Woodturner William Stoney Lamar never intended to be a sculptor; rather, he’s said, “I decided to make work on a lathe.” Having begun as a furniture maker, he discovered the lathe in the 1980s and was captivated by its potential to carve in lyrical and technically demanding ways.

Lowery Stokes Sims, an art historian and curator of contemporary art and craft, has focused her expertise on the work of African, African American, Latinx, Native, and Asian American artists, resulting in exhibitions and writings that have contributed fresh insights and critical scholarship to the craft field.

What is craft? How is it different from fine art or design? In his numerous journal articles, catalog essays, and books on contemporary theory in fine art and craft, writer and scholar Howard Risatti has elevated public and academic understanding of craft in contemporary society.

Despite her doctorate in aerospace engineering, Carolyn Mazloomi turned her energy to quilting and bringing the unrecognized contributions of African American quilt artists to the attention of American and international audiences.

Educated at the University of Minnesota, where he studied with Warren MacKenzie, Mark Pharis has continually innovated forms and glazes for functional pottery both within and outside of an academic career.

Tip Toland’s fascination with faces—drawing and painting them in art school, plumbing the knowledge and experience she found there—led to painted bas-relief sculptures in wood and clay, then three-dimensional ceramic work reflecting an entire human character.

In praising Kristina Madsen’s exquisite furniture when bestowing its 2020/2021 Award of Distinction, the Furniture Society wrote she’s a “truly exceptional furniture maker who has made a significant impact on the field through her unique way of combining classic European cabinet-making techniques with traditional Fijian carving to produce furniture that truly embodies her own style.”

In his luminescent glass work, Tlingit artist Preston Singletary merges European glassblowing traditions with Northwest Coast Native design. He infuses Tlingit icons—including raven, salmon, and his clan symbol, killer whale—as well as basket designs, themes of transformation, spiritual stories, and cultural images with modern materials, paying homage to his ancestors.

As a child, Nancy Koenigsberg loved to knit and crochet. Her higher education included studies in sculpture and painting. After earning her BA from Goucher College, Baltimore, she founded a successful custom-design needlepoint business in New York City.

“As cliché as it sounds, the first time I held a soldering torch in my hand, that felt very right,” recalls metalsmith and jeweler Keith Lewis. A prosaic statement, yet Lewis’s work is anything but.

Karen Hampton listens to her ancestors. “They are all sitting around me. They poke me and they tell me, ‘Go do this. Go do that. You need to tell our story.’”

Beadwork is in Teri Greeves’s blood. She is an enrolled member of the Kiowa Indian Tribe of Oklahoma, whose beadwork is integral to tribal identity. Greeves’s grandmother, Suzy Ataumbi Big Eagle, was an award-winning bead artist.