American Craft Connects: Presentations & Panels

Design journalist and independent scholar based in Philadelphia, PA.

Sarah Archer is one of America’s leading experts on design and material culture. She also consults with companies and museums, helping to develop deeply researched public-facing content. Previously, she was senior curator at the Philadelphia Art Alliance and the Director of Greenwich House Pottery; more recently, she has appeared as a regular guest on the podcast You’re Wrong About and in the CNN documentary The Many Lives of Martha Stewart. She is represented by Stoker Literary.

Glass Artist, Co-Director of the Washington Glass Studio

Tim Tate is a Washington, DC–based mixed-media artist whose work combines glass, video, and installation to explore queer history, social justice, memory, and speculative futures. A Fulbright Scholar and Co-Founder of the Washington Glass Studio & School, his work is held in major museum collections, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and reflects more than four decades of leadership in LGBTQ+ activism and cultural advocacy.

Fiber artist and activist with Gays Against Guns

Michael Sylvan Robinson is an internationally exhibited genderqueer fiber artist, activist, and arts educator whose sculptural and wearable work draws on a background in performance and costume design. Sylvan’s work has been featured in exhibitions from Rome Art Week to the Wisconsin Museum of Quilts & Fiber Arts, and has been highlighted by Vogue through a 2021 Met Gala collaboration with Jordan Roth.

Artist and Educator

Emmett Ramstad (he/him) is a transdisciplinary artist based in Minneapolis. His work spans sculpture, installation, performance, and participation to explore themes of body maintenance, queer archival practice, and aspects of tending to ourselves and others.

Director, Goldstein Museum of Design, University of Minnesota

Aidan O’Connor has directed the Goldstein Museum of Design at the University of Minnesota since 2023. A lifelong museum lover and native New Yorker, she previously worked in curatorial departments at MoMA, Cooper Hewitt, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology. She holds an MA in the History of Design and Decorative Arts from Parsons School of Design and a BA in Archaeology and Social Anthropology from Harvard.

Adjunct, Product Design, University of Minnesota

Quynh Akers is a product designer, design strategist, and Ph.D. researcher at the University of Minnesota whose work explores how craft, prototyping, and material innovation can create more desirable and sustainable products. Quynh examines the intersection of desirability, waste, and regenerative innovation to help shape the future of design education and practice.

Associate Professor, Graphic Design, University of Minnesota

Zenas Seiji Ikeda’s research and creative practice explore identity, cultural sustainability, and design justice through graphic design, with a particular focus on Japanese family crests (kamon) as contemporary tools for cultural reclamation within Nikkei communities. His work bridges design research, visual communication, and community engagement, examining how symbols can preserve heritage while shaping new cultural identities.

Teaching Specialist, Graphic Design, University of Minnesota

Bill Moran is a teaching specialist in Graphic Design at the University of Minnesota’s College of Design. He is a third-generation letterpress printer, an artist and designer, an educator, and a typographic historian. Most of his career has focused on preserving and advancing the craft of letterpress printing. As artistic director at Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum in Wisconsin (2009-2021), he helped expand the museum’s archive and elevate its recognition as the world’s largest collection of wood type. He also co-founded TipoItalia’s study-abroad program in Cornuda, Italy.

Assistant Professor, Landscape Architecture, University of Minnesota

Through the lens of “Material Temporalities,” she investigates how utilitarian landscape infrastructures and materials can be reimagined as imaginative, generative systems that embrace landscape change and support more-than-human species. She utilizes 3D-printing, experimental earthen material compositions, hybrid representations, lab-based experimentation, and small-scale installations to develop novel approaches, formal geometries, and landscape processes.

Executive Director, The Furniture Society

Monica Hampton has background spanning fine arts, art history, education, and public outreach, with a focus on program development for museums and cultural organizations. She has held leadership roles at the Society of North American Goldsmiths (SNAG) and the American Craft Council (ACC), and has worked with organizations including SEGD, Metropolis Magazine, and the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, as well as consulting on major cultural events.

Professor of Design, Syracuse University, and Furniture Society Board member

Zeke Leonard is the coordinator of Syracuse University School of Design’s First Year Experience, with research focused on craft practice, social responsibility, and environmental stewardship in contextual design and fabrication. His work centers on re-purposing discarded materials to spark dialogue and community action, often in collaboration with local groups and organizations. He is a regular visiting instructor at institutions including the Haystack Mountain School of Craft and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.

Special Trustee, The Sara Little Turnbull Foundation

Dorothy (Dee) Dunn is a creative leader, cultural producer, and educator who works as a strategist for family foundations and serves as Special Trustee of the Sara Little Turnbull Foundation. She has held leadership roles at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, the Philip Johnson Glass House, and AIGA, and has consulted for organizations including the Getty Center, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, and the Buckminster Fuller Institute. She serves on multiple boards including Parsons/The New School and Open House New York.

Volunteer and Community Outreach Coordinator at A Tiny Home for Good

Sarah Mason is the Volunteer and Community Outreach Coordinator at A Tiny Home for Good, a Syracuse-based nonprofit focused on addressing homelessness through permanent tiny-home communities. A recent graduate of Syracuse University’s Industrial and Interaction Design program with minors in Ceramics and Sustainable Design, her work explores the intersection of furniture, craft, and play through interactive, sculptural, and sustainability-focused design. She is a 2026 recipient of the Furniture Society’s educational grants.

Executive Director, American Craft Council

Andrea Specht has served as executive director of the American Craft Council since 2022, leading the 83-year-old organization through a period of rapid evolution. Her diverse career includes 25+ years in executive and board roles advancing nonprofit and public sector organizations in arts and culture, youth development, civic engagement, and higher education. Immediately before taking the helm at ACC, Andrea served as vice president of advancement and foundation executive director at Normandale, Minnesota’s largest community college, and before that, as executive director of Artistry, a theater and visual arts organization. She holds a JD from the University of St. Thomas and a BA in Studio Art from Macalester College, where she focused on drawing and printmaking. Andrea is an avid appreciator of fine art and craft with a particular interest in collecting work by living artists in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Director of Development, American Craft Council

She has made it her personal mission to inspire craft patronage as a means of supporting artists and preserving the field of American Craft. Previously she served as Development Director at Craft in America and as Executive Director of the James Renwick Alliance for Craft. In 2022, she wrote The Future of Craft Collecting for ACC magazine.

Head of Fiber & Artist-in-Residence, Cranbrook Academy of Art

Joey Quiñones is a fiber artist, ceramicist, and mixed media sculptor whose work engages African American and Caribbean history, with a focus on queer Afro-Latine identity. Their work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Palais de Tokyo (Paris), the Akron Art Museum, and the Crocker Museum, and they are a recipient of honors including an Emerging Artist award from Ceramics Monthly and an Augusta Savage Grant from the National Sculpture Society. They are currently the Artist-in-Residence and Head of the Fiber Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art.

Textile Artist & Educator

Bryana Bibbs is an artist and educator who documents personal experiences of mental health, loss, and trauma through weaving and printmaking, using color and materials that carry memory and emotion. Her work has been exhibited at galleries and museums, including Tiger Strikes Asteroid and the Haggerty Museum of Art. She’s taught at various institutions including MCA Chicago and Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. She founded The We Were Never Alone Project and serves on education and programs committees for the Surface Design Association and the Elmhurst Art Museum.

Director for Artistic Advancement, Textile Center of MN

Tracy Krumm serves as curator, McKnight Fellowship director, and program consultant. For nearly 40 years, she has exhibited, taught, and lectured widely, including faculty appointments at North Carolina State University and the Kansas City Art Institute, along with visiting artist roles at more than 30 institutions nationwide. Her honors include a McKnight Visual Artist Fellowship and multiple national and international grants, and she is a 2026–2027 Fulbright-Nehru Senior Fellow conducting practice-based research in India.

Artist, Founder and Owner of IamAnishinaabe and Native Nations Fashion Night

Delina White is an enrolled Minnesota Chippewa Tribe member from the Leech Lake Anishinaabe Reservation in northern Minnesota and a Native apparel designer, beadwork artist, Indigenous materials jewelry maker, and Old Style Jingle Dress dancer. She is the founder and owner of IamAnishinaabe, a design studio grounded in Anishinaabe values and aesthetics. Her work creates bold contemporary fashion inspired by Woodland floral design and visual storytelling traditions of the Great Lakes.

Surface Design Association Board Co-Chair

Astrid Hilger Bennett is a printmaker whose decades-long practice spans painted and printed textiles exhibited and taught nationally and internationally. Her work increasingly emphasizes functionality, with larger pieces designed for use, reuse, or potential shelter in future contexts, alongside a sustained interest in sustainability and material practice. She is also a cultural and small business advocate who previously co-owned Iowa Artisans Gallery, established a community indigo vat during the pandemic, and leads a sewing group at Open Heartland supporting immigrant communities.

United States Artists, Program Director, Initiatives

Tess Haratonik is an arts administrator and organizer dedicated to supporting and advocating for artists and creatives. She collaborates with numerous foundations and organizations to develop, strategize, and implement programs for creative workers across the country. She serves as a Program Director at United States Artists.

Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation, Program Officer

Rebekah Frank is a studio artist, independent writer, and arts administrator. Her creative practice focuses on steel, working as a blacksmith, a welder, a machinist, and, currently, an art jeweler from her studio in San Francisco. She is also the Art and Craft Program officer at the Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation.

2024 Maxwell/Hanrahan Award in Craft, wood sculptor

Raul De Lara is a sculptor who practices storytelling through woodworking, exploring Mexican/American iconography, queer identity, and the immigrant experience. De Lara’s research preserves, honors, and propels forward traditional uses of wood while combining them with new developments in the global industry of woodworking.

2023 Maxwell/Hanrahan Award in Craft, glass blower

Leo Tecosky is a glassblower cross pollinating techniques and reorganizing traditions using principles of the hip hop canon. The movement’s four elements–DJing, MCing, breakdancing and graffiti writing – are the foundation of the culture, and using glass Tecosky has become a purveyor of the craft.

2022 Maxwell/Hanrahan Award in Craft, multi-disciplinary

Christine Lee has an interdisciplinary practice encompassing art, design, and sustainability. Lee draws from a variety of investigation methods where intuitive direct-hand manipulation, traditional craft processes, and computer-aided technology are the central part of her research tools.

Fleur and Charles Bresler Curator-in-Charge, Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Mary Savig is the Fleur and Charles Bresler Curator-in-Charge for the Renwick Gallery, home to the museum’s craft and decorative art program since 1972. Savig joined the museum staff in 2020 as the Lloyd Herman Curator of Craft. During her tenure, Savig has continued to guide the direction of the Renwick Gallery’s curatorial program with a roster of acclaimed exhibitions and acquisitions.

Editor-in-chief of Metalsmith magazine

Adriane is a past contributor to Art Jewelry Forum, and a current board member of the Philadelphia-based organization CraftNOW. She holds an MA in History of Decorative Arts and Design from the Cooper Hewitt / Parsons School of Design.

Educator, writer, curator, and artist

Based in Portland, Oregon, founder, director, and teacher in the MA in Critical Craft Studies, Warren Wilson College, Wiggers created the first and only low residency program focused on craft histories and theory. She received a Paul J. Smith Fields of the Future Fellowship, Bard Graduate Center, NYC, and a Senior Fellowship, Smithsonian Institution in support of her current project on exhibition-making in US craft museums in the 21st Century.

Design journalist and independent scholar

Sarah Archer is one of America’s leading experts on design and material culture. She also consults with companies and museums, helping to develop deeply researched public-facing content. Previously, she was senior curator at the Philadelphia Art Alliance and the Director of Greenwich House Pottery; more recently, she has appeared as a regular guest on the podcast You’re Wrong About and in the CNN documentary The Many Lives of Martha Stewart. She is represented by Stoker Literary.

Carla recently served the Biden Administration in a newly created role as Senior Advisor and Envoy for Cultural Exchange at the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. Carla has been a Fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government since 2022, where has led a co-curricular course for the Center for Public Leadership. She is also a Visiting Professor at the Korbel School of International Studies. Carla has served as a U.S. State Department Arts Envoy since 2005. She is currently a fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.