2022 marks the Alliance's 40th anniversary and Spring Craft Weekend reminded us that we have a lot to be proud of. "Every day I am humbled by the amazing generosity of people who make up this organization and the overwhelming dedication we all have to American Craft," says Executive Director Jaimianne Jacobin.

This was exemplified in our One-Of-A-Kind awardee and co-chair Barbara Berlin, who recited the poem above as she received her award. Barbara was introduced by Patron Chair, Sharon Buchanan. Her work and the dedication of our Patrons alone, contributed almost $100,000!

To further our mission of support for the public appreciation, education and connoisseurship of American Craft, the Alliance hosted our annual public symposium honoring the 2022 Distinguished Educators Anne Wilson, Ché Rhodes and Janet Koplos. As a part of our mission to recognize excellence, we were further graced by the presence of our 2021 Masters of the Medium Wendy Maruyama, Consuelo Underwood and David Harper Clemons and we heard from our 2021 Chrysalis Awardee Rachel David. 

Through programs, educational trips and publications, JRACraft stands as a beacon for American Craft and with your help, the Chihuly Fund raised $12,000 to support publications dedicated to featuring mid career craft artists. 

A sincere thank you to all who attended, participated and supported the James Renwick Alliance Spring Craft Weekend. Your support, contributions, and ideas help shape the James Renwick Alliance for Craft and together, we make a difference in the legacy of the American Craft field. ​

The James Renwick Alliance for Craft is pleased to present the 2022 Distinguished Educators Award to three outstanding members of the craft community who have demonstrated a commitment to craft excellence and future generations of craft artists. Anne Wilson, international fiber and materials artist, and Professor Emeritus at the The School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Che’ Rhodes, renowned glass artist and professor at the Hite Institute of Art and Design, University of Louisville; and Janet Koplos author of numerous craft books the most famous, Makers, the quintessential American craft history book (co-authored with Bruce Metcalf). 

This award will be presented during the JRACraft 2022 Spring Craft Weekend Symposium & Awards event. Listen in as these three special guests discuss their own work and share who they see as the next generation of makers, educators, and arts scholars.

Left to right: Janet Koplos, Ché Rhodes, Anne Wilson

​Ché Rhodes is a contemporary glass artist. He received his MFA from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He earned his B.A. from Centre College where he began his career under the mentorship of Stephen Rolfe Powell. Formerly, he was an assistant professor and Head of Glass Art at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. Currently he is an Associate Professor and Head of Studio Glass at the University of Louisville, Allen R. Hite Art Institute. He is a former member of the Glass Art Society Board of Directors, and a current member of the Penland School of Crafts Board of Trustees. Rhodes has demonstrated at the 2006, 2010, and 2015 Glass Art Society Conferences and has been an instructor at the Penland School of Crafts, Penland North Carolina; Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood Washington; The Studio of the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York; Urban Glass, Brooklyn, New York, and at Scuola del Vetro: Abate Zanetti, in Venice Italy. His work is widely exhibited and featured in several public collections, including a recent acquisition by the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum to be feature in This Present Moment: Crafting a Better World.

​Janet Koplos is the author of What Makes a Potter: Traditional Pottery in America Today (2019) and co-author of Makers: A History of American Studio Craft (2010). Her first book was Contemporary Japanese Sculpture (1990), and she has written numerous catalog essays and thousands of reviews over the last 40 years, focusing on crafts and on American, Japanese and Dutch contemporary art. She was for 18 years a staff editor at Art in America magazine and is currently a contributing editor. She lectures, critiques and juries frequently, and has taught at Parsons The New School for Design and Pratt Institute in New York City, the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence. She received a National Endowment for the Arts critic’s grant early on, in 2010 was named an Honorary Fellow of the American Craft Council, and in 2015 was awarded an Art Writers Grant from the Warhol Foundation. The grant has supported her current work on a history of the New Art Examiner, a controversial art magazine published in Chicago from 1973 to 2002. She lives in New York City. 

​Learn about craft exhibitions happening around the world through the monthly James Renwick Alliance Newsletter or join our mailing list to get regular updates about upcoming events.

***Due to the shutdowns and various restrictions on gathering, the exhibitions listed below are tentative and may be changed without notice.  While most of the venues are open; others have closed again for the new outbreak.  The timetables for exhibitions are still in a state of flux. If planning to visit, please call ahead to verify the events are still open or require reservations.  A small benefit is that many venues have put their shows online and added other objects to their websites which are rarely seen online or in person.  As they say, it is best to call ahead

​Learn about craft exhibitions happening around the world through the monthly James Renwick Alliance Newsletter or join our mailing list to get regular updates about upcoming events.

***Due to the shutdowns and various restrictions on gathering, the exhibitions listed below are tentative and may be changed without notice.  While most of the venues are open; others have closed again for the new outbreak.  The timetables for exhibitions are still in a state of flux. If planning to visit, please call ahead to verify the events are still open or require reservations.  A small benefit is that many venues have put their shows online and added other objects to their websites which are rarely seen online or in person.  As they say, it is best to call ahead

Erica Warren is a curator and scholar with over ten years’ experience working in museums and teaching. From 2016-2022, she was a curator of textiles at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she organized and curated the critically acclaimed exhibitions Bisa Butler: Portraits and Weaving beyond the Bauhaus. Her research has been published in journals and exhibition catalogues, most recently her essay "Beyond Weaving: Transdisciplinarity and the Bauhaus Weaving Workshop," appeared in Textile: The Journal of Cloth and Culture, and she contributed to and edited the catalogue Bisa Butler: Portraits.

As a complement to her curatorial pursuits, Erica has taught courses at the University of Chicago, Drexel University, and the Tyler School of Art, Temple University. She earned her PhD in art history from the University of Minnesota and has participated in the Attingham Summer School.

Please email Erica at ​Editor@jra.org with submissions or for more information if you are interested in writing a craft related article. 

Learn about craft exhibitions happening around the world through the monthly James Renwick Alliance Newsletter or join our mailing list to get regular updates about upcoming events. ​

56th NCECA Conference: Fertile Ground, March 16-19
Sponsored by the National Council for Education in the Ceramic Arts,
SAFE Credit Union Convention Center, Sacramento, CA, www.nceca.net 

ACC Baltimore Craft Fair, postponed to May 20-22
Baltimore Convention Center, Baltimore, MD, www.shop.craftcouncil.org 

Scotland’s Trade Fair, March 27-29
Glasgow, Scotland, www.scotlandstradefairs.com

Smithsonian Craft Show, April 20-24
National Building Museum, Washington, DC, www.smithsoniancraftshow.org ​