Craft Artists in a New Penland Exhibition Strive for a More Equitable Future

Other works in the show examine how grief can profoundly inspire reflection and transformation. Piper Shepard’s 2017 muslin wall hanging Silhouettes Twining appears as a 96-inch-wide veil, featuring a lacelike pattern of mourning flowers hand-cut by the artist. The work’s delicate appearance symbolically highlights how a material and feeling can be, as Shepard explains, “both fragile and enduring.”

In his 2024 series In the Service of Living: Black Hearts Medals, metalsmith and multidisciplinary artist David Harper Clemons honors Black lives lost in everyday moments that quickly turn tragic. Large heart-shaped medallions, made from copper, bronze, and red brass, feature black-and-white illustrations of moments that shouldn’t have prompted racially motivated, often fatal attacks—ranging from scenes of Emmett Till whistling and Eugene Williams swimming to depictions of Breonna Taylor’s bed and Ahmaud Arbery’s running shoes. The back of each medal is inscribed with the phrase “For Merit in the Battle of Existing,” highlighting how simply living in America can “as a Black person becomes, at times, a fight for survival,” the artist says.

Together, writes Gremley, these works provide viewers “with the vehicle to engage with concepts often outside our own understanding or comfort,” showing how art and craft practices rooted in empathy and understanding can be a powerful way to demystify the unknown, reveal commonalities, and, in turn, help eradicate prejudice and fear.