​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. ​
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*** Due to the shutdowns and various restrictions on gathering, the exhibitions listed below are tentative and may be changed without notice. If planning to visit, please call ahead to verify the events are still open. 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.

Maine Pottery Tour, May 1-2
Sponsored by the Maine Craft Association, www.mainepotterytour.org

Transition Conference (virtual), May 5-8
Presented by the Society of North American Goldsmiths (SNAG)
Hosted by the Metal Museum, www.metalmuseum.org

29th Annual St Croix Valley Pottery Tour, May 7-9
Sponsored by Minnesota Potters of Upper St. Croix River, www.minnesotapotters.org

Urban Glass Virtual Gala & Auction, May 12
Urban Glass, Brooklyn, NY, www.urbanglass.org

Glass Art Society Virtual 2021 Conference, May 20-22
Sponsored by the Glass Art Society, www.glassart.org

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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​David was born in El Paso, Texas and spent much of his life in Austin, Texas.  Initially he began his undergraduate career attending Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, pursuing a degree program for Biology Art.  He attended the program for two years before returning to Austin to complete his BFA at the University of Texas in Austin, with a primary emphasis in painting. He earned his MFA in Metalsmithing in 2007 from San Diego State University. David taught in the art department at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock, Arkansas for 10 years. During 8 of those years he was responsible for creating and heading the Metalsmithing and Jewelry Department. In 2018 he relocated to Penland, North Carolina to dedicate his time to be an independent artist and workshop instructor.  Much of his work embraces the craft of Metalsmithing and it’s collected history of techniques and objects. The resulting works rendered in metal, mixed media, and hand made artist books are vehicles to communicate ideas surrounding identity, narrative, and forays into material and process-based work.  He has exhibited in numerous exhibitions including: Craft in America: Expanding Traditions, Different Tempers: Jewelry & Blacksmithing, RE/ACTIONS, and has work in the permanent collection of the Arkansas Art Center in Little Rock, National Ornamental Metal Museum. Yale Contemporary Craft Museum, Ollie Trout Collection at the University of Texas in Austin. 

Furniture maker, artist and educator Wendy Maruyama has been making innovative work for 40 years. While her early work combined ideologies of feminism and traditional craft objects, her newer work moves beyond the boundaries of traditional studio craft and into the realm of social practice. Contemporary bodies of work focuses public attention on wildlife poaching, and commentary as her experience as a Japanese-American. Maruyama is one of the first two women to receive a Masters of Fine Arts in Furniture Design at the Rochester Institute of Technology, NY and has been a professor of woodworking and furniture design for over thirty years, serving as the head of the Furniture Design department at San Diego State University. Her work can be found in the collections of Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Dallas Art Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Museum of Craft and Design, Mint Museum of Art, Fuller Craft Museum, and more. 

​The art of Preston Singletary has become synonymous with the relationship between European glass blowing traditions and Northwest Native art. His artworks feature themes of transformation, animal spirits and shamanism through elegant blown glass forms and mystical sand carved Tlingit designs. Singletary learned the art of glass blowing by working with artists in the Seattle area including Benjamin Moore and Dante Marioni. As a student and assistant, he initially focused on mastering the techniques of the European tradition. His work took him to Kosta Boda (Sweden) where he studied Scandinavian design and met his future wife. Throughout his 30+ years of glass blowing experience, he has also had opportunities to learn the secrets of the Venetian glass masters by working with Italian legends Lino Tagliapietra, Cecco Ongaro, and Pino Signoretto. In 2010, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Arts degree from the University of Puget Sound. Recognized internationally, Singletary’s artworks are included in museum collections such as The British Museum (London, UK), The Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, MA), The Seattle Art Museum (Seattle WA), the Corning Museum of Glass (Corning, NY), the Mint Museum of Art and Design (Charlotte, NC), the Heard Museum (Phoenix,  AZ), and the Smithsonian Institution (Washington, DC). 

Consuelo Jimenez Underwood was born in Sacramento, California, the daughter of migrant agricultural workers, a Chicano mother and a father of Huichol Indian descent. Crossing borders and negotiating between three perspectives has always been fundamental to her identity and the basis of her creative process. Consuelo’s work ranges from delicate miniature tapestries to monumental fiber and mixed media installations juxtaposing the natural beauty and ecological destruction along the US/Mexico border. Consuelo has exhibited and lectured nationally and internationally for more than twenty-five years. Her work is part of the permanent collections of museums such as the Smithsonian American Museum of Art, Museum of Art & Design in New York, the National Hispanic Center for the Arts, New Mexico, the Mexican Museum in San Francisco and the Oakland Museum of California. She was awarded the 2017 Master Artist Grant from the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture and was elected to the Council of Fellows of the American Craft Council in 2018. Consuelo received her BA and MA from San Diego State University. She began teaching fiber art at San Jose State University in 1987, where she received her MFA. For more than twenty years, Underwood worked to develop a vibrant fiber program, and inspire young artists to embrace thread.

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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As the Renwick Gallery approaches its 50th anniversary, the James Renwick Alliance for Craft is renewing its commitment to expanding the Gallery’s collection with the 50th Anniversary Acquisitions Fund.  The fund is part of the JRA’s long history of supporting acquisitions, including iconic pieces like Karen LaMonte’s Reclining Dress Impression with Drapery, Judy McKie’s Monkey Settee, and the Nick Cave Soundsuit. 
 
The Gallery has an ambitious plan to build its collection, not just by filling gaps, but by expanding its range and scope, adding artists who are new to the collection, artists whose work is great but has not been in the spotlight, and artists who are an important part of the future of craft.  The Gallery’s goal is to add more than 100 new objects to the collection.
 
The 50th Anniversary Acquisitions Fund will support that effort.  All of the money raised for this fund will support acquisitions for the Renwick Gallery’s permanent collection, chosen from the list of works that the curators have developed.
 
Donors to the fund will receive recognition and other benefits described below.  Donate now to be a part of this historic and unprecedented moment in craft history.
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 $100 - Friend
Listing on the JRA website
 
$250 - Supporter
Benefits at the Friend level plus
private online event with a selected artist
 
$500 - Partner
Benefits at the Supporter level plus
listing in the catalog for the Renwick Gallery 50th ​anniversary show
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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/

KATE ROBERTS 
JRACraft Chrysalis Award

ANI KASTEN 
Distinguished Artist Series
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Ceramic artists Kate Roberts and Ani Kasten give thoughtful presentations about their work, inspiration, and lives as artists. With vulnerability and bravery, each creates unique work using untraditional techniques. Their differing backgrounds and a shared interest in materiality make for a dynamic juxtaposition that should not be missed.

"They spoke honestly, eloquently, and revealed the humanity that informs their life and work." - guest of the lecture