​James Renwick Alliance for craft
​Chrysalis Award for Emerging Artists

2023 FOCUS: Fiber​
The Chrysalis Award was created by the James Renwick Alliance for Craft to promote and inspire US-based emerging craft artists. "Emerging" is defined as someone early in their professional artistic career, with no regard to age, who has not had a solo museum exhibition or exclusive representation by a commercial gallery. The ideal candidate demonstrates excellence in their work and a commitment to developing in unique and dynamic ways.

Our 2023 award will focus on emerging artists working in FIBER. Different mediums will be represented each year.
​
The awardee will receive a $5,000 unrestricted award, a one-year membership to JRACraft, the opportunity to give a formal presentation about their work at a JRACraft event, and a trip to Washington, DC to meet with other artists, collectors, and JRA members. The 2023 Chrysalis Award is generously made possible by JRACraft member Chris Rifkin.
Picture
Mirror by 2022 JRACraft Chrysalis Awardee, Morgan Hill

​​MEET THE 2023 JRACRAFT CHRYSALIS AWARD JURORS


​Kelly Valletta is an artist, art educator, and the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Textile Arts Center, a NYC-based resource facility dedicated to raising awareness and understanding of textiles through creative educational programs. Since its founding, the Textile Arts Center has hosted over 15,000 adult students, introduced roughly 20,000 NYC youth to textiles, mentored over 200 interns, and graduated over 50 artists in residence. Valletta attended Pratt Institute where she received her Masters in Art Education. She believes that the arts can play a vital role in community engagement, and thoroughly enjoys sharing her broad knowledge of art with people of all ages.

​LaiSun Keane has been involved in the Boston art scene since 2015, at first volunteering and working from junior level for non-profits and art galleries. She then became a co-owner of a gallery for two years before starting her own in April 2020. Her eponymous gallery located in South End’s Sowa Art District focuses on showcasing non-mainstream voices and are thematic and narrative based. Besides in person and online exhibitions, her gallery has participated in Art Fairs in New York, Los Angeles and Miami. LaiSun received her Bachelor of Art Theory from University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia. 

​Laura L. Camerlengo is Curator in Charge of Costume and Textile Arts at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Camerlengo joined the Museums’ staff as Assistant Curator of Costume and Textile Arts in 2015, after tenures with the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, among other institutions. As a writer, she is the author of The Miser’s Purse (2013) and volume editor of Patrick Kelly: Runway of Love (2021). Camerlengo serves in several leadership roles for the Costume Society of America, and is a former Textile Society of America Board Member. She holds a M.A. in the History of Decorative Arts and Design from Parsons, the New School of Design/Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. 

2022 WOOD: MORGAN HILL

Morgan Hill is a sculptor and jewelry designer whose work draws on a wide range of aesthetic and conceptual influences from 90's pop culture, cult films, and costume design, to her traditional Southern upbringing. Her longing to break the silence surrounding culturally censured topics drives her to create work on themes of death, abuse, depression, and suicide, as well as their counterparts of rebirth, healing, and empowerment. On the lighter side, her jewelry brand Bad Habits by Morgan Hill celebrates the pleasure of excess and indulged desires. 

Hill was a Core Fellow at the Penland School of Craft from 2015-2017. In 2018, she was an ITE Windgate Fellow at the Center for Art in Wood. Her work is carried in galleries across the US and internationally. She creates her work at Treats Studios in Spruce Pine, NC, a studio cooperative she co-founded.

This award was generously sponsored by Brenda Erickson and Barbara Wolanin

2021 Metal: Rachel David

This year, the Alliance is proud to support Rachel David who represents a change in the future of metalworking. Her expressive work and support for women in blacksmithing signifies our support not only for her but also her effort to affirm in a gender-biased field that “skill and craftsmanship are superior to brute force.”

​Rachel David received a Bachelor of Arts from Evergreen State College in 2004 and has continued her studies through workshops at Penland School of Craft, John C. Campbell School of Craft, Nunez Community College and Haywood Community College where she recently received a machining certification. In 2019, she was featured in 40 Under 40: The Next Generation of American Metal Artists at the Metal Museum in Memphis, TN and received the Smithsonian Craft Show’s Best in Show Award and the Artists Gold Choice Award. In addition to her artistic practice, David is a founding member of the Society of Inclusive Blacksmiths which supports inclusivity through mentorship, support and scholarships. 

Our deepest gratitude to JRACraft member, Stan Asrael, for sponsoring this year’s award.

2020 CERAMICS: KATE ROBERTS

"My practice is a meditation on time and its role in the decay of objects and memories.  Inspiration is drawn from historical objects, the architecture around me, or a personal relationship.  The physical properties of my materials - parched, cracked clay and vitreous porcelain - at once delicate and dense emulate states of decay in nature yet are built and mended by hand. This contradiction, of meticulously crafting the ravages of time, is at the foundation of my work."

"I was impressed by the wide range of work presented by these ceramic artists.  They presented complex views rooted in materiality and process, unique and diverse global traditions, varieties of techniques and skills that bridged ancient processes with science and technology. So many had personal stories to tell that revealed the multicultural and hybrid fabric of this country." - 2020 Juror, Ibrahim Said

In light of the ongoing pandemic, the Alliance raised additional funds to award three Awards of Excellence. These artists include Maxwell Mustardo, Eliza Au, and Chris M. Rodgers.

2019 Mixed media: Richard james

Richard W. James creates large-scale surreal figures out of meticulously crafted earthenware and found objects. Influenced by his upbringing in rural Tennessee and the craft skills handed down from his parents and grandparents, James’ often unsettling contemporary ceramic sculptures incorporate the materials and processes he associates with the informative years of his life to question the cultural lenses in which he grew up.

​​“The jurors were impressed with James’ superb craftsmanship but ultimately it was his unique vision and voice that captured our attention. We were delighted to have strong interest in the Chrysalis award from all over the United States this year, with a record number of applications, demonstrating vibrancy in the craft field” -  former JRA President, Michele Manatt 

​Thank you to JRA member, Pati Young, for sponsoring this years award!

2018 Glass: Dean Allison

"Dean described his work as a documentation of human form, an exploration into the ways we perceive others and a study of portraiture in studio glass. Using a combination of old and new processes and materials, he aims to capture a moment in time. He is especially interested in understanding individuals through an analysis of subtle gesture, physical attributes and the immediate perceptions those attributes spark. He described how glass is the perfect medium for him, since it has characteristics common to people: it is transparent, opaque, fragile, broken, sharp, incompatible, rough, polished and colorful." - JRA Board Member and Chrysalis Committee Chair, Nikki O'Neill

2016 Fiber: Shea Wilkinson 

"I work primarily with free motion quilting, which allows me the capability of not only forming the texture of the piece, but also the imagery and narrative, using a needle and thread. I use quilting as the anchor for my enthusiasms through different bodies of work, from extraterrestrial to natural worlds, from mythical to the scientific." - Shea Wilkinson, 2016 Awardee
JAMES RENWICK ALLIANCE FOR CRAFT | 5335 WISCONSIN AVENUE NW #440 WASHINGTON DC 20015 | ​301.907.3888 | INFO@JRA.ORG