Community Corner

League of NH Craftsmen Announces Additions, Changes to Board of Trustees

The League of NH Craftsmen is pleased to announce the following changes and additions to its Board of Trustees: Alice Veenstra, recent Board Vice President and former Treasurer, was elected President, succeeding Immediate Past President Beverly R. Wolf; Charles Bauer, Esq. was elected Vice President; and new members William (Bill) Mitchell, Michael Kraatz, and Kimberly Peaslee, PhD, Esq. were elected as Members at Large.

Continuing their service on the Board are: Deborah L. Coffin and Parker Potter (both elected for an additional three-year term); Cindy Suekawa, Secretary; Derek Lick; Pam Peterson; Sharon Stephan; Jack Dokus; and Stephany Marchut Lavallee. The League is also grateful to the dedication and support of its outgoing Board members Inge Eddy, Joy Raskin and Adele Sanborn. 

“The League continues to develop new strategies for sustainability. We continually strive to introduce people to craft as a creative path, as a consumer, as an appreciator, and turn them on to understanding the importance of handmade as a lifestyle,” said Executive Director Susie Lowe-Stockwell. “Our new Board members will provide a new perspective and energy to our mission and help us achieve our goals.”

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New Board President Alice Veenstra has served on the Board for three years. She is a community development consultant, specializing in grant writing. Alice has 18 years of financial and community development experience, including 12 years in community development grant administration and banking policy analysis with the Federal government. She has developed numerous programs for non-profit and federal organizations including two energy efficiency loan programs for businesses, non-profit organizations, and municipalities. Alice earned her Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government and her Bachelors in Economics and Business from Macalester College in St. Paul, MN. She is a member of the Canterbury Planning Board, on the Board of Directors of Prescott Farm in Laconia, and Chair of the Central and Southern NH Regional Planning Commission’s Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy Steering Committee. 

New Board Vice President Charles P. Bauer, Esq. is an attorney and shareholder at Gallagher, Callahan & Gartrell, PC (Concord). Charlie has been actively involved in civil litigation, as well mediations and arbitrations, with concentrations in civil rights, employment, and municipal matters. Charlie is also a private mediator and arbitrator, and a federal and state court mediator. He is a graduate of the University of Baltimore School of Law and the University of New Hampshire. Having spent more than 33 years serving the legal community in New Hampshire, Charlie plays an active role in working with the League and its educational and cultural programs to further assist, preserve, and promote awareness of the State’s artisans and their crafts, and the arts community as a whole throughout New Hampshire.

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New Board member William (Bill) Mitchell is a printmaker and painter who lives in Dover. Originally from Catskill, NY, Bill received his B.A. from the State University College at Oneonta NY and later studied at the Boston Museum School. He has been working on serigraph prints of the New Hampshire landscape since 1983 and became a juried League printmaker in 1991. In 2007, Bill turned his attention to becoming a full time art teacher, completing graduate studies at the University of New Hampshire and receiving a Master's degree in Education. That year he began teaching art at Pittsfield Middle High School where he has been active in school redesign and project based learning initiatives. Bill hopes to bring to the board his passion for craft studies and art education. He believes education is critical to the future of the League and the culture that crafts bring to our state.

A juried member of the League, new Board member Michael Kraatz works with his partner Susan Russell in a hot and cold working glass studio in Canaan that has been operating since 1975. Michael studied glass with Harvey Littleton at the University of Wisconsin and received his graduate degree from the Rhode Island School of Design. He and Susan design and fabricate architectural glasswork using their own blown and cast glass. Michael also teaches at AVA Gallery and Arts Center in Lebanon. He and Susan have completed commissions for free standing pieces and wall works for clients across New England.

New Board member Kim Peaslee, PhD., Esq. is a licensed patent attorney and a member of Devine Millimet’s Intellectual Property practice group in Concord. She assists clients on a wide range of intellectual property matters, including patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, and litigation. Before joining Devine Millimet, Kim was an associate at the law firm of Foley Hoag, LLP, in their Intellectual Property Department in Boston. Prior to that, Kim was a law clerk for BAE Systems in Nashua and a patent fellow at Merck & Co., Inc. Kim attended UNH School of Law where she received her JD, cum laude, in 2009. She received her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Dartmouth in 2008. Kim also worked as a metal smith and jeweler for several years, and now works mainly with textiles and beads to create quilts and jewelry for family and friends. Her expertise in intellectual property coupled with her passion for artistic expression make her a great fit for the League of NH Craftsmen. She has also spent a good deal of her life teaching art, law and chemistry and feels that the instructional component of the League’s work is particularly fascinating and important.

The League of NH Craftsmen is a non-profit, craft education organization. Its mission is to encourage, nurture, and promote the creation, use, and preservation of fine contemporary and traditional craft through the inspiration and education of artists and the broader community. 

The League represents the signature of excellence in fine craft, through the work of its juried members, and its rigorous standards for self expression, vision, and quality craftsmanship. The League of NHCraftsmen is supported in part by a grant from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. 

For more information, call 603-224-3375 or visit nhcrafts.org.

Submitted by The League of NH Craftsmen.


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