NEW: A HISTORY OF CRAFT IN THE US

A HISTORY OF CRAFT IN THE UNITED STATES
8 week online zoom class
JUNE 22 - AUGUST 10
thursday nights, 7:30pm eST
$170 JRACraft MEmbers | $210 Non-Members

​The James Renwick Alliance for Craft is excited to host our first craft history class, in what we hope will be one of many!

Learn about the history of craft in the United States during the late nineteenth and twentieth century. This course will examine some of the many definitions of craft as well as artists, objects, schools, teachers, and theories of making that have shaped craft (and art) history. A variety of artists working across different media, including Anni Albers, Ruth Asawa, Harvey Littleton, Charles Loloma, Joyce Scott, Peter Volkous, Toshiko Takaezu, Lenore Tawney, and more, will be discussed.

In addition to 8 live zoom classes, you will receive extensive resources for further readings and watching if you are interested and there will be an opportunity to share a favorite artist and/or a handmade object from your home in the optional assignments. Can't make a class? No worries, classes will be recorded and available for all class registrants.

TOPICS INCLUDE

• What is craft? What is art?
• Beauty for all and equality among materials: ceramics, fiber, glass, metal, wood +
• Craft and education
• Craft as collective and intermedial
• Craft as avant garde
• Craft and/as resistance
• Craft, the home, and the museum
• Craft, hierarchy, and power

MEET YOUR INSTRUCTOR: ERICA WARREN
You may best know Erica Warren as our Craft Quarterly editor but she is also an art consultant, curator, and scholar with over ten years of experience working with collections, in museums, and teaching. From 2016-2022, Erica was a curator at the Art Institute of Chicago, where her exhibitions included Bisa Butler: Portraits, Weaving beyond the Bauhaus, Super/Natural: Textiles of the Andes, Music and Movement: Rhythm in Textile Design, Making Memories: Quilts as Souvenirs, and Modern Velvet: A Sense of Luxury in the Age of Industry. Among her recent publications are the article “Beyond Weaving: Transdisciplinarity and the Bauhaus Weaving Workshop” in Textile: The Journal of Cloth and Culture (2021) and the catalog Bisa Butler: Portraits (2020), which accompanied her exhibition.

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SOLD OUT - JOIN THE WAITING LIST

potential for second class

This class was sold out in the first day it was launched. Our instructor has offered to host an additional class if there is enough interest. To be considered for the second class, please add your name to the waiting list.

Photo of Erica Warren. Courtesy the Art Institute of Chicago.