Center for Craft

2026 Windgate–Lamar Fellow Ellyse Egan is an interdisciplinary artist based in Portland, Oregon, whose practice spans drawing, sculpture, and photography.

Grounded in craft-based processes and material investigation, Egan creates steel sculptures through industrial metalworking techniques such as MIG welding and sanding. Her work explores time, memory, and the physical traces of life, with visible marks serving as evidence of labor, care, and process.

Working with steel as both a structural and expressive material, Egan creates minimal, abstract forms that examine what is preserved and transformed through making. In dialogue with her drawing and photographic work, her sculptures reflect an interest in ephemerality, documentation, and material tradition.



Learn more: https://www.centerforcraft.org/recipient/ellyse-egan

We're excited to announce the 2026 Virginia A. Groot Material Exploration Residents!

This eight-week residency brings together four artists for a period of focused exploration, connection, and growth at the Center for Craft. Designed to support material experimentation, the residency provides time, space, resources, and a $10,000 honorarium for each resident to investigate new materials and expand their artistic practice. During their time in Asheville residents will partner with regional craft organizations to deepen knowledge of their chosen materials.

Please help us congratulate this year's residents:
✨ Lauren Grossman (Seattle)
✨ Kwadwo Som-Pimpong (Clyde, North Carolina)
✨ Kitty Wales (Belfast, Maine)
✨ Sarita Westrup (Burnsville, North Carolina)

Join us on July 23 from 5:30–7 pm for an Open House, where you'll have the opportunity to meet the residents, learn about their projects, and see what materials they've been exploring.

Learn more: https://www.centerforcraft.org/research-initiatives/virginia-a-groot-material-exploration-residency

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Image: Lauren Grossman, “She-ass,” 2024, ceramic, glaze, steel, paint, artificial sinew, ink, 39 × 31 × 13 in. Photo credit: Masao Everett.

We’re excited to announce the 2026 Virginia A. Groot Material Exploration Residents!

This eight-week residency brings together four artists for a period of focused exploration, connection, and growth at the Center for Craft. Designed to support material experimentation, the residency provides time, space, resources, and a $10,000 honorarium for each resident to investigate new materials and expand their artistic practice. During their time in Asheville residents will partner with regional craft organizations to deepen knowledge of their chosen materials.

Please help us congratulate this year’s residents:
✨ Lauren Grossman (Seattle)
✨ Kwadwo Som-Pimpong (Clyde, North Carolina)
✨ Kitty Wales (Belfast, Maine)
✨ Sarita Westrup (Burnsville, North Carolina)

Join us on July 23 from 5:30–7 pm for an Open House, where you’ll have the opportunity to meet the residents, learn about their projects, and see what materials they’ve been exploring.

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Image: Lauren Grossman, “She-ass,” 2024, ceramic, glaze, steel, paint, artificial sinew, ink, 39 × 31 × 13 in. Photo credit: Masao Everett.

2026 Windgate–Lamar Fellow Summer Escaño Aquino is a transdisciplinary artist from the Philippines, currently based in Alfred, New York, where they work in ceramics.

Their practice moves between functional objects, performance, public art, and site-responsive installation—grounded in an interest in how material and touch can give form to complex, poetic ideas. Through clay, Aquino explores the relationship between the infinite and the subtleties of personal sensation, using craft to bring these connections into tangible form.

Aquino’s work has been presented at Kunsthaus Salzwedel (Germany), the Power Station (Dallas), and Turner Gallery (Alfred, New York), and published by the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Nasher Sculpture Center magazine, and others. They are the recipient of the Dallas Museum of Art’s Kimbrough Artist Award, a Haystack Mountain School of Crafts Fellowship, and the NCECA Regina Brown Fellowship.

https://www.centerforcraft.org/recipient/summer-escano-aquino

Thank you so much to and for hosting us at their studios on our recent trip to Philadelphia!!! What an incredible glimpse into their ideas and processes—and a real treat to get to experience up close the work we have admired from afar. The Philly craft community was so welcoming and generous in showing us around. We cannot wait to come back!

More than 25,000 digital assets from the American Craft Council (ACC) Library and Archives Collection are now available through our new Community Library and Archives landing page on the Center for Craft website.

This open-access resource includes thousands of images, documents, and media—including 70 years of Craft Horizons and American Craft magazines, along with photographs, catalogs, and files documenting six decades of ACC conferences, exhibitions, and fairs.

Explore the collection and learn more about our new Community Library and Archives, opening in Asheville in 2028.

https://www.centerforcraft.org/library

Center for Craft in Philadelphia! ✨

Thank you to the Clay Studio in Philadelphia for hosting our recent panel discussion, Teaching Artists as Time Benders. The conversation featured recent Teaching Artist Cohort grant recipients Sophie Glenn, George Rodriguez, Samantha Jacobs, and Amy Lemaire, and was moderated by our Craft Education Fellow Leia Lewis. Together, the artists discussed the ins and outs of maintaining their own creative practices while also teaching, what it means to build up a community of learners, and the value of letting craft knowledge be free.

While we were in town, we were also honored to celebrate Fleur Bresler as she nears her 100th birthday as a thank you for her extraordinary contributions to craft philanthropy. Thank you to the Museum in Art in Wood and to everyone who came together in recognition of Fleur's lifelong commitment to collecting, supporting, and living with craft. From early experiences in her family’s jewelry store to building one of the most significant personal collections of craft in the United States, her relationship to material culture continues to shape the field in lasting ways.

We’re hiring a Grantmaking Manager!

This position leads the day-to-day ex*****on of the Center for Craft’s grantmaking portfolio, supporting funding initiatives that serve artists, researchers, curators, and organizations nationwide.

We’re looking for a highly organized, systems-oriented project manager who can oversee complex workflows with clarity, precision, and care while helping strengthen the future of mission-driven grantmaking at the Center.

The position is full-time, with a time limited term (24 months).

Application deadline: June 1, 2026.

Apply: https://www.centerforcraft.org/news/now-hiring-grantmaking-manager

We’re excited to share that 2026 Curatorial Fellow Alyssa Velazquez is featured on the Clever podcast!

In this episode, Alyssa reflects on her path to curatorial work—from a foundation in theater and performance to her interdisciplinary role today—and discusses her exhibition Craft-itarianism: Community Action Through Craft, currently on view at the Center for Craft.

The conversation explores how craft can distribute resources, generate opportunity, and create meaningful connections, particularly for at-risk and marginalized communities. Drawing on her work at Carnegie Museum of Art and beyond, Alyssa highlights how making can function as a tool for social change—through approaches like job training, art therapy, and social enterprise.

Listen to the full episode to learn more about Alyssa’s practice and the ideas shaping Craft-itarianism:
https://www.cleverpodcast.com/blog/alyssa-velazquez-curator-craft-itarianism

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Alyssa Velazquez's Teacher Residency at Carnegie Museum of Art. Photo courtesy of Carnegie Museum of Art