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Meet the Artist: April Pugh
Striving To Learn As Much As She Can About Woodworking

As a teacher at the Kansas City Art Institute, April Pugh works in the school's Central Shop, where students can drop in to receive help on any project that incorporates woodworking. "Whether they're ceramic students or fiber art students or sculpture students, whatever they need to design we help them build it," April said. "It really covers the whole range of art work."

Number Five: Katie's Place Philippine mahogany, wenge, cedar, redwood, white oak, leather 12 x 12 x 7 inches

The 36-year-old Pugh relishes her position as a full-time instructor at the private liberal arts college. She is immersed in the creative process, and she enjoys helping find solutions to different problems a project may present.

"I feel very, very lucky," April said. "Being in the position I'm in, I feel like I learn something every day. The students who come to the Art Institute bring with them a very fresh eye toward the world and their artwork that really surprises me every day. I learn from them every day, and they learn from me.

"Whenever I sort of get burnt out from my schedule, I just remind myself how lucky I am. It is very rewarding to know that you're doing what you're supposed to be doing."

Miniature Number Six: Kemper wenge, mahogany, tagua nut 6 x 4 x 4 inches

Pugh entered the world of woodworking in a roundabout way. When she was a 19-year-old college student at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, she began working part time in a friend's workshop. "I kept having this nagging feeling in the back of my head that I'm supposed to be doing something with my hands, even though I had no training," April said. "I was absolutely at a crossroads. I was wondering what I wanted to do."

At about the same time, April, who was adopted at age 4 along with her older brother, decided to find her biological family.

"We were adopted out of Topeka, Kansas," April said. "I had a last name for my father, who I got from my brother's newspaper birth announcement, and I just got out the phone book and looked up Lowman."

Number One: Chanda Douglas fir, ebony, curly maple, mahogany 12 x 11 x 5 inches

After first reaching a relative, she was soon on the phone with her biological father. "I ended up finding my biological father and older sister, and they were both artists," April said. "My father was a bronze sculptor, and my sister was painting large billboards in LA. I found the experience to be very profound."

Soon after meeting her biological family, who she now keeps in close contact with, April left college and immersed herself in woodworking. She worked full-time in her friend's shop for a number of years until she was hired at the Art Institute 10 years ago.

While April got her start in woodworking as a wood turner, she has developed her own artistic and utilitarian style that incorporates a wide range of influences, primarily Ray and Charles Eames and George Nakashima.

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