Our distinguished panelists will explore the role of craft and making in these unusual times:
Glenn Adamson, Moderator
Glenn Adamson is a curator and writer who works at the intersection of craft, design history, and contemporary art. Currently Senior Scholar at the Yale Center for British Art, he has previously been Director of the Museum of Arts and Design; Head of Research at the V&A; and Curator at the Chipstone Foundation in Milwaukee.
He is the host of Design in Dialogue, a triweekly online interview series co-presented with Friedman Benda gallery. Adamson’s publications include Fewer Better Things (2019); Art in the Making (2016, co-authored with Julia Bryan-Wilson); The Invention of Craft (2013); Postmodernism: Style and Subversion (2011); The Craft Reader (2010); and Thinking Through Craft (2007). He contributes regularly to Art in America, Crafts, Disegno, frieze, the magazine Antiques, and other publications. He has also curated numerous, noted exhibits worldwide.
His book Craft: An American History will be published by Bloomsbury in early 2021.
Carol Sauvion
Carol Sauvion is an American crafts scholar and patron, and the Executive Producer and Director of the PBS documentary series “Craft in America”. Sauvion received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Art History and American Art in 1969 from Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York.
Toshi Seeger, wife of folk singer Pete Seeger, introduced her to ceramics. Soon Sauvion was producing functional porcelain and selling it at craft galleries and museum shops across the United States. In 1980, she opened Freehand Gallery in West Hollywood, California, specializing in handmade American crafts from across the United States.
In 2003, Sauvion founded Craft in America, Inc., a nonprofit organization whose video productions have won both Emmys and Peabody Awards. “Craft in America” explores America’s creative spirit and introduces viewers to diverse artists, regions, and cultures while documenting the the craft movement in the United States. Sauvion serves on the Board of Trustees of the American Craft Council, and was recognized for her decades of craft advocacy with the 2019 Distinguished Alumna Award from Manhattanville College.
Tanya Crane
Tanya Crane is a Southern California native who lives and works in Boston, Massachusetts. Crane received her MFA in Metalsmithing + Jewelry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and her BFA in Metal from the State University of New York at New Paltz. She is a Professor of the Practice in Metals at the School Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts.
Crane’s work is framed within a dual existence of prejudice and privilege, having adapted to life amongst family in both the white suburbs and the urban South Central neighborhood in Los Angeles. Crane is a recipient of the Society of Arts + Crafts Artist Award (2017), and her work was featured in a solo exhibition at the National Ornamental Metal Museum.
