The Broommaker: Hunter Elliott, Artist-in-Residence, at SHED Projects    

The Broommaker, a three-week residency with Cleveland native, now Kentucky-based artist Hunter Elliott, is centered on brooms, from cultivating the grassy broomcorn plant onsite at SHED Projects, to harvesting and processing it, and—currently, creating stunning works of art. Elliott’s artistic practice is rooted in sculpture and printmaking, as he earned a BFA at Kent State University more than 10 years ago. “Broom craft is an extension of sculpture,” he explains, and the vivid dyes and colorful patterns he employs to make an everyday object something with which the user wants to engage.  

Through open studio hours (Thursday through Saturday, 12 to 6 p.m.), visitors can see the creative process come to life, from harvest of broomcorn to broom craft, and—ultimately, Elliott’s and his Berea College student-crafts people’s colorful and brooms displayed on SHED’S ruggedly-elegant walls.

The Broommaker embodies the “deep-dive” that SHED founders Gabrielle Banzhaf and Jon Gott are looking to foster, and Elliott lives a very similar ethos in Kentucky, where he is Director of Fellowships at Berea College. The Student Craft program was established in 1893 and provides 100 work positions for students, where they learn a craft from start to finish. He is an experiential teacher and an artist who, with Director of Broomcraft Amanda Lee Lazorchack, create alongside students. Broomcraft is just one of several crafts that are taught, created, and sold to fund fellowships and other experiential programs. More than 90% of the objects created at Berea College are designed in collaboration with students and they produce 4,000 items per year.

“As an artist, I don’t distinguish between ‘high’ and ‘low’ art forms. I believe that we can broaden our vision of what is/is not, and what can/cannot, be [classed] as art,” Elliott explains. Indeed, the brooms created with the broomcorn (also known as sorghum vulgare) cultivated on the SHED property are stunning objects, wrought into traditional (technically called the “sweeper broom”) and whimsical shapes, such as the shorter, fan-like “turkey wing,” or its smaller iteration, the “hen’s wing.” The “brush” (when cut, properly termed “hurl”) of many of the brooms in Elliott’s SHED studio are dyed vivid pink, orange, teal, and yellow, among others, transforming them with nothing short of creative alchemy into wonderfully functional works of art.   

SHED’s first floor is both gallery and living space for Elliott, who “loves rolling out of bed and walking a few feet into my studio.” The full scope of his work is on view—many of the pieces in the show were created by his Berea College students, and late Friday morning we was experimenting with a lesson plan for his student-craftspeople back at Berea College, which involved making a tiny broom out of one tassel/stalk of broomcorn.   

 The Broommaker includes informal demos and conversations during gallery hours (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday 12- 6 p.m.), special handled broom intensive (still available online), and one final handheld workshop for in-person visitors. Contact Gabrielle Banzhaf at gabrielle@shed-projects.org or 216.266.0589 for further information.

The Broommaker continues SHED’s mission to support experimental, process-based work while honoring regional traditions and embodied knowledge. This program is supported in part by the Ohio Arts Council and Berea College.

The Broommaker: Hunter Elliott, Artist-in-Residence
Through Saturday, December 13, 2025
Open studio hours: Thurs–Sat, 12–6 PM

SHED
3731 Pearl Road
Cleveland, OH 44109