Join the James Renwick Alliance for Craft and Around Art Spain for a week-long tour of Spain. Enjoy private tours of museums, special studio tours, and visit neighboring villages to learn more about Spanish craft art.

ABOUT TRIP ORGANIZER, SOFIA BARROSO
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Sofia Barroro is the President of Around Art, a consulting firm that provides unique and exclusive experiences by introducing travelers to historical and private homes, private art collections, artist studios, and behind-the-scenes museum visits.  Sofia has directed summer programmes for Syracuse University Centre in Spain (1992-2004); was head curator at the March Foundation Contemporary Art Museum in Palma de Mallorca (1995-1997); has directed the ARCO Collectors Programme for eight years and was member of the Board of Friends of ARCO from 2000 to 2006. She was also involved with the Collectors Programme for Art Cologne Palma. Presently on the Board of the Jakober Foundation, Zuloaga Foundation and Anar Foundation. She is the delegate in Spain for the National Museum of Women in the Arts committee. She has been organizing cultural travel since 1984.​

Donors of the JRACraft Renwick Gallery 50th Acquisition Fund are invited to a private artist talk for Mariko Kusomoto.

Born in Kumamoto, Japan, and based in Massachusetts, Mariko Kusumoto prevails upon fabric to construct forms of elegant simplicity and evocative imagery. Her designs are incorporated into jewelry and sculptural pieces, as well as in collaborations with fashion designers; in January 2019, her work appeared on the Jean Paul Gaultier catwalk at Paris Haute Couture. Fascinated by the potential of different materials, Kusumoto strives to bring out each fabric’s inherent characteristics and beauty. Using a proprietary heat-setting technique, she gives the fabric a new identity through reshaping it into three-dimensional forms. In addition to finding inspiration in the material itself, she is motivated by the process of experimentation, during which accidental discoveries lead to new ideas.

JRACraft supported the acquisition of her necklace as part of the Renwick Gallery's 50th Anniversary Acquisition Campaign.
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Join the James Renwick Alliance for Craft in Mount Rainer at the Otis Street Artist Studios for an arts block party in celebration of our 40th anniversary. The festivity will include open studios, artist demonstrations, LuvPlates food truck, a live mural painting and, of course, anniversary cake!  

Registration is not required, but registration will allow you to pre-select your meal and enter you into a raffle to win a prize the day of the event. Payment for food will be required the day of the event directly to the food truck. 
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Participating artists and organizations include:
- Zenith Foundation Mobile Wood Truck featuring a woodturning demonstration by the Montgomery County Woodturners*
- Blue Fire Ceramic Studio featuring a tile painting demo by Robert Devers and a Balik demo by Kelly Posey*
- Washington Glass School including Michael Janis, Tim Tate, Erwin Timmers, Christina Helowicz, with a demonstration of enameling on glass by Patricia De Poel Wilberg*
​- Multimedia artists Martha Jackson Jarvis and Njena Surae Jarvis and abstract artist Anne Marchand
- Mosaic artist Valerie Theberge featuring a mosaic demonstration*
​- Orange Door Studios including Ellyn Weiss, Veronica Szalus, Brian Williams and Ellen Sinel
- Painter Janis Goodman 
- Blue Door Studios including Alec Simpson
- Otis Street Art Projects including the studios of Chris Bohner, Gloria Chapa, Chris Combs, Elizabeth Curren, Art Drauglis, Liz Lescault, Kirsty Little, Shelley Lowenstein, CeCi Cole McInturff, Lisa Rosenstein, David Mordini
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* Includes Demonstration

ALL ARE INVITED TO JOIN!
​REGISTER BELOW

Explore from the South shore to the North shore in this exciting new JRACraft trip to the Boston area! Experience world class institutions and private guided tours. Visit notable galleries, see one of the top private collections in the country, and meet nine contemporary craft artists making waves locally and nationally.
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Included: 2 dinners, 4 lunches, 1 breakfast, museum admission, ground transportation and organizing fees
Not included: Airfare/travel to Boston, Hotel lodging

• Private catered dinner and exhibition tour at the  Fuller Craft Museum
​• Drinks at the stunning private collection of Chris Rifkin 
• Exclusive access to look at Studio Jewelry from the MFA collection with curator Emily Stoehrer 
• Visit the private home and studio of jewelry artst Efharis Alepedis
• Tour the Metalwerx galleries and studios
• ​Explore the Brickbottom Studios
​• Visit the Harvard Ceramics Gallery

This year, in honor of the 40th anniversary of JRACraft and the 25th anniversary of the Center for Craft, we combine our most well-known programs for one celebratory season. Four JRACraft Distinguished Artist Series returning encore artists will be paired with four emerging artists recognized by the Center for Craft's Windgate-Lamar Fellowship to present a collaborative weekend exploring commonality and materiality. Each weekend will be hosted online and include a virtual Saturday demonstration/studio visit and free Sunday lecture.

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ARTIST DEMONSTRATION / STUDIO VISIT
Saturday, June 11| 1 - 2:30pm
Virtual Zoom event
$25 members | $30 non-members
$85 for all 4 workshops, members only

FREE PUBLIC LECTURE
Sunday, June 12 | 2 - 3pm
Virtual Zoom event


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JENNIFER TRASK
Jennifer Trask attended Massachusetts College of Art completing her BFA in Metalsmithing in 1993 and later graduated the State University of NY at New Paltz with an MFA in 1997 and is a full time studio artist. The elaborate objects and sculptures made of found materials like bone, wood, and antlers point to the Dutch tradition of Vanitas and at the same time addressing the traditional practice of isolating examples/ideals of beauty stylization of nature, "in effect a death of the real, the imperfect, the individual."

Examples of Trask’s work can be found in many public collections including the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; the Museum of Art and Design in New York, NY; CODA Museum, Apeldoorn, Netherlands; Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia. 

SHENEQUA
SHENEQUA is an Artpreneur who received her Masters of Design in Fashion, Body, & Garment at School of the Art Institute of Chicago under the mentorship of Nick Cave. Founder of Weave Your Dreams Into Reality Studios LLC, she highlights her gifts, services, knowledge, and shares her stories with the world one thread at a time.

A featured artist for Ties that Bind in American Craft Magazine and the Kansas City Star, she often speaks about her process of weaving synthetic-hair in relationship to the African American hair experience. Notable lectures include the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, the Surface Design Association, and the Arlington Heights Memorial Library. She was 2014’s Windgate Fellow of the Center for Craft and 2017-2018’s recipient of the inaugural YoungArts Daniel Arsham Fellowship, presented by the Ridinger-McLaughlin Family.