News

Spector Craft Prize Announces 2026 Winners

In its first year, the prize selected six winners and helped place a mid-career artist’s work in a major art museum.

By Jon Spayde
September 17, 2026

Digital Only

Ceramics

Fiber & Textiles

Furniture

Glass

Metal

Mixed Media

Wood

Free To Read

Photo by Christian Cargill

Merryn Omotayo Alaka, an interdisciplinary artist whose work incorporates fiber and metal, was selected as one of five winners of the Spector Craft Prize for Emerging Artists.

The jury is in for the newest major craft prize in America.

The New York–based Spector Family Foundation and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, have announced the six winners of the two-tier Spector Craft Prize: one major mid-career maker and five emerging artists.

Syracuse, New York–based artist Sharif Bey, whose work in ceramics, glass, and mixed media includes functional pieces and sculptures that explore African American history and African patterns of adornment, garnered the mid-career award.

The Spector Craft Prize for Emerging Artists was awarded to fiber artist, sculptor, and performance artist Merryn Omotayo Alaka; ceramist and educator Japheth Asiedu-Kwarteng; mixed-media artist and beadworker Demetri Broxton; woodworker and sculptor Vivian Chiu; and Luke-Thomas Tokimasa Henderson, who works with paper as part of a multidisciplinary practice. Each will receive a $10,000 award, along with mentorship and professional-development help.

As for Bey, the terms of his award reflect the distinctive goals of the Spector Prize.

To begin with, the foundation will fund the acquisition of his work Raptor Return for Crystal Bridges’ permanent collection. “We knew from the beginning that we wanted museums to be part of the prize,” says design-industry consultant and prize co-founder Abigail Klem Spector. She and her husband, private equity executive Warren Spector, intend the award as a step toward bringing craft further into the artistic mainstream.

Photo by Christian Cargill

Sharif Bey, the winner of the Spector Craft Prize mid-career award.

“If we’re trying to change the way people think about craft, it can’t only be about supporting individual artists,” Klem Spector says. “Museums play an enormous role in what gets seen, what gets valued and, ultimately, what becomes part of our cultural history. So each year we’ll partner with a different American museum, and a work by the prize recipient enters its permanent collection.”

Bey will also give the keynote at the first Spector Craft Summit, a gathering to be held November 10–12 at Crystal Bridges. The event will welcome the awardees—plus artists, curators, scholars, interior designers, and members of the public—to discuss the present and future of craft and craft-based art in America. It’s slated to be held annually at the prize’s partner museum.

The artists, selected by a jury of distinguished artists and craft leaders and chaired by curator and historian Glenn Adamson, represent a cross-section of disciplines, approaches, and cultural and ethnic backgrounds.

That’s by design, says Warren Spector.

“There isn’t one American craft tradition,” he says. “It’s always been shaped by people bringing different traditions and ways of making with them, and then adapting and transforming them here. I think you really see that in these six artists.”

Photo by Christian Cargill

Vivian Chiu, a woodworker, was one of five awardees of the Spector Craft Prize for Emerging Artists.

Jon Spayde is a writer and editor in Saint Paul, Minnesota. A former contributing editor to American Craft, he writes on art, psychology, education, and personal growth for a number of regional and national publications.

Learn more about the Spector Craft Prize online.

Website Instagram

Before you go!

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 craft-centered media and articles 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 Council

Join Donate