Kristina Madsen is a furniture maker whose mother instilled in her a passion for meticulous handwork and a profound appreciation of quiet concentration. At age nineteen, Madsen became a student of British master craftsman David Powell at the Leeds Design Workshop in Easthampton, MA. After four years of training, she taught part-time while establishing her furniture-making business in Southampton, MA. She was an Artist-in-Residence at the University of Tasmania in 1988. In 1991, she received a Fulbright Grant to study wood­carv­ing in Fiji under woodcarver Makiti Koto's guidance, where she learned the skill of freehand intaglio carving. She has subsequently used this carving technique to enliven the surfaces of her furniture. She has received fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the New England Foundation for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She is the 2020-2021 recipient of the Furniture Society Award of Distinction and a 2022 Fellow in the American Craft Council College of Fellows. Madsen's furniture is held by art museums and in private collections nationwide.