Angela Robins
Angela is a woodworker and educator, inspired by the curved forms found in Scandinavian and Japanese wooden crafts, in particular the boat and bowl. Raised in the U.S. and Japan, her interest in traditional crafts was sparked from seeing images of wooden Japanese fishing boats. After the 2011 earthquake and tsunami of northeastern Japan, she returned to her hometown and visited with traditional craftspeople in the region. Her first opportunity to study traditional woodworking and crafts was at North House Folk School, where she was an intern in 2013.
Since then she taught skin-on-frame wooden boatbuilding at a youth development program, Urban Boatbuilders, for three years, and continues to teach the ancient textile technique, nalbinding, to students of all ages. In 2015 she received a Minnesota Folk & Traditional Arts Grant to study Scandinavian green wooden bowl turning with Jim Sannerud.
In the spring of 2015, she assisted boatbuilder and researcher Douglas Brooks with the documentation and building of a traditional wooden fishing boat with one of the last boatbuilders in northeastern Japan.
Past Courses Offered by Angela Robins
Axe Work for Women and Non-Binary Carvers
Nålbinding: Cowls for the Cool Times
Turning the Wooden Bowl: Marginalized Genders Session
