Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont internship, for the Charlotte News
CHARLOTTE — Wood shavings fall to the floor every day as Eric Cannizzaro rounds off the legs of Windsor chairs in his studio. The rhythmic scrape of his carving knives and smoothing tools drum through the walls of his family barn turned craft workshop, Vermont Handworks.
The studio is run by the couple, woodworker Eric Cannizzaro and jeweler Jolynn Santiago, and was formally established in December 2025. The pair offer classes in woodworking, jewelry-making and other crafts out of the renovated space in Charlotte — drawing in local Charlotters, visitors from nearby towns and people from other states like New York.
“I want students to walk away with appreciation for craft,” Santiago said. “In every single class, I have someone say, ‘Wow, I have this greater appreciation for a ring now when I go to buy it.’”
The barn holds a long family history for Cannizzaro. His grandmother, Jeanie MacDonough, grew up on the property when it was still a working dairy farm. When the oldest barn on the farm burned down, the workshop that would become Vermont Handworks was built on the leftover foundations.
Cannizzaro spent much of his childhood in that workshop alongside his grandfather, Bruce Ladeau, who, after retiring as principal of South Burlington High School, spent his time watercolor painting and carving wooden ducks. His grandfather got Cannizzaro started in woodworking by having him build birdhouses on the property.
“There’s still one that I made almost 30 years ago,” Cannizzaro said, recalling time spent observing bluebirds nearby from a teepee his grandfather built for him.
Even though the barn was their home, Cannizzaro’s grandparents were some of the biggest supporters in transforming it into a craft studio.
“They were both educators, and Jeanie really valued what we were doing,” Santiago said. “I think it was really nice for her to see what we were starting to do here. She was encouraging of that.”
“That’s the only reason that we’re here doing this, and that this exists,” Cannizzaro added.
Santiago, an artist, jeweler and educator, came to Vermont Handworks through a different path. She grew up dancing, but quit after 14 years when she went to college to study business.
After working as a businesswoman for several years post-grad, she found herself feeling unfulfilled and returned to school to study jewelry and metals.
“I realized that there was some type of artistic expression that I was used to having,” Santiago said. “I wanted to be moving and for my brain to be working.”
She then became a bench jeweler, restoring broken jewelry with gemstones, setting ring sizes and fabricating custom pieces. Santiago said she wanted to share her knowledge of jewelry repair, so she went to graduate school to earn her teaching degree.
After teaching her first class, it became central to Santiago’s work. She often sees students discover their own creativity, just like she did.
“There’s so much joy, and then there’s this realization that they’re capable,” she said. “That feels extremely empowering to me. I want to continue doing that for people.”
Santiago met Cannizzaro in 2019 during a residency at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Tennessee, where they lived and worked alongside other artists.
Their paths diverged after the year-long program — Cannizzaro staying in Tennessee and Santiago moving to Maryland for a new job. The two stayed in touch and struck up a long-distance relationship in 2021.
Cannizzaro eventually moved back to Charlotte and Santiago followed him there in 2023. The two then began teaching out of the studio together.
They ran independent teaching businesses for several years, until the couple decided to combine their efforts into one shared vision last December.
The classes vary in format and experience level. Some are short, three-hour sessions or weekend classes, while others last several days. Students may come in with no prior experience or with a specific project in mind.
Many of the classes are structured around completing a project from start to finish, allowing students to leave with a finished piece.
“There’s a lot of struggle in the beginning,” Cannizzaro said. “There’s always this cool transition in class to when they’re like, ‘Oh my god, I did this.’”
In addition to their own classes, the studio hosts guest instructors from around the country. Craftspeople from New York, North Carolina, Tennessee and other states expand the studio’s teaching repertoire with other artforms like stonemasonry and basket weaving.
“We have a lot of creative friends that maybe haven’t taught before, and we like to encourage them to share their knowledge,” Santiago said.
One class attendee, Sarah Bartos Smith, a senior lecturer at Dartmouth who lives in Strafford, said she was drawn to Vermont Handworks through her growing interest in basket weaving. She took multiple classes, including a recent workshop on traditional Polish tatza weaving.
“The second I finished my basket, I wanted to make another,” she said.
For Smith, the value of the class went beyond learning a new skill.
“I love the way that making functional objects by hand brings meaning to the things that we use in our everyday lives. It is such a joyful thing to use those objects to make the ordinary parts of our days more beautiful and intentional,” Smith said.
For Cannizzaro and Santiago, their work is more than just the objects themselves. In a time when much of daily life happens through screens, both see hands-on craft as something increasingly important.
“I think it’s grounding,” Cannizzaro said.
We need to be participating in things like this in order to not lose the connection we have to our hands,” Santiago added.