Locally based artist, Kate Kretz, was recently featured in the James Renwick Alliance for Craft's Distinguished Artist Series hosted in partnership with the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center. One audience member noted, "Kate Kretz is an extremely skilled and articulate artist. Her reference to her upbring and the moral imperative that influences her highly refined art demonstrates such a powerful conviction." 
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​Kate Kretz intends her mixed media work to be "beautiful, exquisitely-crafted gut punch." She takes an unblinking look at difficult topics, and renders her response with stitchery, painting, or woodburning. Whichever medium will have the most potency. With each stitch or mark, she increases the power of her "incantation" to counteract the negative and to create a thoughtful, healing object. Kretz has used human hair to embroider unsettling pieces which examine motherhood, sexuality, and aging. Her recent pieces using deconstructed Make America Great Again (MAGA) hats caused her work to be banned from Facebook and Instagram, an ironic outcome to her artistic fight against hate speech. Kretz's unsparing examination of important subjects is a deeply aesthetic and intellectual experience.

​She studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and earned her MFA from the University of Georgia.  She has participated in numerous group and solo shows, and has received wide media attention for her unusual and powerful body of work.
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Recently, the James Renwick Alliance for Craft featured DC based artist Rania Hassan for Coffee & Craft Conversation with Cicie Satterlasskorn, Director of STABLE Arts. "With my materials, I am stretching the limits of what they can do [and] how those materials translate to different settings." 

Rania Hassan creates site-specific installations that weave sculptural stories about our connections to time, place, and circumstance. The five main themes she works with embody ideas of community, synchronicity, identity, time, and memory. Her work is about levels of interconnectedness. From a single strand of thread, we are all connected.

Rania’s artwork is included in the permanent collections of the National Institutes of Health (NIH, Bethesda, MD), Amazon Web Services (Herndon, VA), and the District of Columbia’s Art Bank Collection (Washington, DC). Previous solo exhibitions include The Front (New Orleans, LA), Gormley Gallery (Baltimore, MD), and Artisphere (Rosslyn, VA). She has given presentations about her artwork at area Universities (George Mason University, 2014) and Museums (Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building, 2019; Textile Museum, Washington, DC, 2012, 2015), and her work has been featured in publications including the Washington Post, Washington City Paper, and Vogue Knitting. In 2009 she received a Craft Award of Excellence from the James Renwick Alliance and has been awarded multiple Artist Fellowship Program Grant Awards from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.
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Distinguished Artist Series Saturday "Studio Tour" features fiber artists Giovanna Swaby AND Adebunmi Gbadebo​
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Distinguished Artist Series Sunday Lecture

​On Saturday, March 20, the James Renwick Alliance for Craft hosted a virtual "studio tour" with textile artists Giovanna Swaby and Adebunmi Gbadebo from Claire Oliver Gallery.  The artists discussed the evolution of their art and shared current works.

Sunday, March 21, the JRACraft was joined by textile artist Bisa Butler for a virtual lecture.  Butler shared an in-depth look at several pieces from her current exhibit at Claire Oliver Gallery, as well as a discussion of her inspiration while studying as an art student at Washington, DC's Howard University and how she incorporated elements of AfriCOBRA into her early work.
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Upcoming DAS artists: https://www.jra.org/distinguished-artist-series.html 
Sok Vision video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pwe4DbQbGq0
Vlisco Fabrics: https://shop.vlisco.com/en/all-fabrics
Kaffe Fassett Collective: https://www.freespiritfabrics.com/kaffe-fassett-collective-collections/
AKN Fabrics & Textiles: https://aknfabrics.com/