Cranbrook Academy of Art

🎉 Congratulations to alum matt lambert (MFA Metalsmithing 2014) on their appointment as Programme Lead of a new one-year Masters of Design in Silversmithing and Jewellery at The Glasgow School of Art.

lambert is a non-binary, trans, multidisciplinary maker, writer, curator, and researcher whose practice spans craft, queerness, performance, and a rigorous commitment to equity and decolonisation. Their work is held in permanent collections at the Museum of Art and Design (New York), the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and institutions across Europe and Scandinavia.

On what they hope to bring to students: “I am interested in how individuals define their own success and how I can best work alongside them within the experimental space of the institution to encourage failure, work through uncertainty, and to develop ethical methods to research and communicate that best suit each individual.” ❤️❤️❤️

Read more: https://bit.ly/4vlOUYB

Cranbrook Academy of Art congratulates two alumni on being honored by the American Craft Council biennial awards in 2026.

Sonya Clark (MFA Fiber 1995) has received the Gold Medal for Consummate Craftsmanship, the ACC’s highest honor, recognizing a lifetime of achievement among the field’s most distinguished makers. Vivian Beer (MFA Metalsmithing 2004) has been inducted into the College of Fellows, the ACC’s peer-nominated recognition for outstanding contribution to American craft.

Clark’s textile practice, spanning hair, combs, beads, flags, and more, celebrates Blackness and interrogates histories of injustice in work shown across more than 350 venues worldwide. In 2023, Cranbrook Art Museum held a mid-career survey of her work, "We Are Each Other," including many community-focused projects.

Beer’s large-scale sculptures and curvilinear metal furniture, fabricated with the tools of an auto body shop, are held in collections including the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery and MFA Boston.

Cranbrook has a long history with the ACC’s most prestigious honors. Read the full story: https://cranbrookart.edu/2026/06/17/sonya-clark-and-vivian-beer-among-2026-american-craft-council-award-honorees/

Cranbrook Educational Community

Free Metalsmithing lectures at deSalle Auditorium for today's post-SNAG conference Day at Cranbrook programming start at 12:30! https://bit.ly/4uMSPNm

12:30–1:15pm: Alumni Shaping the Field
1:15–2pm: Cranbrook Metals at the Detroit Institute of Arts

Next, head to the Metals studios for "Moving Back In: A Homecoming of the Metals Department Alumni" and deSalle's upper balcony to see study objects on display from Cranbrook Art Museum.

Don't miss Cranbrook Art Museum's Main and Lower galleries for more connections across Cranbrook alumni of all departments, open pay-as-you-wish all day.

Food and drink at available at FIKA Cafe or at the Tacos Hernanadez Food Truck on the Knoll walkway near the peristyle.

📸 PD Rearick

Ever wanted to walk into a working metalsmithing studio and talk shop with the artists making the work? Here's your chance.

On Sunday, June 14, the Academy's campus opens to the public for a full day of exhibitions, lectures, and rare access to the Metalsmithing department — where alumni will be present and working.

Participating Academy alumni: Zahra Almajidi (2021), Laura Bombach (2013), Eunji Choi (2014), Emily Culver (2017), Elizabeth Dizik (2009), Sophie Eisner (2015), Rebekah Frank (2012), Tatum Gentry (2019), Susan Hoge (2008), Alissa Lamarre (2013), Shelly McMahon (2018), Edgar Mosa (2011), Seth Papac (2009), Monica Rickhoff Wilson (2026), Natalia Sarrazin (2019), Ryan Seng (2026), Adam Shirley (2010), Juvana Soliven (2016), Lara Solia (Former Exchange Student from Taller Eloi), Alberte Tranberg (2018), Vera Wei (2023), Amy Weiks (2012), Tiffany Xu (2023), Ziqi Yuan (2025).

Add in free afternoon lectures (12:30–2:15pm), pay-as-you-wish admission to Cranbrook Art Museum's galleries (11am–5pm), and the backdrop of our National Historic Landmark campus, and it's a full day worth clearing your schedule for.
Open to SNAG conference attendees and the general public. No conference badge required.

Full details: https://cranbrookart.edu/events/snag-2026/

See you Sunday. 🔨👋 🔥

📸 Throwbacks of a few participating alumni from their student days!
1: Alberte Tranberg in the Metalsmithing hot shop. PD Rearick.
2: Emily Culver in her Cranbrook studio. PD Rearick
3: Vera Wei during Second Year Reviews. Sarah C. Blanchette
4: Monica Rickhoff Wilson, GDE Book 2026 submission. Courtesy of the Artist.

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This August, shape your own series inside Cranbrook Academy of Art Metalsmithing studios with rising Second Year MFA candidates Pavonis Giron and Megan Kerr. If you take both August workshops, you'll learn techniques and materials to build a cohesive necklace and pendant/locket set, including:

◼️ A stunning, wearable pendant or locket (Pendants and Lockets Workshop)
◼️ A completed chain that can work as a necklace or bracelet (Chain Making Workshop)

Each session offers a rare opportunity to work slowly, skillfully, and with intention. Register today on our website: https://bit.ly/4dQrOlk.

Cranbrook artists are at the center of the Society of North American Goldsmiths (SNAG) Labor & Legacy conference in Detroit (June 11–13)! ⚒️ ✨

In conjunction with the conference, several public exhibitions across the city feature Cranbrook Metalsmithing alumni and students. Opening receptions happen June 10 and 12, an excellent opportunity for a gallery hop downtown!

👀 See more details for Academy artist-associated exhibitions and openings: https://bit.ly/4uMSPNm

🔸 Metal Labor: Recent Works by Alberte Tranberg + Adam Shirley at Wasserman Projects (through July 7)
🔸 VOL 1: Ryan Seng + Monica Rickhoff Wilson at (through June 28)
🔸 Neo Natal Installation by Emily Culver at Unit 1: 3583 Dubois (June 10–13)
🔸 The Poetics of Specific Labor: Portraits and Poems at Galerie Camille (through July 3)
🔸 Belts & Buckles: From One Country of North America and One Country of South America at Galerie Camille (through July 3)

👉 And if you are in town Sunday, June 14, don't miss a very special day on Cranbrook's campus in Bloomfield Hills.

Cranbrook Academy of Art is proud to celebrate alumna Akea Brionne (MFA Photography 2023) on the opening of her first solo museum exhibition, "Akea Brionne: A Dreaming Hour" at Cranbrook Art Museum (CAM) next month. This new body of work centers on a mythical forest as a site of refuge and communion.

A Detroit–based interdisciplinary artist working within Afro-Surrealism, Brionne uses AI and digital weaving to transform surreal compositions — rooted in the African Diaspora, Afro Creole culture, and personal and archival memory — into luminous, large-scale jacquard tapestries adorned with glitter, rhinestones, and oil pastels.

"A Dreaming Hour" will be open to the public from June 20 to September 6, 2026, and is the fourth installment of CAM's "Fresh Paint" series, showcasing emerging local artists. Don't miss the museum's summer season ArtMembers' opening on June 19 from 6 to 9pm.

Plus, join us for an artist talk and moderated discussion at deSalle Auditorium on July 18 at 3 pm.

Brionne is represented locally by Library Street Collective.

We're celebrating Cranbrook alumna Toshiko Horiuchi-MacAdam (MFA Fiber 1966), whose extraordinary crocheted playground installations are the subject of a new feature in The Thread by Fabrics-Store.com.

For more than five decades, Horiuchi-MacAdam has created large-scale, hand-crocheted structures in vivid color that children can climb, play in, and explore — fusing textile art, architecture, and a deeply held belief in the power of free play. A Cranbrook graduate, she later founded Interplay Design and Manufacturing in Nova Scotia, bringing these one-of-a-kind play environments to sites across Japan and beyond.

Read the full feature: https://blog.fabrics-store.com/2026/04/17/playground-art-the-colourful-crocheted-worlds-of-toshiko-horiuchi-macadam/