Feature

Nigerian artist Layo Bright’s Adebisi VII, 2020, kiln-formed glass, 11.5 x 11.5 x 3 in., appears alongside glass artworks from a global group of Black artists in A Two-Way Mirror: Double Consciousness in Contemporary Glass by Black Artists at the Museum of Glass. Photo courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago, Illinois.

Craft Happenings: Fall 2023

Step into fall with these 23 craft exhibitions and events around the country, organized by the month in which they start.
Marie Watt and Cannupa Hanska Luger invited members of the public to embroider bandanas for Each/Other, 2021, approx. 12 x 20 x 9 ft., part of Sharing the Same Breath at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center.

Craft Happenings: Summer 2023

Make craft part of your summer plans with these 25 events and exhibitions happening across the country, organized by the month in which they start.
Artist Virgil Ortiz with Recon Watchmen.

The Ceramist and the Superheroes

When dug out of the earth, the clay at Cochiti Pueblo, New Mexico, appears reddish brown, the chunks like dusted chocolate truffles. Virgil Ortiz, who was born and lives in this community of the Cochiti people, situated between the cities that Spanish colonizers named Albuquerque and Santa Fe, has been digging into this rich earth since his childhood.
Woman holding an urn silver necklace.

Remembering Well

When Minhi England’s husband, Jesse, was terminally ill with peripheral nerve sheath cancer, the couple was forced to have heartbreaking conversations about what Jesse wanted to have happen to his body after he died.
Two people centered amongst multiple dioramas.

Making History

The living room of craft artist and educator Karen Collins’s Compton, California, home is stacked with the dioramas she has constructed over the past 27 years.
corner sitting area underneath windows

Craft Stays

Whether you’re looking to take classes or inhabit a well-curated guest room, these hotels provide a tangible connection to craft and place.
group of four standing in front of kiln smiling

Kilns That Build Community

It takes a lot of work to fire up a kiln and keep it stoked. So artists often invite others to join in—helping both craft and community to flourish.
blacksmith working a bar of glowing metal in her studio

Forging New Paths

Rachel David, Elizabeth Brim, and Ellen Durkan take artistic blacksmithing into new territory.
shelf of various books with solidarity fist symbol carved into the ends of the pages

The Connector

Visionary artist Sonya Clark fashions artworks—cosmic, spiritual, and sociopolitical—with the help of many hands.
Various red yarns by natural dyer Juana Gutierrez Contreras

Color Vision

A conversation with Keith Recker on the virtue of natural dyes.
Hrag Vartanian Why Craft Matters Embroideries

Why Craft Matters

It holds the stories of humanity – and connects us to who we are, where we come from, and each other. Story by Hrag Vartanian.
Ibrahim Said working on panels for On the Bank of the Nile. Its geometric shapes, colored Nile green, reflect patterned light. Photos by Dhanraj Emanuel, courtesy of The Clay Studio.

Inside Out

In search of hidden beauty and universal meaning, ceramic artist Ibrahim Said shatters technical boundaries with ingenious takes on ancient forms.

Renowned organ builder Martin Pasi recently expanded the 1961 Hotkamp organ at St. John's Abbey to include 6,000 pipes. Photos by Caroline Yang.

A Higher Plane

The new 28,000-square-foot workshop at Saint John’s Abbey houses a 150-year-old woodworking program and one of the premier pipe organ builders in the country. Its mission is to teach the next generation.

Seth Rolland’s Salish Sea Bathtub, 2013, is made of sustainably harvested sapele mahogany, which is noted for its durability, 36 x 95 x 36 in.

Craft That Calms

The four craft artists we profile here make works that support more contemplative living, and all four understand the connections between that way of living and their own soulful, patient craft practice.

Roberto Benavidez in his studio surrounded by completed works, including Sugar Skull Piñata No.1, 2009, his very first piñata sculpture, which hangs just below the tail of one of his Bosch birds. Photo by James Bernal.

Raising the Piñata

LA-based sculptor Roberto Benavidez makes extravagant piñatas based on artistic masterpieces that you wouldn’t think of hitting with a stick.

LEFT: Photo by ShootmeJade. MIDDLE: Photo by Justin O’Brien, courtesy of the artist. RIGHT: Photo courtesy of Horacio Casillas.

Rituals of Making

Six local artists share the people and spaces that define this city, which is built on the handmade.