Aspen Golann is a furniture maker, artist, and educator whose work explores gender and power through the manipulation of iconic American furniture forms. Trained as a 17th–19th century woodworker, Golann engages the moral complexity of reproduction furniture by appropriating the aesthetics and antiquarian processes of early America to illustrate gender and social injustice endemic to the time. She mines the intersections of American furniture practices, sexuality, identity politics, and contemporary craft in a range of works including fine furniture and sculpture.

Golann devotes much of her time to teaching, working at the intersection of American decorative arts, research, and inclusive education. She has collaborated on educational initiatives with both established and radical craft institutions, including Winterthur Museum, Center for Craft, Sight Unseen, The Furniture Society, and Colonial Williamsburg, with the goal of creating pathways for marginalized makers to engage with traditional craft practices. In 2021 she founded The Chairmaker’s Toolbox, an equity initiative designed to increase access to the field of woodworking by providing free educational opportunities and mentorship to historically excluded chair and tool makers.

Golann has received the Mineck Fellowship, Windgate Residency at SDSU, and the Critical Craft Fellowship at Winterthur Museum, and she is a member of the 2023 Teaching Artist Cohort through the Center for Craft. She serves on the board of A Workshop of Our Own, writes for Fine Woodworking Magazine, is the president and managing director of The Chairmaker’s Toolbox, and has taught in the Furniture Department at the Rhode Island School of Design.