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Craft Happenings: Summer 2023

Make craft part of your summer plans with these 25 events and exhibitions happening across the country, organized by the month in which they start.
The Ceramist and the Superheroes

When dug out of the earth, the clay at Cochiti Pueblo, New Mexico, appears reddish brown, the chunks like dusted chocolate truffles. Virgil Ortiz, who was born and lives in this community of the Cochiti people, situated between the cities that Spanish colonizers named Albuquerque and Santa Fe, has been digging into this rich earth since his childhood.

Adventure Craft

For most of human history, we lived, worked, and played outdoors. But over the past century or so, we’ve come to spend less time outside and more time in—over 90 percent of our day, by some estimates. A quarter of Americans never leave the house at all during the day.
The Queue: So Young Park

So Young Park looks to nature for inspiration for her wild, exuberant jewelry. In The Queue, the metalsmith, who recently returned home to South Korea after many years in the US, shares about her creative process, how her tools bring joy to her practice, and some new techniques and materials she hopes to incorporate into her work.
Wild Style

Wild Style. Brie Ruais works fast, separating a hunk of clay that weighs as much as she does into slashes and craters, decorating it with handprints and smudges.
Painting with Wood

Marquetry hybrid is a synthesis of painting, collage, photography, and wood veneer marquetry on panel. It is a slow and painstaking process. Hours of tedium are gobbled up; days drip away into weeks, months. Often work must be thrown out and attempted again when something doesn’t go right due to technical or aesthetic challenges.
The Queue: Cynthia Lahti

In Kelly Reichardt’s new film, Showing Up, Cynthia Lahti’s figurative sculptures steal the show. In this special edition of The Queue, we spoke to Portland, Oregon–based Lahti about how she became involved in the film, what she taught star Michelle Williams about ceramics, and how obsessive pursuit of beauty makes for great movies.
Vessels of the ACC Library Collection

The American Craft Council Library holds tens of thousands of volumes, nearly 600 linear feet of processed archival materials, and thousands of artist files. But did you know the library also holds an object collection?
Spirals Take You Somewhere

A complex and elegant vessel-inspired sculpture, Nautilus, 2006, is made from shimmering micaceous clay. Built from a single coil, the piece is hollow in its center and exhibits the singular style of its maker, the late Diné artist Christine Nofchissey McHorse.
The Queue: Kiva Ford

Kiva Ford’s eye-popping sculptures and precise scientific implements are masterpieces in glass. In The Queue, the South Bend, Indiana–based glass artist talks about his education in glassblowing, the challenges and puzzles of assembling complex sculptures in a fragile medium, and a tool that makes it possible.
Best Buds

Best buds. Encountering the first flowers to emerge in spring can feel like meeting up with delightful old friends. We offer this selection of bud vases as a way to showcase spring’s tulips and daffodils, a simple bloom picked off a neighbor’s bush (we won’t tell!), or even a favorite dried flower that has sat by the radiator all winter keeping you company.
Remembering: Alphonse Mattia

Studio furniture maker, educator, and ACC Fellow Alphonse Mattia died on April 10, 2023.. He broke free from the traditional rules of furniture making which he viewed as too rigid, and is credited with leading a new generation of furniture making into the conceptual realm.
Potteryland

The St. Croix River, which forms part of the border between Minnesota and Wisconsin, is stunning with its towering rocky banks, forests, and lush green hills.
The Queue: Hyunsoo Alice Kim

Hyunsoo Alice Kim weaves innovative materials—many of her own design—into traditional Korean forms. In The Queue, the Seoul- and New York–based artist, researcher, educator, and designer talks about a historic Korean hat, how technological tools enable her practice, and her work with digital fabrication.