Handwork 2026: 250 years of craft in the United States of America

Garland Magazine
6/4/26

Handwork 2026 is the most ambitious celebration of USA craft in a generation, built around the country’s semiquincentennial and running throughout the year across all 50 states and Puerto Rico. Organised by Craft in America in partnership with the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, it brings together more than 280 organisations through exhibitions, residencies, education programmes and public events.

The centrepiece is a four-part documentary series produced by the team behind the Peabody Award-winning PBS series Craft in America. The first two episodes, East and West, premiered on PBS on 19 December 2025 and are now streaming free. East follows makers including Philadelphia potter Roberto Lugo, fibre artist Bisa Butler, and the century-old M&S Schmalberg fabric flower factory in New York. West moves across cowboy arts, Hawaiian indigenous weaving practice and Native American handwork, featuring bootmaker Graham Ebner in Austin and Native Hawaiian fibre artist Marques Hanalei Marzan in Honolulu. Both episodes are available on the Craft in America YouTube channel. North and South premiere in late 2026.

The initiative culminates in November with the opening of Handwork: Contemporary Craft at the Renwick Gallery, featuring more than 100 works from the Smithsonian’s permanent collection alongside new acquisitions including pieces by Angela Ellsworth, Ato Ribeiro and Roberto Benavidez. A companion book, Handwork: Handcrafted Objects That Made America, is published by Phaidon.

Original article here.