We are pleased to announce the recipients of Mortise & Tenon’s 2025 Craft Research Grant! Each year, we award up to two grants for handcraft research around the world, cluminating in an essay published in a future issue of the magazine. Our aim is to open up new areas of study into the many craft traditions around the world and to fuel new passion and interest in the pursuit of handcraft. Here are this year’s recipients!
Andrew Gonzales is a 12th-generation New Mexican, his family having lived in the northern part of that state since the 1590s. Raised with a deep knowledge of the Hispano culture, he has long been fascinated by the folk crafts and skills of the region. Many of his ancestors were artisans – weavers, carpenters, and other handcraft practitioners. His aim is to research and understand the traditional methods of furniture folk craft in the region prior to heavy Anglo settlement (occurring around 1840) and learn how that history influenced the unique style of furniture today associated with the area. Gonzales sees an opportunity to revive vernacular New Mexican furniture making along the same lines as the recent interest in Welsh and Irish stick chairs and Swedish slöjd woodworking. Through research, visiting institutions, tracking down current makers, and utilizing era-appropriate tools, he will seek a deeper understanding of this rich heritage.
Luke Sellers has a passion for studying under-researched history. A graduate of Yale University, he has spent countless research hours looking at medieval and early modern Western European history as well as early vernacular furniture making. His interests have driven him to an in-depth study of wooden-shoe making in Europe – specifically, the Netherlands. Wooden shoes or klompen are iconic for that nation but there are only a dozen or so traditional clog makers remaining – almost all wooden shoes today are made by machine. Sellers will travel to the Netherlands to interview klompen makers, take detailed 3D scans of shoes and custom clog-maker tools for others to reference, and gain hands-on experience in making his own pair. His goal is to preserve and document this craft so it can live on into the future.
This is the kind of research that our grant program makes possible, and we are excited to bring it to our readers in future issues of Mortise & Tenon Magazine!
-Mike