Craft News
James Renwick Alliance 2010 Spring Craft Weekend, April 23-25
The preparations for the JRA gala Spring Craft Weekend are going at full speed. A special treat for our Patron members will be a dinner on Friday, April 23 at the Long View Gallery in Washington, DC, which will be catered by the celebrity chef, Carla Hall. The theme for the evening will be the circus, complete with performers and palm readers.
After the dinner, the JRA will hold a silent auction, which is open to the public for $50. Anyone, present or not, may bid on the items, which will be listed on the website. After dinner guests will be served beverages and dessert.
All the events are open to the public and tickets may be purchased from the JRA administrative office. One event, a symposium on Saturday, April 24 is free. Other events include Caucus Day, a live auction, dinners at the hone of private collectors, and a Sunday brunch to honor the Distinguished Craft Educators.
2010 Distinguished Craft Educator Awards
Randy Johnston, Large Jar
Anagama natural ash glaze
stoneware
15 ¾ x 13 x 13"
During Spring Craft Weekend in April, the JRA will present Distinguished Craft Educator Awards to Mark Sfirri, woodturner, Yoshiko Wada, fiber artist and textile historian, and Randy Johnston, ceramist. The award recognizes the crucial role of craft education in training artists in the techniques of their media, in grounding students to the contributions of their artistic predecessors, and in developing artistic vision. All three artists will participant in the symposium How Craft Makes Its Way into the World on Saturday, April 24. Formal awards and illustrated lectures by the artists will take place at the JRA Sunday brunch on April 25.
One of the benefits of membership in the James Renwick Alliance is the opportunity to participate in craft study tours, which include visits to collectors’ homes, artist studios, art galleries, and museums. In 2010, the JRA has three upcoming tours:
- March 19-20: Alliance Craft Study Tour to Philadelphia and environs in concert with Fiber Philadelphia and the 2010 NCECA Conference (Ceramic),
- May 5-13: Caucus Leaders Study Tour to Ireland with an option for Collect 2010 in London,
- October 8-10: Alliance Craft Study Tour to Kansas City, MO in honor of the 125th anniversary of the Kansas City Art Institute.
All tours are open to current, new, or renewing members.
Wendy Maruyama and Mira Nakashima and the Tag Project: Executive Order 9066
The next event in the James Renwick Alliance Distinguished Artist Series pairs furniture artists Wendy Maruyama from San Diego, California with Mira Nakashima from New Hope, Pennsylvania. They will showcase not only their individual work, but their friendship based in part on their shared heritage as Japanese-Americans who have been deeply affected by the experience of the Internment Camps during the Second World War.
Mira Nakashima-Yarnall, daughter of woodworker George Nakashima spent the earliest years of her life with her family in the Minidoka detention camp. In recent years Wendy Maruyama has been deeply affected by her growing awareness and study of the Internment camps to which all Japanese Americans were relocated during the Second World War. That awareness has informed both her current furniture work, and her interest in making others aware of this unfortunate period in American history through the TAG Project.
The event includes a workshop on April 10th, a lecture at the Renwick Gallery on April 11, with an opportunity to participate in Wendy’s Tag Project. These artists and their work are being presented in concert with the upcoming exhibition The Art of Gaman: Arts & Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946 at the Renwick Gallery.
Nicholas Bell, Curator of Contemporary Craft and Decorative Arts
The Smithsonian American Art Museum has named Nicholas Bell as the curator of contemporary craft and decorative arts. He had served as a curatorial associate at the Renwick Gallery since 2008. Bell received his B.A. from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia and his master’s degree from the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture at the University of Delaware. His new assignments include serving as curator for the exhibitions: A Revolution in Wood: The Bresler Collection and Renwick Craft Invitational 2011. Many of the members have enjoyed meeting him and look forward to a long and productive association.