Jason Green was in his fifth year of studying towards an economics doctoral degree at the University of Colorado at Boulder when he hit a wall. “I realized I needed to be making things with my hands,” he explains. Although he’d never worked with wood, he was naturally attracted to it, and found a local furniture maker who offered classes in 2003. That led to an intensive 12-week course at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Rockport, Maine. At that point, he says, “I knew I could do this for the rest of my life.”

Ed Edwards’ life can be described as a series of evolutions. He grew up surrounded by art—his father was a high school art teacher who introduced silk-screening and mosaic projects to the family—but there wasn’t a strong message to pursue it professionally.

That didn’t stop Edwards from enrolling in art classes while studying as an undergraduate or taking his first stained glass workshop in 1977.