AZ / Phoenix
Heard Museum
"Dear Listener: Works by Nicholas Galanin"
to September 3
Indigenous culture, colonial power, and what happens when they cross paths are the themes of this show by Tlingit/Unangax artist Nicholas Galanin, with about 50 diverse pieces – sculpture, performance art, works on paper, installation, and fashion – that fill three galleries.

CA / Los Angeles
Craft in America Center
"Kiff Slemmons: Collective Presence"
August 11 – October 6 
For two decades, jewelry artist Kiff Slemmons has worked with Taller Arte Papel, a papermaking cooperative in Oaxaca, Mexico. Fruits of the partnership are on view here: Slemmons’ sketches, handmade paper models, and about three dozen pieces of her ingenious paper jewelry.

CA/ Sacramento
Crocker Art Museum
"The Elaine and Sidney Cohen Collection of Contemporary Ceramics"
August 5 – November 18 
Elaine and Sidney Cohen gathered what they loved, resulting in a stunning collection of functional and sculptural American pottery by the likes of Jun Kaneko, Tom Rippon, and Edwin and Mary Scheier. The Cohens, of Phoenix, donated most of their collection to the Crocker in 2016; about 60 pieces form this show.

FL / Boca Raton
Boca Raton Museum of Art
"Nomadic Murals: Contemporary Tapestries and Carpets"
to October 21
Tapestries were once the sound-muffling, heat-retaining wall coverings of pharaohs and kings. They may have lost their primary function over the centuries, but never their appeal; the medium has attracted artists such as Raphael, Picasso, and Miró. Here, contemporary artists including Kiki Smith, Kara Walker, and Kehinde Wiley carry on the tradition, expressing new ideas through this ancient form.

MD / Baltimore
Baltimore Museum of Art
"Stephen Towns: Rumination and a Reckoning"
to September 2 
Beloved Baltimore artist Stephen Towns’ quilts illuminate themes in African American history and honor the women who brought him up. The artist, trained as a painter, taught himself to quilt, then used fabric scraps from his mother’s and sisters’ personal sewing projects to create these eloquent images.
 

Image Gallery

MN / Minneapolis Minnesota
Center for Book Arts
"Formation: A Juried Exhibition of the Guild of Book Workers"
to October 21 
The last word in all things book, this juried triennial show opens at MCBA’s Main Gallery before heading out on a national tour. In 51 best-of-the-best works of bookbinding, artist and sculptural books, calligraphy, typography, and printing, 46 artists consider how the act of making affects what they create.

MO / St. Louis
Craft Alliance Center of Art + Design
"Artists-in-Residence 10-Year Anniversary Exhibition"
August 24 – October 21
All of the dozens of emerging and mid-career artists who have been part of the Craft Alliance’s Artist-in-Residence program since its inception in 2008 have work on view here. The program is open to artists in all craft mediums from across the country.

OK / Tulsa
108 Contemporary
"Amanda McCavour: Diaphanous Embroidery"
to September 23 
Amanda McCavour creates strength from fragility in her embroidered installations, where stitch builds on stitch to form complex sculptural structures far sturdier than their components.

SC / Charleston
City Gallery
"Interwoven: The Art of Indigo and Silver"
August 25 – October 7
Indigo and silver are deeply ingrained in the history of South Carolina. Textile artist Leigh Magar, silversmith Kaminer Haislip, and photographer Jack Alterman show 60 works that are rooted in Low Country heritage but are decidedly of their own time.

UT / Logan
Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art
"Collecting on the Edge"
September 15 – May 4
After more than a year of renovation and expansion, the museum at Utah State University reopens with a show from its collection of work created in the American West by 172 modern and contemporary artists, including Ruth Asawa and Jim Melchert.

WI / Racine
Racine Art Museum
"From Private Collection to Public Treasure: Honoring Karen Johnson Boyd at RAM"
Closing dates vary
Without collector and gallerist Karen Johnson Boyd, the Racine Art Museum wouldn’t be the same today. The many hundreds of works in all mediums that she donated over four decades form the heart of RAM’s panoramic collection of contemporary craft. The entire museum pays tribute, with each gallery devoted to a show celebrating an aspect of Boyd’s vision and generosity: “Collecting In-Depth at Home and at RAM” (to December 30), “Contemporary Clay” (to January 20), and “Art Jewelry/Sculpture to Wear” and “A Multi-Dimensional Approach” (both to February 3).