1997) and the Castleberry Hill Art Stroll (2007 – ongoing).