Samuel Aguirre

Samuel Aguirre is an artist, designer, researcher and collaborator. He takes an experimental approach to the objects he makes and intentionally works with commercially available, natural materials. Samuel's work leverages a circular mindset, his process involves deep material research into origin, composition, production, life cycle and end-of-life analysis.

http://samindaman.com/
https://www.instagram.com/sam_indaman

Sasha Baskin

Sasha Baskin combines traditional weaving and lacemaking with pop culture source imagery to consider how shows like “The Bachelor” function to create modern mythological systems. She holds a BFA in Drawing from the Maryland Institute College of Art and an MFA in Craft/Material Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University.  She currently teaches at Johns Hopkins University.

http://sashabaskin.com
https://www.instagram.com/sashbask

Ka Oskar Ly

Ka Oskar Ly (they/she/nws/nwg) is an interdisciplinary artist and cultural producer. Their work combines fiber arts, soft sculpture, installations, and community engagement to explore the power and tensions of identity, culture, and place. Striving to create liberatory practices, they craft evidence that navigates nuances without words like 'art' or 'queer' in the HMong language. Ka's work seeks to challenge expectations of familiar materials and re/consider the relationships and alternatives for labor and supplies by creating objects, conversations, and spaces as language.

http://kaonwards.com/
https://www.instagram.com/kaonwards

Yael Braha

Yael is an Italian-born ceramic artist of North African descent. Her work is exhibited in Galleries and Museums across the United States and Japan. In 2021 she received the Multicultural Fellowship Award from NCECA, and her work has been juried into the 13th International Ceramic Triennial Competition – Ceramics Design Category – in Mino, Japan.

https://www.ceramics.yaelbraha.com/
https://www.instagram.com/yaelbraha.ceramics

LB Buchan

LB Buchan (they/them) is a trans non-binary wood sculptor working in the Pacific Northwest. Their work examines our society’s stigmatization of grief and how we physically and psychologically respond to difficult subject matter. Their pieces tend to be amalgams, inspired by various sources of anatomy in the natural world.

https://www.instagram.com/lbuchansculpture

Jill Melyssa

Jill’s artistic journey began in Spain during college. After earning an MBA, she apprenticed at a metal studio in Brooklyn, NY, where she worked with copper, brass, and sterling. Once her children left for college, she fully immersed herself in metalsmithing, creating unique, luxurious jewelry that reflects individuality and confidence.

http://www.jillmelyssa.com
https://www.instagram.com/JillMelyssa

Amy Erikson

Growing up on her family’s ranch Amy developed a love of horses,and the western world, which led to her pursuit of western style engraving/silversmithing and bit and spur making. Amy lives in southwestern Wyoming where she creates traditional western style, jewelry, belt buckles, saddle/tack silver, bits and spurs.

https://ericksonbitandspur.com/

Angela Gladue

Angela Miracle Gladue is a nehiyaw (Plains Cree)/Greek Interdisciplinary artist from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and is a proud member of Frog Lake First Nation. She established her own fashion label, "Miss Chief Rocka" in 2011, and has since created countless statement pieces for collectors and beadwork enthusiasts internationally.

http://www.misschiefrocka.com
https://www.instagram.com/misschiefrocka

Krystle Lemonias

Krystle Lemonias is a Jamaican born interdisciplinary visual artist, labor activist, and art educator. Her art practice researches social class privilege, citizenship, labor rights, and how economic inequality affects Black communities. Using found materials, clothes, and iconography, she encourages education of Black immigrant cultural identities and their connection to the broader diaspora.

https://www.krystlelemonias.com/
https://www.instagram.com/empress1989kl

Hai-Wen Lin

Hai-Wen Lin is a Taiwanese-American artist who creates sculptural works that simultaneously move through languages of garment construction and kitemaking. They earned a MDes in Fashion, Body and Garment from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. You can often find their work by looking up at the sky.

https://www.haiwenlin.com/
https://www.instagram.com/hai_wen_lin

Davana Robedee

Davana Rodedee is an artist, curator, and educator. She creates large scale indigo drawings and installations. Her experience with phenomena such as visual aura, lucid dreams, and hallucinations is the driving force behind her creative practice. She lives in Syracuse, NY with her rescue pets and indigo dye garden.

http://www.davanarobedee.com
https://www.instagram.com/davana.robedee

Sharif Bey

Sharif Bey is a Syracuse-based artist and educator. Shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, Bey studied sculpture at The Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, Slovakia. Later, he earned his BFA from Slippery Rock University, his MFA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and PhD (in art education) from Penn State University. Inspired by modernism, functional pottery, Oceanic Art and Art of the African diaspora, Bey’s works investigate the cultural and political significance of adornment and the symbolic and formal properties of archetypal motifs, while questioning how the meaning of icons and function transform across cultures and time.

His awards include: The United States Artist Fellowship, The Pollock-Krasner Fellowship, The New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, and The J. William Fulbright Scholarship. Beys works are featured in numerous public collections including: The Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, The Carnegie Museum of Art, The Columbus Museum, The Dallas Museum of Art, The Mint Museum, The Nelson Atkins Museum and The Crocker Museum.

Vivian Chiu

Vivian Chiu (b. 1989)  was born in Los Angeles and emigrated to Hong Kong at the age of three. Her interests in creating objects and the visual arts led her to attend the Rhode Island School of Design (BFA '11 Furniture Design) and Columbia University (MFA '19 Sculpture). Vivian primarily uses wood to create optical sculptures through repetitive labor intensive processes.

Vivian has attended residencies at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Penland School of Crafts, Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Sculpture Space, Haystack Mountain School, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Center for Furniture Craftsmanship, and the Museum for Art in Wood. She was awarded a 2020 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Craft/Sculpture and the 2023-24 VMFA Fellowship. She is part of the 2022 American Craft Council Emerging Artists Cohort. Vivian currently lives and works in Richmond, VA.

Michael Janis

Michael Janis, Co-Director of the Washington Glass School & Studio, merges two decades of architectural expertise with a disciplined approach to glass art. Since 2005, he oversees the studio’s site-specific and public art commissions.

His narrative artwork draws inspiration from his multicultural background as the child of a Chinese/Filipino immigrants.

A Fulbright Scholar at the UK’s University of Sunderland, his solo exhibition at the Fuller Craft Museum in 2011 became part of their permanent collection. His works are in museum collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago, Tacoma Museum of Glass, the Imagine Museum, and the Fort Wayne Museum of Art. Honored with the 31st Annual DC Mayor’s Arts Award, Janis is the Lowe Art Museum's 2024 Distinguished Artist, where he will be giving talks and lead Master Class workshops at the University of Miami in Spring 2024. Engaged as a consultant to the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities for 2023/2024, Janis is working with Washington, DC’s underserved communities creating commemorative public art and memorials.

Mary Savig

Mary Savig is the Lloyd Herman Curator of Craft at the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Renwick Gallery. She curated the Renwick Gallery’s 50th anniversary exhibition, This Present Moment: Crafting a Better World (2022) as well as the forthcoming permanent collection exhibitions Subversive, Skilled, Sublime: Fiber Art by Women and Handwork: Celebrating American Craft. She holds a PhD in American Studies from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Lindsay Noble

Lindsay Noble is an accomplished arts administrator who previously supported ACC’s artists in a variety of roles, including directing the American Craft Made Emerging Artists program for 7 years. Additionally, Lindsay co-developed and co-facilitated the first year of the Emerging Artist Cohort program and is thrilled to join the program again in 2024. She currently lives in Phoenix, AZ, with her partner and small Pekingese pup Dolly, and works as an account executive for a small design and marketing agency.

Katie Johnson

Katie Johnson has a lifelong passion for art and a background as both a practicing artist and arts administrator. She received a BFA in Studio Art (Sculpture) and a BA in Art History from the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and a Masters in Arts Administration from the University of Kentucky.

While living in Asheville, NC, Katie launched a pottery business, Birds Eye Pottery, where she made and sold porcelain tableware. She later moved to Pittsburgh, PA, and became the curator of public art for Robert Morris University and later director of Braddock Tiles, a non-profit program that worked with local youth to teach the art of tile making and job-readiness skills. In 2018 she joined Bridgeway Capital’s Creative Business Accelerator, where she grew the program to include over 1,000 artists, designers, and craftspeople over a tri-state region.

She joined ACC in 2023 and serves as the Director of Programs and Marketplaces. She also serves as a board member for Touchstone Center for Arts and hopes to build a home ceramics studio in 2024. She lives in Pittsburgh, PA with her husband and two rescue dogs.