The Queue

Next In The Queue Q and A with the craft community

Meet craft's movers and shakers and stay up on trends

A biweekly roundup for and by the craft community, The Queue introduces you to the artists, curators, organizers, and more featured in the current issue of American Craft. We invite these inspiring individuals to share personally about their lives and work as well as what's inspiring them right now.

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Hyunsoo Alice Kim with 2 pieces of their artwork.

The Queue: Hyunsoo Alice Kim

Hyunsoo Alice Kim weaves innovative materials—many of her own design—into traditional Korean forms. In The Queue, the Seoul- and New York–based artist, researcher, educator, and designer talks about a historic Korean hat, how technological tools enable her practice, and her work with digital fabrication.

Juan Barroso

The Queue: Juan Barroso

Juan Barroso’s vessels carry stories of immigrant labor, both within their forms and painted on their surfaces. In The Queue, the Tennessee-based artist shares why he makes functional vessels, the delayed gratification of pottery, and his favorite artists working in clay.

Margaret Cross

The Queue: Margaret Cross

Margaret Cross’s jewelry holds memories and remains, connecting the living and the dead. In The Queue, the Brooklyn-based artist shares her emotional experiences creating mourning jewelry, the tool that has become an extension of her arm, and the death-related art projects that bring her closer to her loved ones.

A ceramic artist in a seated pose beside a sculpture on a pedestal

The Queue: Virgil Ortiz

Virgil Ortiz crafts a futuristic vision of the past with traditional Cochiti pottery. In The Queue, the Cochiti Pueblo, New Mexico–based ceramist and fashion designer shares his favorite ceramists who work on a grand scale, the science fiction series that inspires his work, and how Cochiti pottery carries tradition and history.

Douglas Molinas Lawrence

The Queue: Douglas Molinas Lawrence

Douglas Molinas Lawrence carves, chips, grinds, and scorches blocks of wood into masterful vessels. In The Queue, the Knoxville, Tennessee–based woodworker tells us about his favorite woodworking tools, a Japanese tsubo vessel artist, and an inspiring craft institution close to his home.
Suzye Ogawa

The Queue: Suzye Ogawa

Suzye Ogawa’s small bronze baskets hold big stories—of Japanese American culture, basketry traditions around the world, and the abundance of fibers in nature. In The Queue, the Fort Bragg, California–based metal artist shares her favorite jewelers, the special tools that make her work possible, and the appeal of unknown craft artists.
Portrait of ceramicist Alana Cuellar in studio

The Queue: Alana Cuellar

Alana Cuellar has lived her entire life immersed in craft. In The Queue, the St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin–based ceramist shares the relationship between pottery and cooking in her life, where she gets ideas for her work, and the craft projects she’s excited to see come to fruition.
Portrait of Margo Roberts

The Queue: Margo Roberts

For Margo Roberts, craft is at the heart of her work as the co-owner of Hotel Alma and creative director of Alma Apothecary. In The Queue, she shares her favorite scent for winter, why she has brought so many craftspeople into the hotel, and whom she would trust to decorate her home.
Portrait of Kyungmin Park

The Queue: Kyungmin Park

Kyungmin Park connects us to childlike wonder in her powerful porcelain sculptures. In The Queue, the Massachusetts-based ceramist shares how travel informs her work, the importance of storytelling in her practice, and the organizations that sustain craft.
Daniel Michalik

The Queue: Daniel Michalik

Daniel Michalik has cork on the brain. In The Queue, the Brooklyn-based furniture designer and professor shares his vision for a cork home, his studies of cork forests in Portugal, and his favorite artists who have incorporated cork into their practices.
Portrait of Jonathan Christensen Caballero

The Queue: Jonathan Christensen Caballero

Jonathan Christensen Caballero’s figurative sculptures stand as tall as living people and bring Latin American workers into view. In The Queue, the Lawrence, Kansas–based artist shares some of the artists featured in his new curatorial project and why and how he works big.
Portrait of L Autumn Gnadinger

The Queue: L Autumn Gnadinger

L Autumn Gnadinger takes a critical eye toward craft, the art world, and the sticky spots where the two meet. In The Queue, the Philadelphia-based artist, writer, and teacher muses on technology, craft’s generative properties, and artists they admire.
Portrait of Mattie Hinkley in their studio

The Queue: Mattie Hinkley

Mattie Hinkley’s fantastical, blobby, sexy domestic objects bring the joy home. In The Queue, the Chico, California–based artist shares how they combine Shaker and comic book aesthetics, the many uses of blue tape, and the artists they would choose to furnish their dream room.
Einar and Jamex de la Torre

The Queue: Einar and Jamex de la Torre

The de la Torre Brothers, Einar and Jamex, are renowned for their large-scale, vivid mixed media sculptures incorporating religious and cultural iconography from their Chicano background. Based in San Diego and in Baja California, they work primarily in glass and lenticular printing. In The Queue, they share how they got into glass, the surreal aspects of making art across the US–Mexico border, and some of their favorite contemporary glass artists and exhibitions.
portrait of ceramic artist cynthia morelli

The Queue: Cynthia Morelli

Cynthia Morelli is a ceramist in Homer, Alaska, where she operates a wood-fire kiln. In The Queue, she shares about her current clay project, how to build a community in the face of COVID and geographical isolation, and her favorite contemporary artists.
portrait of jeannine marchand with camera beside creek

The Queue: Jeannine Marchand

Jeannine Marchand is a Puerto Rican ceramist who lives and works in North Carolina. In The Queue, she shares her sources of inspiration in the natural world, her favorite TV craftspeople, and a sculpture she returns to over and over again.
portrait of metal artist janne peltokangas in shop holding hammer

The Queue: Janne Peltokangas

Janne Peltokangas is a Sámi artist based in Finnish Lapland. In The Queue, he shares about his homeland and its culture, some of his favorite artists, and how memory and intuition guide his work.
portrait of ceramist conrad calimpong crouched inside a kiln with unfired ceramics

The Queue: Conrad Calimpong

Based in rural coastal Northern California, Conrad Calimpong is a veteran ceramist whose kilns bring artists of all ages together to wood-fire their work. In The Queue, he reflects on his place in the lineage of ceramics, shares two underappreciated artists, and muses on the homemade tool that shapes his work.
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