Join JRACraft for a conversation with the new Executive Director of the Creative Crafts Council, Deborah Winn.  This conversation will include an in-depth dive into their 33rd biennial, currently on view at The Mansion at Strathmore in Rockville, MD.  This 33rd Biennial Exhibition features 160 artworks from 105 artists who are members of sponsoring guilds or who  artists live, work or attend school  in Virginia, Maryland or DC.  The artworks were selected from among 478 entries by a panel of three outstanding regional fine crafts artists.
​

The Creative Crafts Council is an umbrella organization of fine craft guilds in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia.  The CCC sponsors a juried biennial exhibition that is open to any artist residing in these areas, to all members of any sponsoring guild regardless of residence, and to any High School or College level students attending school in these areas. Our sponsoring Guilds and the contacts are listed below.
 
The first Biennial Exhibition in 1954 and the next five were held in the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of Natural History.  Since then, the Exhibition has been held at museums and galleries throughout the region, and since 1988 it has been held at the Strathmore Mansion in North Bethesda, Maryland.

The Distinguished Artist Series features glass artist, Christina Bothwell

Artist Workshop/Studio Visit:
Saturday, May 22 | 1 - 2:30PM ET
Virtual Zoom event
$25 members | $30 non-members
$85 for all 4 workshops, members only

Free Lecture:
Sunday, May 23 | 2 - 3PM ET
Virtual Zoom event

​Christina Bothwell studied painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, before teaching herself how to work with ceramics, and then cast glass. She has had eleven solo exhibitions of her work since 2006, most recently at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, in Indiana. Her sculptures are in the public collections of the Cincinnati Museum of Art, Ohio, the Glasmuseet Ebeltoft, Museum of Contemporary Glass, Denmark, SMOG (Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Glass Art), China, the Tutsek-Stiftung Foundation, Germany, the Fuller Craft Museum, Massachusetts, the Smithsonian Museum of Art’s Archives of American Art, and several other major museums.
​

JRACraft is currently auctioning "Chinchilla in a Teacup" by glass artist and 2021 Distinguished Artist Series participant Christina Bothwell. All proceeds from this auction benefit CERF+, THE ARTISTS SAFETY NETWORK

​This piece will be featured in "Light & Shadow," an exhibition at Shelter in Place Gallery, curated by Caroline Kipp, Curator of Contemporary Art at The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum.

​Christina Bothwell
Chinchilla in a Teacup, 2021
Cast glass, ceramic, hand painted detail
3.75 in. H x 3.875 in.W x 3 in. D
Retail: $1000 | Starting Bid: $250

During "A Vision for Contemporary Textile Art", Caroline Kipp, Curator of Contemporary Art at the George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum will present her aspirational visions for the museum's nascent contemporary initiative. This overview will outline Kipp's ideas for collecting, exhibitions, and programming. Through these avenues, she intends to raise the profile of textile arts.

*All proceeds from this event support the James Renwick Alliance. 

Caroline Kipp is a curator, artist, and a textile and decorative arts historian. She holds a BFA in fibers from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and an MA in museum studies from Harvard University. She is currently the Curator of Contemporary Art at the George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum in Washington, DC

During her presentation, Caroline will imagine what a leading contemporary textile collection looks like.

​

Previously, she was the Curatorial Associate in the Department of Contemporary Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston where she was responsible for the contemporary decorative arts collection, including the Daphne Farago collection. She curated the Farago gallery rotations, Jack Bush: Radiant Abstraction, Community Arts Initiative: Mindful Mandalas, and Community Arts Initiative: Endless Feast, co-curated Beyond the Loom: Fiber as Sculpture/Subversive Threads as part of Women Take the Floor and Perception is the Medium. Kipp served as the assistant and project manager on Cecilia Vicuna: Disappeared Quipu, Sheila Hicks, Nan Goldin, Lorraine O’Grady: Family Gained, Candice Breitz: Love Story, Maia Lynch: In Between, and Monuments to Us.

Prior to this she was part of the MFA Boston’s Textile and Fashion Arts Department where she contributed research to the exhibition Gender Bending Fashion.

​A double billing: In an interview format, Abraham Thomas talks with Glenn Adamson about Adamson’s newly published book Craft: An American History and the current exhibition Crafting America at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art which opened February 6 and closes May 31, 2021.
 
Craft: An American History is a groundbreaking and endlessly surprising history of how artisans created America, from the nation's origins to the present day.

Crafting America is an exhibition featuring over 100 works in ceramics, fiber, wood, metal, glass, and more unexpected materials that presents a diverse and inclusive story of American craft from the 1940s to today, highlighting the work of artists such as Ruth Asawa, Peter Voulkos, Jeffrey Gibson, Sonya Clark, and more. Developed by Glenn Adamson, guest curator and scholar of craft, design history, and contemporary art, and Jen Padgett, associate curator at Crystal Bridges, Crafting America asserts craft’s integral role in expanding the story of American art. 
​

​Glenn Adamson and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art are no strangers to JRACraft members, having spoken to our Caucus members in June 2015, followed by a visit of JRACraft members to the museum in September 2015.

Adamson is a curator and writer who works at the intersection of craft, design history and contemporary art. He has previously been Director of the Museum of Arts and Design; Head of Research at the V&A; and Curator at the Chipstone Foundation in Milwaukee. Adamson’s publications include Fewer Better Things (2019); Art in the Making (2016, co-authored with Julia Bryan-Wilson); The Invention of Craft (2013); Postmodernism: Style and Subversion (2011); The Craft Reader (2010); and Thinking Through Craft (2007). He contributes regularly to Art in America, Crafts, Disegno, frieze, The Magazine Antiques, and other publications.
​
Adamson was the co-curator of Crafting America at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (2021); Objects: USA 2020 a R & Compay Gallery (2021); Voulkos: The Breakthrough Years at MAD (2016); Beazley Designs of the Year 2017, at the Design Museum, London; and Things of Beauty Growing: British Studio Pottery, at the Yale Center for British Art (2017). His biographical study of the artist Lenore Tawney is included in the John Michael Kohler Art Center’s exhibition catalogue Mirror of the Universe.
​

The Metropolitan Museum of Art appointed Abraham Thomas as Daniel Brodsky Curator of Modern Architecture, Design, and Decorative Arts in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art in September 2020.

For the past four years, Thomas has worked at the Smithsonian Institution, first as the Fleur and Charles Bresler Curator-in-Charge of the Renwick Gallery, and most recently as Senior Curator at the Arts & Industries Building, in Washington, D.C.
​
Prior to joining the Smithsonian, he was Director of Sir John Soane's Museum, one of the UK's foremost historic house museums, where from 2013–2015 he oversaw a major restoration of Soane's interiors, initiated new programs with institutions—including MIT's School of Architecture and Planning and MIT Museum; The Architectural Association School of Architecture; the LSE Cities program at the London School of Economics; and the School of Art, Architecture and Design at London Metropolitan University—and developed collaborative commissions with contemporary artists  and designers. Before then, Thomas was Curator of Designs at the Victoria and Albert Museum, from 2005 to 2013, where he was responsible for the V&A's Architecture Gallery and its strategic partnership with the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Abraham Thomas has published and lectured extensively on architecture, decorative arts, craft, graphic design and photography, with a research focus on the 19th-century to the present.

​

May 1, 2021 | 
Join us for an online tour of Carl and Jan Fisher's Tacoma, WA home. The carefully curated collection features a mix of works from the top studio craft artists and works made by family members to create an intimate and meaningful environment. Glass makes up the largest part of the collection, with pieces from Dale Chihuly, Lino Tagliapietra, Debora Moore, Richard Jolley and the de la Torre brothers, among others.

*All proceeds from this event support the James Renwick Alliance. 

The James Renwick Alliance for Craft hosts a unique virtual craft tour featuring some of the most important craft destinations in the Washington, DC region. Join us as we step into the homes of private collectors, see exhibitions at some of the most visited public museums in the country, and experience the local studios that define the DC craft community.

Tour the Washington Glass School with the acclaimed glass artists Tim Tate and Michael Janis.

Learn more about Red Dirt Studio with established ceramic artist and community organizer Margaret Boozer.

Visit the Renwick Gallery, the only craft museum in the US capital. Here, enjoy a virtual tour of "Forces of Nature: Renwick Invitational 2020" with guest curator, Emily Zilber.

Learn about DC's influence and long standing legacy of Black American Art through the Howard University collection with Howard U ceramics professor, Reggie Pointer

Tour the collection of collectors Sharon and Bob Buchanan in their stunningly serene home on the Potomac River. 

See the contemporary art, craft, and architecture of collectors Bonnie and Gil Schwartz

​

​In addition to this amazing line-up there will be room for Q&A, breaks featuring video clips of DC art and culture and a chance to meet fellow trip participants.

APRIL 24 - 25, 2021 | 
The Distinguished Artist Series features artist Kate Kretz

Artist Workshop/Studio Visit:
Saturday, April 24 | 1 - 2:30pm
Virtual Zoom event
$25 members | $30 non-members
$85 for all 4 workshops, members only

Free Lecture:
Sunday, April 25 | 2 - 3pm
Virtual Zoom event

Kate Kretz was trained as a painter, but creates across disciplines, choosing the most potent medium for each project. She is generally focused on creating time-intensive, intricate work telling difficult truths. Kate is on the Fulbright Specialist Roster through 2021. She has received the MD Council For The Arts Grant (in 2015 & 2017 for crafts, and 2018 for painting) and numerous other awards.
​