Subscribe to our Craft Dispatch e-newsletter to stay looped in to all things craft! Sign Up ×
Advertisement

Winter 2023

Winter 2023

Inhabit

Cover of the Winter 2023 issue of American Craft magazine

American Craft magazine celebrates the diversity of American craft and its makers. From the handmade that we use in our homes every day to the fine craft honored in museums, we cover inspiring craft being made today. We also showcase craft organizations making a difference in their communities, thought leadership in the field, and the importance of craft in contemporary American culture.

Join / Subscribe

From the Editor

Inhabit. I was once fortunate enough to spend a summer building a log cabin with my family. With the help of skilled tradespeople, my parents, brother, sister, and I raised this structure in northern Minnesota and provisioned it with handmade items, such as rugs, lamps, kitchen towels, birdhouses, and a beloved ceramic frog, bought in small towns nearby.

My family no longer has this cabin, where we loved to play board games and sit by the campfire. Yet I still think of it as one of the most important dwelling places of my soul. It was a space filled with tangible expressions of the vision and labor of my family and of people nearby, a space we inhabited together.

As we head into winter—a time when many move indoors, close to the objects we keep and the people we love—American Craft takes an expansive look at the theme inhabit. In these pages you’ll find the work of furniture and household object makers whose designs and materials make homes more inviting. That includes Daniel Michalik, whose cork and wood chair graces the cover. You’ll discover hotels where you can experience craft. And you’ll learn about furniture makers and other artists who are furnishing new tiny homes for those experiencing housing insecurity.

A handcrafted checkerboard by Mattie Hinkley

A handcrafted checkerboard by Mattie Hinkley. Photo by Dani Padgett.

Essays explore what living with objects over time taught a writer about being human, why an artist and architect says it’s important to fully inhabit her body and mind in order to create, and how craft has the capacity to rebuild the world.

In my mind, to inhabit is to expand into and feel held by a space. It involves being present and feeling accepted. I hope everyone reading this has experienced that feeling at some point in their lives.

I’m also delighted to let you know about two talented editors who have joined the staff of American Craft: Senior Editor Jennifer Vogel and Assistant Editor Shivaun Watchorn. Together, we’re working hard to bring you meaningful stories about powerful craft.

karen signature

KAREN OLSON / Editor in Chief

American Craft Council publishes American Craft magazine on a quarterly basis but reserves the right to change the number of issues in an annual term, including discontinuing any format and substituting and/or modifying the manner in which the subscription is distributed.

Feature Articles

Making History

The living room of craft artist and educator Karen Collins’s Compton, California, home is stacked with the dioramas she has constructed over the past 27 years.

The Objects We Keep

People talk to their laptops, name their cars, invest meaning into such ordinary things as a particular baseball cap or coffee mug. It is a fact of life that we have relationships with all sorts of inanimate objects.

The Table That Dreamed

The day I spoke with Reynold Rodriguez, Hurricane Fiona had just descended on Puerto Rico, leaving in its wake dangerous floods and extensive blackouts. “Emotionally, it’s a lot, to have to go back to something very similar to Maria,” says Rodriguez, a furniture designer based in San Juan, recalling the catastrophic storm of 2017.

Standing in the Room Together

When visitors to The Clay Studio in Philadelphia enter the Figuring Space exhibition, they’ll encounter a sort of community in clay—a gathering of life-size human figures.

Domestic Bliss

Mattie Hinkley’s work is a mesmerizing mix of the fantastical and the practical. They delight in the mash-up of flat, functional surfaces and woozy shapes that evoke body parts and dreams—especially when it comes to the objects they put in their home.

Buoyant and Bold

In Daniel Michalik’s hands, cork—harvested from live trees—becomes a versatile and exceptionally beautiful medium.

Craft Stays

Whether you’re looking to take classes or inhabit a well-curated guest room, these hotels provide a tangible connection to craft and place.

More from This Issue

Curated living rooms space

Come In, Sit Down.

Wood sculptor Ido Yoshimoto’s Inverness, California, cabin exudes comfort and welcome. When Yoshimoto, godson of legendary sculptor J.B. Blunk, acquired the 1980s-era structure, it was abandoned and in rough shape.
Weaving

Craft Happenings: Winter 2022

Winter is around the corner, and the colder weather makes indoor activities more appealing. Why not be inside at these craft events?! Here are 20 exhibitions, festivals, and more happening across the country to help fill out your calendar, organized by the month in which they start.
woman crouching in studio working on art piece

Internalized Landscapes

A queer Nigerian American artist and architect reflects on how inhabiting mind, body, space, and Yoruba cosmology informs her practice.
children holding up hand woven chairs in front of blue house

Turning Houses into Homes

A collaboration of furniture makers, artists, and students is helping to make Asheville’s BeLoved Village feel like home.
Advertisement