AL / Montgomery
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts
Material Transformations
to Jan. 5
Gym shoes, masking tape, cans, and other clutter from the closet, office, and kitchen junk drawer get second careers as materials for artists, including Angela Ellsworth, Alison Foshee, Johnston Foster, Kirsten Hassenfeld, Rune Olsen, Lucrecia Troncoso, and Paul Villinski. In their new incarnations, these humble objects have their say about social issues, culture, and the power of perception.

AR / Little Rock
Arkansas Arts Center
Interwoven: Craft
to Nov. 17
As both technique and metaphor, weaving – of baskets, metal, glass, fiber, even filmstrips – allows the artists in this exhibition to go in and out, over and under, in their explorations of how we humans are bound to each other and to our world. “Interwoven: Paper” is a companion 2D exhibition.

CA / Los Angeles
Craft and Folk Art Museum
Nathalie Miebach: Changing Waters
to Jan. 5
Nathalie Miebach, a TED­Global Fellow, makes numbers leap off their usual perches on grids, graphs, and charts. For this exhibition, she mines meteorological data for the numerical patterns she uses to plot woven sculptures and musical scores that burst with color and energy.

DC / Washington
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Renwick Gallery
A Measure of the Earth: The Cole-Ware Collection of American Baskets
Oct. 4 – Dec. 8
Over decades, Steven Cole and Martha Ware purchased works from 60 masters of traditional European, African, and American basketry skills. The 79 baskets from their collection in this show, formed for everyday tasks such as carrying eggs, stashing sewing gear, and stacking laundry, are elegant reminders of the quiet importance of this craft. Also on view through Dec. 8: “Infinite Place: The Ceramic Art of Wayne Higby,” an in-depth retrospective organized by the Arizona State University Art Museum of the ACC Fellow’s influential 40-year career.

IN / Bloomington
Grunwald Gallery of Art
Shift: Contemporary Makers That Define, Expand, and Contradict the Field of Art Jewelry
Oct. 18 – Nov. 21
Changes in techniques, materials, context, and themes are swift and constant in the art jewelry field; artists who embrace them are the focus at this gallery on the Indiana University campus. Art Jewelry Forum gave its 2012 exhibition project award to Indiana faculty members Randy J. Long and Nicole Jacquard (who is profiled in this issue's Brilliance feature) to curate this show.

IL / Chicago
Navy Pier
SOFA 20
Oct. 31 ­– Nov. 3
The Sculpture Objects Functional Art + Design Fair celebrates two decades of bringing glass, ceramics, textiles, wood, and metalwork to the marketplace.

NE / Lincoln
LUX Center for the Arts
Susan McGilvrey: A Retrospective; Art & Dishes: Novelties & Greatest Hits by Susan McGilvrey
to Oct. 26
Susan McGilvrey, a mainstay of Nebraska ceramics known for her expressive surfaces and painterly use of color (she doubles as a printmaker and watercolorist), is the subject of twin exhibitions: a backward look at her work in amphorae, tall forms, and platters, and a show of new, whimsical earthenware objects.

NY / New York City
Museum of Arts and Design
LOOT: MAD About Jewelry 2013
Oct. 1 – 5
Now in its 13th year, LOOT is the setting for an exhibition, pop-up shop of contemporary art jewelry (50 artists, 20 countries), and a slate of educational programs. Plus, two fashion icons – Iris Apfel and  Barbara Berger – will receive 2013 LOOT awards for contemporary art jewelry.

NC / Spruce Pine
Spruce Pine Potters Market Invitational
Oct. 12 – 13
A small mining town in the Blue Ridge Mountains welcomes thousands of visitors each year to admire and buy functional pottery, figurative sculpture, and tiles by 30 artists from North Carolina’s renowned ceramics community.

OR / Portland
Museum of Contemporary Craft
Quality Is Contagious: John Economaki and Bridge City Tool Works
to Feb. 8
Economaki was a furniture designer until he developed a serious allergy to rosewood dust. The company he then founded has made exquisite hand tools for woodworkers for the past 30 years; these are as heirloom-worthy as the treasures they help create. This show is a companion to the MoCC run of “The Tool at Hand” (which ends January 11) organized by Milwaukee Art Museum and the Chipstone Foundation, for which artists created works using only one tool.

PA / Philadelphia
Philadelphia Art Alliance
The Way of Chopsticks
to Dec. 29
Song Dong and Yin Xiuzhen of Beijing are known for their sculptures made of chopsticks, objects that work best in a pair – as do the artists, who are married. After agreeing on general criteria, each creates half of a sculpture without knowing what the other half will look like until both pieces are completed and joined. For this project, the couple installs six new pairs of works on themes of family, home, and cultural change.

TN / Gatlinburg
Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts
All Things Considered VII
to Oct. 19
The National Basketry Organization, whose biennial conference takes place October 8 – 13 at Arrowmont, presents this juried and invitational exhibition of 44 traditional and sculptural baskets that bend the boundaries of the medium.

TX / Dallas
Dallas Museum of Art
Jim Hodges: Give More Than You Take
Oct. 6 – Jan. 12
Jim Hodges’ disparate works are united by his gift for provoking thought and emotion in a category-busting range of mediums: mosaics, room-size installations, photography, drawings, and objects made of mirrors, paper, glass, and light bulbs. After its Dallas debut, this survey of Hodges’ 25-year career will travel across the United States throughout 2014, landing next at co-organizer Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.