Meet Our Founder: Chelsea Heffner

Chelsea Heffner started WildCraft Studio School in the late Spring of 2013, running about 15 classes from her personal studio. She had left Portland a year prior, moving there with the hope of merging her artwork and life in a more seamless way. While working as an adjunct professor at Portland’s Pacific Northwest College of Art, she became curious about alternative education models, especially those that got people outside for hands-on learning.

Chelsea has always been attracted to folk art and makers that carved out creative lives and practices in wild places. White Salmon felt like the right place to test out some ideas while building a creative space and community. Now, WildCraft has grown tremendously from its humble beginnings, currently running over 100 workshops each year from both our Portland Studio and Offsite locations.