SATURDAY, APRIL 25|10:00AM - 12:30PM |Free and open to the public |
Kick off Spring Craft Weekend with a free, welcoming symposium featuring presentations and conversation with JRACraft’s 2026 Honorees: Piper Shepard, Winnie Owens-Hart, Keke Cribbs, Thomas Loeser, and Bruce Pepich. Come for fresh perspectives, compelling stories, and the chance to experience contemporary craft as both living practice and cultural history.
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SATURDAY, APRIL 25 | 6:00PM - 9:00PM | TICKETS $295 |
The Celebration is the “party” of Spring Craft Weekend: festive, social, and full of making-in-action. Enjoy cocktails and heavy hors d’oeuvres, mingle in MOCA Arlington’s galleries, bid on our “masterful miniatures,” and watch artist demos that bring craft’s magic up close.
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sunday, april 26 | 11:30am - 2:30pm | Tickets $195 |
Enjoy the camaraderie of lunching with JRACraft members and their guests. Meet with the 2026 JRACraft Honorees, and hear more about their impact on the craft world. This is our moment of recognition and gratitude—celebrating honorees while thanking JRACraft Caucus Members and Spring Craft Weekend Patrons for making our work possible.
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piper shepard For several decades, Piper Shepard has cut cloth into lace-like filigree patterns, sometimes regimented in structure and other times akin to freehand drawing. The central concept for her work is ‘the ethereal textile’. In both her architecturally sited projects and studio pieces, she conjures sources such as lace, open work textiles, botanical imagery, and remnants of pattern and ornament. Her method is informed equally by the qualities of cloth—among them, the physical tolerance of the material itself—and the rich domain where cloth intersects with its own place in history and memory.
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winnie owens-hart Winnie Owens-Hart is a ceramicist, educator, filmmaker, and author specializing in ceramics and culture. She earned her BA from the Philadelphia College of Art and her MFA from Howard University, where she later taught ceramics for over 37 years. In 1977, she represented the United States at FESTAC in Lagos, Nigeria, and later apprenticed with Indigenous potters in Ipetumodu, becoming part of the pottery community.
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bruce w. pepich Bruce W. Pepich is the former Executive Director and Curator of Collections of the Racine Art Museum (RAM) and the Charles A. Wustum Museum of Fine Arts. During 51 years on staff, he led the museum through a series of strategic initiatives, beginning in 1981, that achieved regional and then national attention for the institution. RAM is now regarded as one of the nation’s leading centers for contemporary craft, with the permanent collection growing from 326 pieces to over 14,000 works in that time.
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tom loeser Tom Loeser served as head of the wood/furniture area at UW-Madison from 1991 until 2020. He holds a BA from Haverford College, a BFA from Boston University’s Program in Artisanry and an MFA from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Loeser designs and builds one-of-a-kind functional and dysfunctional objects that are often carved and painted and always based on the history of design and object-making as a starting point for developing new form and meaning.
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keke cribbs As a glass artist with a career spanning over 51 years, KeKe Cribbs has had time to hone her craft to the ultimate height of technical perfection while retaining curiosity and conceptual intention.Her artwork is influenced by the places she has lived. The desert lands of the Southwest, which still have deep cultural roots for her, and architecture, threaded through with the experiences of living in old European villages with winding cobble streets, heavy iron locks and hinges on old wooden doors. There is a sense of mystery and adventure sewn with magic in her work; new lands with old stories.
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For this year's Celebration Fundraiser we are proud to present the Masterful Miniatures auction. Featuring exceptional small-scale works by outstanding makers, this curated selection celebrates big ideas in compact form—perfect for collectors, gift-givers, and anyone who loves the power of craft in miniature.
Proceeds support JRACraft’s year-round programs and help make our community of craft education, access, and inspiration possible. |
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