AL / Montgomery
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts
"About Face: Contemporary Ceramic Sculpture"
February 2 – May 12 
American figurative ceramics have come a long way from decorative porcelain figurines that curtsy on antiquarians’ shelves. In work by more than 40 artists, such as Russell Biles’ crouching football players and Cynthia Consentino’s person-bird hybrids, the human body is both subject matter and a catalyst for considering the cultural issues and ideas that surround it.

AZ / Phoenix
Heard Museum
"Sonwai: The Jewelry of Verma Nequatewa"
to March 10
Verma Nequatewa signs her jewelry Sonwai, a Hopi word for beauty. Her uncle Charles Loloma (who signed with another form of the word) taught Nequatewa the jewelry-making techniques and expertise that have placed her at the forefront of lapidary artists. This is the first museum retrospective of her half-century career, with 150 pieces on view, including four collaborative works with other artists.

CA / Palm Springs
Palm Springs Art Museum
"Favorite Things: Glass from the Collection of Arlene and Harold Schnitzer"
to March 31 
The Schnitzers already were stalwarts of the Pacific Northwest art world when they began investing in glass work in earnest in the mid-1980s, adding it to their collections of silver, paintings, sculpture, and other art. On view here are 25 of Arlene Schnitzer’s personal favorites.
 

Image Gallery

CA / San Francisco
Museum of Craft and Design
"Tex Gieling: Sixty Years" 
to February 24 
Jewelry artist Tex Gieling can be described as a prolific, versatile, and devoted maker, as well as a dedicated teacher. As for her work, “stunning” will do. This retrospective shows her decade-by-decade technical and artistic evolution in 23 pieces of jewelry, alongside several of her metal and enamel wall hangings.

DC / Washington
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Renwick Gallery
"Disrupting Craft: Renwick Invitational 2018"
to May 5 
The thread that unites artists Tanya Aguiñiga, Sharif Bey, Dustin Farnsworth, and Stephanie Syjuco is their commitment to social justice. Each asks challenging questions about topics such as cultural identity, poverty, and immigration; by incorporating performance, installation, and community artmaking into their work, they loop viewers into the search for answers. More than 50 pieces showcase a range of work by each artist.

FL / Miami Beach
The Bass Museum of Art
"The Haas Brothers: Ferngully"
to April 21 
In their first solo museum show, designers Nikolai and Simon Haas go back to a nature of their own conception inspired by the 1992 movie of the same name: magical, immersive habitat for colorful and improbable critters made of metal, clay, glass, velveteen, beadwork – whatever catches their fancy.

GA / Atlanta
High Museum of Art
"Way Out There: The Art of Southern Backroads"
March 2 – May 19 
To research a guidebook about self-taught Southern artists, writer Jonathan Williams hit the road in the 1980s and ’90s, accompanied by photographers Guy Mendes and Roger Manley. About 200 sculptures, paintings, and drawings by about 30 of the 100 artists they visited are on view here, along with photographs of the homes and yards where they worked.

ID / Boise
Boise Art Museum
"Jae Yong Kim: Donut Ever Forget Me"
to July 7
Whet your aesthetic appetite for intricately painted surfaces, imagery that nods to pop art and abstract expressionism, and the fine line between whimsy and art with this display of yummy-looking, hand-sculpted ceramic breakfast treats.

MA / Brockton
Fuller Craft Museum
"Felt: Fiber Transformed"
to May 12
Eva Camacho-Sánchez, Lisa Hinrichs, Lee Johnson, Shelley Jones, Teasy Shiruo Sun, and Kiyoshi Mino show jewelry, sculpture, and other work from the fuzzy forefront of contemporary felt art. Alongside until May 19 is Donna Dodson’s charming exhibition “Zodiac,” 24 wood sculptures representing Chinese and Western astrological symbols.

MN / St. Paul
Goldstein Museum of Design
"Ruth Crane: A Ceramic Collector’s Journey"
to May 19
Ruth Crane began collecting ceramics in the 1960s. Over the years, her interests evolved from an early focus on Arts and Crafts production pottery to new work by contemporary artists. These 60 diverse, dramatic pieces stand as landmarks along her path.

NY / Alfred
Alfred Ceramic Art Museum
"Kilns of Alfred: Transactions with Fire"
February 7 – July 28
Ceramists’ personal kilns are the inanimate partners that help turn artistic vision into reality through heat, chemistry, and (sometimes, apparently) magic. Photographer Brian Oglesbee honors these partnerships in large-scale portraits of the kilns of Alfred University ceramics stars, along with selections of the artists’ work and objects from the museum’s MFA collection.

TN / Memphis
Metal Museum
"Crafting a Legacy: 40 Years of Collections & Exhibitions" 
February 3 – May 12
The museum’s Master Metalsmith exhibition series has honored the crème de la metallic crème with solo shows since 1983. Its younger cousin, the Tributaries series, has been shining light on emerging and mid-career metal artists since 2007. The museum celebrates its 40th anniversary with jewelry, furniture, sculpture, hollowware, hardware, tools, and architectural ironwork by 36 Masters and 30 Tributaries from its permanent collection, along with loans from other artists.

TN / Smithville
Appalachian Center for Craft
"Meta-Formation: Experiments and Rituals" 
March 14 – July 19 
For thousands of years, forging – shaping metal by striking it with a hammer or other implements – has been used to make tools, weaponry, and other functional items. Here, forging reveals its lesserknown possibilities as an artistic practice, in more than 40 works by 32 artists, chosen by jurors Andy Cooperman, Sarah Darro, and Hoss Haley.

WA / Bellevue
Bellevue Arts Museum
"Biennial 2018: BAM! Glasstastic" 
to April 14 
Each BAM Biennial zeroes in on one artistic medium. In this fifth round, it’s glass’ turn to shine, with juried work by almost 50 Northwest artists.