The Queue

Next In The Queue Q and A with the craft community

Meet craft's movers and shakers and stay up on trends

A biweekly roundup for and by the craft community, The Queue introduces you to the artists, curators, organizers, and more featured in the current issue of American Craft. We invite these inspiring individuals to share personally about their lives and work as well as what's inspiring them right now.

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Tyrrell Tapaha weaving. Photo courtesy of Bill Hatcher.

The Queue: Tyrrell Tapaha

Tyrrell Tapaha entwines elements of agro-pastoral living and Diné weaving into dazzling textiles. In The Queue, the Flagstaff, Arizona–based sheepherder and fiber artist shares about their free-flowing process, their cherished tools, and a new exhibition on Diné textiles in Santa Fe.

Alison Elizabeth Taylor marquetry hybrid titled The Residency, 2022.

The Queue: Alison Elizabeth Taylor

Alison Elizabeth Taylor’s marquetry hybrid panels depict desert and city life in wood, paint, and collage. In The Queue, the Brooklyn-based artist shares about her process, the layered music she turns to for inspiration, and the historical painting exhibitions she’s looking forward to this fall.

Flower prototypes made with a CNC milling machine.

The Queue: Zahra Almajidi

Zahra Almajidi’s jewelry entices, then challenges, viewers and wearers. In The Queue, the Detroit-based metalsmith shares the unusual textures that drew her into the wild world of jewelry, her favorite tools, and a project that attempts to tackle jewelry’s waste problems.

John Hermanson playing a guitar.

The Queue: John Hermanson

John Hermanson of Limber Bows has crafted a new kind of hiking pole. In The Queue, the Bozeman, Montana–based maker and musician recommends his favorite handcrafted gear, describes a unique tool for his work, and tells us about the summer festivals in his hometown.

Portrait Tilke Elkins

The Queue: Tilke Elkins

For Tilke Elkins, wild pigments contain radical possibilities—for equity, for our relationship with place, and for art. In The Queue, the Oregon-based artist and founder of Wild Pigment Project shares about her first time working with wild pigments, the endless usefulness of rocks, and her favorite conversations from her newsletter Pied Midden.

So Young Park in her studio.

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.

Cynthia Lahti headshot

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 the obsessive pursuit of beauty makes for great movies.

Kiva Ford green glasses

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.

Hyunsoo Alice Kim with 2 pieces of their artwork.

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.

Juan Barroso

The Queue: Juan Barroso

Juan Barroso’s vessels carry stories of immigrant labor, both within their forms and painted on their surfaces. In The Queue, the Tennessee-based artist shares why he makes functional vessels, the delayed gratification of pottery, and his favorite artists working in clay.

Margaret Cross

The Queue: Margaret Cross

Margaret Cross’s jewelry holds memories and remains, connecting the living and the dead. In The Queue, the Brooklyn-based artist shares her emotional experiences creating mourning jewelry, the tool that has become an extension of her arm, and the death-related art projects that bring her closer to her loved ones.

A ceramic artist in a seated pose beside a sculpture on a pedestal

The Queue: Virgil Ortiz

Virgil Ortiz crafts a futuristic vision of the past with traditional Cochiti pottery. In The Queue, the Cochiti Pueblo, New Mexico–based ceramist and fashion designer shares his favorite ceramists who work on a grand scale, the science fiction series that inspires his work, and how Cochiti pottery carries tradition and history.

Douglas Molinas Lawrence

The Queue: Douglas Molinas Lawrence

Douglas Molinas Lawrence carves, chips, grinds, and scorches blocks of wood into masterful vessels. In The Queue, the Knoxville, Tennessee–based woodworker tells us about his favorite woodworking tools, a Japanese tsubo vessel artist, and an inspiring craft institution close to his home.
Suzye Ogawa

The Queue: Suzye Ogawa

Suzye Ogawa’s small bronze baskets hold big stories—of Japanese American culture, basketry traditions around the world, and the abundance of fibers in nature. In The Queue, the Fort Bragg, California–based metal artist shares her favorite jewelers, the special tools that make her work possible, and the appeal of unknown craft artists.
Portrait of ceramicist Alana Cuellar in studio

The Queue: Alana Cuellar

Alana Cuellar has lived her entire life immersed in craft. In The Queue, the St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin–based ceramist shares the relationship between pottery and cooking in her life, where she gets ideas for her work, and the craft projects she’s excited to see come to fruition.
Portrait of Margo Roberts

The Queue: Margo Roberts

For Margo Roberts, craft is at the heart of her work as the co-owner of Hotel Alma and creative director of Alma Apothecary. In The Queue, she shares her favorite scent for winter, why she has brought so many craftspeople into the hotel, and whom she would trust to decorate her home.
Portrait of Kyungmin Park

The Queue: Kyungmin Park

Kyungmin Park connects us to childlike wonder in her powerful porcelain sculptures. In The Queue, the Massachusetts-based ceramist shares how travel informs her work, the importance of storytelling in her practice, and the organizations that sustain craft.
Daniel Michalik

The Queue: Daniel Michalik

Daniel Michalik has cork on the brain. In The Queue, the Brooklyn-based furniture designer and professor shares his vision for a cork home, his studies of cork forests in Portugal, and his favorite artists who have incorporated cork into their practices.
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