Michele Oka Doner is an internationally renowned artist and author whose career spans five decades. Her work is fueled by a lifelong study and appreciation of the natural world from which she derives her formal vocabulary. The breadth of her artistic production encompasses sculpture, jewelry, public art, functional objects, video, artist books and costume and set design. She is well known for creating numerous permanent art installations throughout the United States, including “Flight” at Regan International Airport, “Radiant Site,” at the Herald Square MTA station, New York and the mile and quarter long bronze and terrazzo concourse, “A Walk on the Beach,” seen by 40 million travelers a year at Miami International Airport. Oka Doner’s work is found in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, Musée des Arts Décoratifs (the Louvre), the Victoria & Albert, University of Michigan, Yale and Harvard University museums, and The Detroit Institute of Arts, among others. She has received numerous awards, including those given by United Nations Society of Writers and Artists, Pratt Institute, New York State Council of the Arts and the Knight Foundation. In 2016 she received an honorary doctorate from The University of Michigan, where she earned her undergraduate and MFA degrees. Oka Doner is the author or subject of numerous books, including Miami Beach Blueprint of an Eden, and Intuitive Alphabet, and Everything is Alive.

Jonathan Wahl has served as the Director of the Jewelry Center at the 92nd Street Y since 1999 and has guided the Center’s growth to become that largest program of its kind in the nation and the oldest open studio in NYC. He is responsible for developing and overseeing a curriculum that has more than 55 classes weekly and 15 visiting artists yearly, 25 faculty members, maintaining four state-of-the-art jewelry and metalsmithing studios, and promoting the department locally and nationally as a jewelry resource center. Wahl founded the only Jewelry residency in New York city for a Jeweler and a scholarship based High School Jewelry Program-Teen Gems. Additionally, Wahl oversees and hosts an active lecture program with notables from the Jewelry and Design worlds at 92Y. Biennially he organizes international trips to visit contemporary jewelers and historical collections across the globe.

Jonathan Wahl’s artwork ranges from drawing and sculpture to the decorative arts. His work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the MFA Boston, the Houston Museum of Fine and the Museum of Arts of Arts and Design in NYC. It has been featured or reviewed in publications as diverse as The New York Times, Art in America, The New Yorker, Architectural Digest, Oprah Magazine, W Jewelry, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Metalsmith Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, the Aventurine and the Advocate, among others. Wahl has been awarded the Louis Comfort Tiffany Emerging Artist Fellowship from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, two New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships one for Craft and one for Drawing and the Pennsylvania Society of Goldsmiths Award for "Outstanding Achievement." he was named one of the top-10 jewelers to watch by W Jewelry in 2006. Wahl’s work is exhibited both nationally and internationally.