Meet Bonnie

Bonnie is a carpenter-seamstress, a carpentress, if you will. She is currently devoted to the study and craft of fine furniture. Bonnie’s grandfather, a botantist and woodworker, taught her to see “God’s eyes” — beautiful knots within a board of wood that had “only been seen before by God.” A graduate of Dickinson College and Duke Divinity School, Bonnie served in full-time ministry for over ten years, before attending The Austin School of Furniture and the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship. She is the creator of A Humble Carpentress LLC, and currently serves as the Interim Associate Director of The Chairmaker’s Toolbox. Bonnie is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church whose faith inspires her work for tolerance, sustainability, equity and inclusion. She practices craft as a form of resistance against a throwaway culture.

A Humble Carpentress LLC

Established in 2022, A Humble Carpentress LLC is a one-woman-woodshop that produces handmade and custom wood furniture in Frederick, Maryland. We believe furniture should be beautiful and useful, simple and made-to-last. Commission your own special piece.

Press & Publications

“A Beginner Walks into a Lumberyard," Fine Woodworking Blog, March 2024

“The Living Tools Project,” Pins and Tales Quarterly, Winter 2023

“What Joy” Grace UMC Baltimore, May 2023

“Austin School of Furniture: A 3 Month Intensive,” Woodworkers West Magazine, Sept-Oct 2022