New craft books featured in the Fall 2025 issue of American Craft.
By Jon Spayde
August 6, 2025
Detail from the inside of Haas Brothers: Uncanny Valley, a monograph on twins Niki and Simon Haas.
By Laura J. Mott
Monacelli, 2025
$79.95
Twins Niki and Simon Haas are exquisite cartoonists in three dimensions. Their cheeky furniture and loopy sculptures reveal a sensibility that fuses a sense of the absurd with a winning charm. This volume, sporting a hot pink padded cover, is the first full-length monograph on the pair, displaying over 100 works in the full spectrum of craft materials, along with essays and the brothers’ personal stories.
Edited by Torren L. Gatson, Tiffany N. Momon, and William A. Strollo
University of North Carolina Press, 2025
$35
This companion to an exhibition of the same name at Daughters of the American Revolution in Washington, DC, contains works such as mahogany tables, stoneware jugs, and silver tableware. All tell the story of early Black craft and the fight for freedom and recognition by the likes of Dave the Potter, free craftspeople of color in Canada, enslaved quilters, and many more, who are finally receiving the attention they deserve.
By Melanie Grant
Phaidon, 2025
$79.95
This sumptuous, image-rich volume covers 300 of the greatest names in jewelry over the past 200 years, exploring the profound connection between jewelry and style, art, and culture. An alphabetical presentation of designers, artists, houses, collectors, and style icons includes legendary names like Boucheron, Cartier, Lalique, Tiffany, and Van Cleef & Arpels, along with innovative contemporary designers and makers.
Edited by Janet Bishop and Cara Manes
Yale University Press, 2025
$65
Central to this catalog of an exhibition organized by MoMA and SFMOMA surveying Asawa’s career are beautiful full-page images of her works, including intricate wire sculptures, bronze casts, paperfolds, drawings, and prints. Essays explore her love of the natural world and describe the avant-garde sensibility that the Black Mountain College–trained artist shared with the likes of mail art pioneer Ray Johnson and photographer Imogen Cunningham.
By Nicole Nehrig
W. W. Norton, 2025
$32.99
Nehrig, a psychologist and avid knitter, fills this book with stories of women’s liberation and empowerment rooted in textile work. The works and stories range from 18th-century Quaker embroidered samplers that taught girls school subjects to the history-rich “story cloths” of the Miao women of southern China and the famed quilts and quilters of Gee’s Bend.
By Kevin Millward
Bloomsbury, 2025
$35
As more and more craft artists pay attention to the environmental effects of their work, Millward offers this timely and comprehensive guide to greening the ceramic process. Chapters consider the responsible choice of kiln fuels, best practices for clay extraction, the toxicity of oxides and colors, responsible disposal of materials, and even the ethics of shipping pieces in bubble wrap.
By Miriam Ellner
Pointed Leaf Press, 2025
$120
Gilding the reverse side of glass with precious metals, then etching and coloring it—verre églomisé—is an ancient technique that author/artist Ellner has mastered. Here she displays a generous selection of her works, including luminous “glass paintings” and sculptures, plus design elements she created in some of her many collaborations with major architects and interior designers.
We believe that making creates a meaningful world, and we hope you do, too. Deeply researched and impactful journalism on the craft community is in short supply. At the same time, being featured in a national publication can have a major effect on a maker’s or artist’s livelihood, particularly those who are just starting in their career. You can help support our mission and the work of makers around the country by becoming a member or by making a gift today.
Thank you!
American Craft Editors
