We support innovative people working in field-based science, art and craft, teaching and protection of the natural world.

Jolie Ngo explores the intersection of craft, technology and community. Working from her studio in Santa Barbara, Calif., Ngo expands the boundaries of ceramic art through a multifaceted and playfully subversive approach, stripping away the seriousness often associated with clay traditions and forging a new conceptual and experimental path.

Robert K. Mills is a Tlingit artist of the Tsaagweidi clan from Kake, Alaska. Working in metal, paint and wood, Mills’ art is deeply rooted in the traditions of his ancestors and pioneering new expressions for future generations.

Neal Thomas was born on April 22, 1940, in Raeford, N.C. While working in the timber industry in the late 1950s, Thomas met an elder African American woodworker named Herman Holder, who shared with him the art and skill of making split white oak baskets. At 85, he can “drop trees on a dime” and fashion split white oak baskets with the dexterity and strength of a 20-year-old.

Kevin Aspaas is a Navajo textile and fiber artist. Known for his work with the Navajo wedge weave technique, Aspaas practices a process he calls “sheep to loom.” The process involves gathering and spinning wool from the small flock of Navajo-Churro sheep he raises in Shiprock, NM.

An enrolled member of the Kiowa Tribe, Teri Greeves has been beading since she was eight years old and today has work in the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, the British Museum and the collection of the State of New Mexico, among others.