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JRA DAY 2021 APPLICATION AVAILABLE

8/2/2021

 
​APPLYING FOR THE 14TH ANNUAL JRA DAY
​
​Online: November 20 to 28, 2021  
In person: December 4, 2021 at the Woman's Club of Chevy Chase


We're excited to announce that applications for the 14th annual JRA Day are now being accepted and are due by August 15, 2021.

You may apply for the online show, the in-person show, or both.  Applicants are required to submit the application form and contract, a 50-100 word bio, and three photos of representative work by the deadline.  Details on the requirements for applying and the terms and conditions of participation are included in the application form.
GET THE APPLICATION HERE >
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Margaret Halpin, photo by Greg Staley

AUGUST CRAFT NEWSLETTER

8/1/2021

 
August 2021 CRAFT NEWSLETTER
CRAFT CONFERENCES & EXHIBITIONS
​COMPILED BY JRACRAFT MEMBER, BRENDA ERICKSON
​Learn about craft exhibitions happening around the world through the monthly James Renwick Alliance Newsletter or join our mailing list to get regular updates about upcoming events. 
***Due to the shutdowns and various restrictions on gathering, the exhibitions listed below are tentative and may be changed without notice.  While most of the venues are open; others have closed again for the new outbreak.  The timetables for exhibitions are still in a state of flux. If planning to visit, please call ahead to verify the events are still open or require reservations.  A small benefit is that many venues have put their shows online and added other objects to their websites which are rarely seen online or in person.  As they say, it is best to call ahead.

conferences & other events

Penland 36th Annual Benefit Auction, August 21-28
Outstanding Artist Educator; Clarence Morgan
2021 Featured Artists: Skoko Teruyama, Yoonmi Nam, James Henkel 
Penland School of Crafts, Penland, NC, www.penland.org 

23rd Annual American Pottery Festival, September 1-5
Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN, www.northernclaycenter.org ​

greater washington, dc exhibitions & events

The Global Collections of Lloyd Cotsen, August 11 – November 21
Handmade: Creating Textiles in South Asia, August 11 – April 10, 2022
Textile Museum, Washington, DC, www.museum.gwu.edu 

Forces of Nature: Renwick Invitational 2020, thru August 15
Renwick Gallery, Washington, DC, www.americanart.si.edu 
 
Let’s Dance: Jackie Braitman & Jonathan Rebailler, August 3 – November 21
1111 Gallery, Washington, DC, www.zenithgallery.com 

Kristine Mays: Weight of the World, July 13 – September 3
Hadria Mendoza & Kirsty Little: From the Earth, April 26 – July 31
Zenith Gallery, Washington, DC, www.zenithgallery.com 

Kristine Mays: Rich Soil, June 26 – January 9
The Porcelain Flowers of Vladimir Kanevsky, April 6 - September 5
Hillwood Museum, Washington, DC, www.hillwoodmuseum.org 

Industry: Past, Present, Future, August 3-29
Origins: Ancestors, Hometowns, August 31 – October 3
Potomac Fiber Arts Gallery, Alexandria, VA, www.torpedofactory.org 

A Year In, July 24 – September 8
Target Gallery, Alexandria, VA, www.torpedofactory.org 

Fiber Visions, July 20 – August 12
Susan Lapham, August 17 – September 10
McLean Textile Gallery, McLean, VA, www.themcleantextilegallery.com  

Blues, opens June 13
Cross Mackenzie Gallery, Hillsboro, VA, www.crossmackenzie.com 

6th Annual Glass National, online
Workhouse Arts Center, Lorton, VA, www.workhousearts.org 

New Work – Spring 2021
Waverly Street Gallery, Bethesda, MD, www.waverlystreetgallery.com  

Sue Wrbican, September 3 – October 17
Visarts, Rockville, MD, www.visartscenter.org  

Translations and Transitions, February 14 – November 7
Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD, www.thewalters.org 

Jenny Reed: Lorima Salter Fellow, July 10 – August 28
Baltimore Clayworks, Baltimore, MD, www.baltimoreclayworks.org 

Gee’s Bend Quilts and Civil Rights, February – August 2021
Katharina Grosse: Is It You? Thru September 21, 
Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD, www.artbma.org
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MASTERS OF THE MEDIUM

8/1/2021

 
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aNNOUNCING THE 2021 JRACRAFT MASTERS OF THE MEDIUM
The Masters of the Medium is a prestigious Biennial Award that has honored some of the most significant artists in American Craft. Each awardee is recognized for their excellence in craftsmanship, influence in the medium and overall contributions to the field. This coveted honor is celebrated at the JRACraft Week, October 21 - 30, 2021 with an auction, symposium, awards ceremony and more!
REGISTER FOR THE SYMPOSIUM
DAVID HARPER CLEMONS - JEWELRY/METAL
​David was born in El Paso, Texas and spent much of his life in Austin, Texas.  Initially he began his undergraduate career attending Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, pursuing a degree program for Biology Art.  He attended the program for two years before returning to Austin to complete his BFA at the University of Texas in Austin, with a primary emphasis in painting. He earned his MFA in Metalsmithing in 2007 from San Diego State University. David taught in the art department at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock, Arkansas for 10 years. During 8 of those years he was responsible for creating and heading the Metalsmithing and Jewelry Department. In 2018 he relocated to Penland, North Carolina to dedicate his time to be an independent artist and workshop instructor.  Much of his work embraces the craft of Metalsmithing and it’s collected history of techniques and objects. The resulting works rendered in metal, mixed media, and hand made artist books are vehicles to communicate ideas surrounding identity, narrative, and forays into material and process-based work.  He has exhibited in numerous exhibitions including: Craft in America: Expanding Traditions, Different Tempers: Jewelry & Blacksmithing, RE/ACTIONS, and has work in the permanent collection of the Arkansas Art Center in Little Rock, National Ornamental Metal Museum. Yale Contemporary Craft Museum, Ollie Trout Collection at the University of Texas in Austin. 
ARTIST BIO
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Photo courtesy the artist.

SERGEI ISUPOV - CERAMIC
Sergei Isupov is an Estonian-American sculptor internationally known for his highly detailed, narrative works. Isupov explores painterly figure-ground relationships, creating surreal sculptures with a complex artistic vocabulary that combines two- and three-dimensional narratives and animal/human hybrids. He works in ceramic using traditional hand building and sculpting techniques to combine surface and form with narrative painting using stains and clear glaze.  Isupov has a long international resume with work included in numerous collections and exhibitions, including the National Gallery of Australia, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (TX), Museum of Arts and Design (NY), Racine Art Museum (WI), Museum of Fine Arts Boston (MA), and the Erie Art Museum (PA), at which he presented selected works in a 20-year career survey Hidden Messages in 2017 and Surreal Promenade in 2019 at the Russian Museum of Art (MN). In addition to be being a working artist Isupov teaches workshops and lectures internationally at conferences, universities, museums and art centers. Important to his career have been the short and long-term artist residences at Archie Bray Foundation (Helena, MT), The International Ceramics Studio (Kecskemét, Hungary), and Guldagergaard International Ceramic Research Center (Skælskør, Denmark). 
ARTIST BIO
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Photo courtesy Ferrin Contemporary.

WENDY MARUYAMA - WOOD
Furniture maker, artist and educator Wendy Maruyama has been making innovative work for 40 years. While her early work combined ideologies of feminism and traditional craft objects, her newer work moves beyond the boundaries of traditional studio craft and into the realm of social practice. Contemporary bodies of work focuses public attention on wildlife poaching, and commentary as her experience as a Japanese-American. Maruyama is one of the first two women to receive a Masters of Fine Arts in Furniture Design at the Rochester Institute of Technology, NY and has been a professor of woodworking and furniture design for over thirty years, serving as the head of the Furniture Design department at San Diego State University. Her work can be found in the collections of Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Dallas Art Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Museum of Craft and Design, Mint Museum of Art, Fuller Craft Museum, and more. 
ARTIST BIO
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Wendy Muryama at “The wildLIFE Project” in 2016 at the Penland Gallery.

PRESTON SINGLETARY - GLASS
​The art of Preston Singletary has become synonymous with the relationship between European glass blowing traditions and Northwest Native art. His artworks feature themes of transformation, animal spirits and shamanism through elegant blown glass forms and mystical sand carved Tlingit designs. Singletary learned the art of glass blowing by working with artists in the Seattle area including Benjamin Moore and Dante Marioni. As a student and assistant, he initially focused on mastering the techniques of the European tradition. His work took him to Kosta Boda (Sweden) where he studied Scandinavian design and met his future wife. Throughout his 30+ years of glass blowing experience, he has also had opportunities to learn the secrets of the Venetian glass masters by working with Italian legends Lino Tagliapietra, Cecco Ongaro, and Pino Signoretto. In 2010, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Arts degree from the University of Puget Sound. Recognized internationally, Singletary’s artworks are included in museum collections such as The British Museum (London, UK), The Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, MA), The Seattle Art Museum (Seattle WA), the Corning Museum of Glass (Corning, NY), the Mint Museum of Art and Design (Charlotte, NC), the Heard Museum (Phoenix,  AZ), and the Smithsonian Institution (Washington, DC). 
artist bio
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Photo courtesy the artist.

CONSUELO JIMENEZ UNDERWOOD - FIBER
Consuelo Jimenez Underwood was born in Sacramento, California, the daughter of migrant agricultural workers, a Chicano mother and a father of Huichol Indian descent. Crossing borders and negotiating between three perspectives has always been fundamental to her identity and the basis of her creative process. Consuelo’s work ranges from delicate miniature tapestries to monumental fiber and mixed media installations juxtaposing the natural beauty and ecological destruction along the US/Mexico border. Consuelo has exhibited and lectured nationally and internationally for more than twenty-five years. Her work is part of the permanent collections of museums such as the Smithsonian American Museum of Art, Museum of Art & Design in New York, the National Hispanic Center for the Arts, New Mexico, the Mexican Museum in San Francisco and the Oakland Museum of California. She was awarded the 2017 Master Artist Grant from the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture and was elected to the Council of Fellows of the American Craft Council in 2018. Consuelo received her BA and MA from San Diego State University. She began teaching fiber art at San Jose State University in 1987, where she received her MFA. For more than twenty years, Underwood worked to develop a vibrant fiber program, and inspire young artists to embrace thread.
artist bio
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Photo courtesy the artist.

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JAMES RENWICK ALLIANCE FOR CRAFT | 5335 WISCONSIN AVENUE NW #440 WASHINGTON DC 20015 | ​301.907.3888 | [email protected]
  • About Us
    • Who We Are
    • Awards >
      • Spring Craft Weekend Honorees
      • Chrysalis Award >
        • Chrysalis Application
      • One-Of-A-Kind
    • Renwick Gallery Support
    • Chihuly Fund
    • Volunteer / Employment
  • Upcoming
    • JRACraft Events
    • 2025 Spring Craft Weekend
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    • Distinguished Artist Series
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    • Travel
    • Community Craft Calendar
  • Membership
    • Join Today!
    • Artist Members
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  • DONATE