Q&A: Syd Carpenter on Forgotten History of Black-Owned Farms
by Anya Slepyan
March 17, 2023
Syd Carpenter is a Philadelphia-based mixed media artist who focuses on clay. She has received numerous awards including a United States Artist Fellowship, an Anonymous Was a Woman Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a Pew Fellowship in the Arts, and many others.
Read full article here.
Watch: Portland Potter Ayumi Horie Explains Her “Quirky Line of Work” on PBS
By Adrienne Perron
March 2023 issue
Portland-based potter Ayumi Horie, who won the Maine Craft Association’s 2022 Maine Craft Artist Award, is getting national attention now too. The PBS documentary series Craft in America recently devoted a segment to the 53-year-old ceramicist, who discussed her mission to “broaden the audience for handmade pots” and demonstrated her signature “dry throwing” technique. She also pressed a few of the playful ramen bowls now on display at the Craft in America Center, in Los Angeles, for an exhibit in conjunction with the episode. “They felt like appropriate forms for LA, given what a foodie city it is,” Horie told us. The exhibit closes March 11, but you can stream Horie’s episode below.
See the full post here.
Craft in America PBS series highlights Pennsylvania artists in upcoming season
By Aniya Faulcon
December 06, 2022
On The Spark Tuesday, Carol Sauvion, executive director of Craft in America, joined us to provide some insight on the show and Pennsylvania natives featured in the show’s new season, Helen Drutt English, an art historian known as the godmother of craft and Syd Carpenter, an artist who specializes on telling stories of African American culture.
Read full article and listen to the program here.
Uplifting Culture Documentaries to Binge Over Your Holiday Break
PEABODY FINDS – Peabody Awards Newsletter
December 26, 2022
‘Craft in America’ (2007-present)
Over 29 episodes since 2007, this series weaves a history of American handmade culture, exploring the artisans and techniques of craft. These stories take viewers to a diverse selection of regions and cultures and shows how craft intersects with identity, ritual, and creativity. Episodes explore jewelry-making, music and handcrafted instruments, storytellers, quilting, and craft visionaries, among other topics. This is the very definition of cozy, calm viewing that still has plenty to teach us.
Where to Watch: CraftInAmerica.org
Read full newsletter here.
Grand Marais Businesses and residents featured in PBS’ Craft in America HOME episode
by Joe Beres
December 16, 2022
Several Cook County residents and businesses will be featured in an episode of the Peabody Award-winning series Craft in America, premiering December 16 on PBS stations nationwide. The soon-to-be released episode is titled HOME, and features Hedstrom Lumber, North House Folk School, and multiple instructors and students. “Through the artists and stories represented in this episode, HOME honors the significance…
Read full article here.
How Much Watching Time Do You Have This Weekend?
by Margaret Lyons
December 15, 2022
…two hours, and I like making stuff.
The textile artist Diedrick Brackens (…) describes weaving as “the most romantic occupation I could have chosen,” and that kind of secure elation runs through this warm series.
Craft profiles artists from across the country who work in a variety of fields. This season’s entries, “Inspiration” and “Home” reflect the generational aspects of art and craft, both the how and the why of learning techniques and traditions.
Read full article here.
World-Renowned Sculptor Patrick Dougherty Retires
PRESS RELEASE December 9, 2022
Contact: Dorothy Juhlin, Executive Assistant to Patrick Dougherty
North Carolina artist Patrick Dougherty, builder of “Stickwork” sculptures around the world, is
retiring after a forty-year career. He has created over 330 monumental site-specific works, using
tree saplings as construction material. These temporary sculptures have entranced and
delighted visitors of all ages and conjured rich associations with childhood play while exploring
the relationship between architecture and art and the important role of Nature in our modern
lives.
From his earliest works, Dougherty has enjoyed bringing art to public places, where there is no
studio door to close. “Beyond the huge personal pleasure that I gain from working with the
simplest materials, I believe that a well-conceived sculpture can enliven and stir the imagination
of those who encounter it. For viewers the pleasure is elemental and beyond politics and
financial forces. I like activating public spaces and being part of the world of ideas. Sculpture has
been a transfixing and rewarding career and one that has allowed unique access to communities
across America and the world. I have harvested saplings by the truckload and made an equal
number of friends.”
Over the course of 2022, he and his son Sam created ten works at art centers, botanical gardens,
colleges, and universities. They consider these some of their very best works. For example,
The Rookery at the Chicago Botanic Garden features six tall thin towers (21 feet tall) with a
series of connecting hallways. “Using the yellow variety of willow provided by the Garden, we
were able to delineate a swirling wave to unite the hallways and towers. This wave swoops up
and down and all around to add visual excitement to the surface, and, together with golden
domes on each tower, calls to visitors to come check it out.”
The work in March, called Fly Away Home, has a footprint of three interlocking jigsaw pieces and
sprawls mazelike and whimsical.
The final “Stickwork” installation was completed on December 6 at Mounts Botanical Garden in
West Palm Beach, FL. “Fit for a King offers a mirage, a luxurious dream of a fantasy palace
placed among palms and flowering trees. Its central core has a high dome with a round window
or oculus at the highest reaches. It has a staccato of round windows high around the central
barrel and larger luxurious ones below. Its central volume has a grand feeling and can be
accessed from any one of four entry halls. I remain intrigued that Sam and I were once again able
to conjure and tease such a sculpture from the piles of small saplings which constituted our
building material. “
“2022 is my retirement year from traveling and building larger work. Sam will open a
traditional pottery in Stokes County NC. In 2023 Dorothy Bank, the heart of our operation in
Chapel Hill, will finally get a moment to herself, and I plan to produce work in my studio in
Chapel Hill, NC. I appreciate the enormous groundswell of interest in my work over the years.
Thank you. “
Patrick Dougherty
For more about Patrick Dougherty visit www.stickwork.net.
Best of 2022: The biggest art stories mattered more than soup thrown on a Van Gogh
By Christopher Knight
December 4, 2022
The concentrated institutional effort toward gender equity in art museum exhibitions continues to bear fruit. In addition to group shows like those at Pomona’s American Museum of Ceramic Art (“Breaking Ground: Women in California Clay”) and the Orange County Museum of Art (“13 Women”), a flurry of solo retrospectives of important artists marks the year. Standouts include Niki de Saint Phalle and Alexis Smith at Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Christina Fernandez at Riverside’s California Museum of Photography, Tala Madani at L.A.’s Museum of Contemporary Art, Ferne Jacobs at Craft in America, Linda Besemer at Carolyn Campagna Kleefeld Contemporary Art Museum, Rebecca Morris at Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Lezley Saar at Craft Contemporary, Barbara Kruger at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Andrea Bowers at the UCLA Hammer Museum and Imogen Cunningham and Uta Barth at the J. Paul Getty Museum. You go girl.
Read full article here
The most fun, festive holiday shows and events for this weekend
by Steven Vargas
December 7, 2022
Go out for free: The Craft in America Center is opening a new exhibit, “Inspiration & Home: Highlights From the Episodes,” which features a rare display of traditional embroidery from the Hmong diaspora. This and more pieces of art from the PBS show “Craft in America,” including ceramics and canvas wall hangings, will be part of the exhibition opening Saturday at the center in Beverly Grove. Craft in America Center is free and open from noon to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. And if you have the time, catch up on the show before attending.
Read full article here.
PBS’ ‘Craft in America’ show highlights Inverness resident, architect and environmentalist
By PJ BREMIER | pj@pjbremier.com | IJ correspondent
Dec 9, 2022
When the producers of “Craft in America,” a Peabody Award-winning documentary series that’s aired on PBS since 2007, wanted to take a look at craft artists and handmade homes in America, they made their way to the Inverness home of Sim Van der Ryn.
“We first turned to the brilliance of Wharton Esherick and then decided to look into handmade homes on the West Coast to see how they might be different from Esherick’s aesthetic,” says Jacoba Atlas, the segment’s senior advisor.
Van der Ryn intrigued them.
