Fuller Craft Museum will reopen Tuesday, March 2, 2021. Virtual programming is available.
December 19, 2020 – May 30, 2021
Click here and link to a dropbox full of images.
Press release to come.
Particle & Wave: PaperClay Illuminated is sponsored by the Caroline R. Graboys Fund.
Susan O’Byrne, Sheep, 2018. Porcelain, Paperclay. 26″ x 15″ x 26″
Shiyuan Xu, Blue Vein #8, 2018. Colored Porcelain, Paperclay, Glaze. 15″ × 8″ × 15″
Angela Mellor, Unfurled Light, 2018. Bone China, Paperclay. 13.5″ x 13.75″ x 8″
A Summary of Current and Upcoming Exhibitions as of January 2020
Click here for a pdf of exhibition descriptions with thumbnail images.
High resolution images are available via dropbox link below for some exhibitions.
For more high res images, please email communications@fullercraft.org
Tending the Fires: Recent Acquisitions in Clay
August 17, 2019 – May 23, 2020
Lampos Gallery
Tending the Fires: Recent Acquisitions in Clay presents recent additions to Fuller Craft’s ceramic collection. Exhibited works represent a range of processes and conceptual approaches in clay, from Cheryl Ann Thomas’s slumped, coiled sculpture to Jun Kaneko’s painterly “dango” to Steven Young Lee’s deconstructed pot. Figuration also comes into play, with strong examples by Patti Warashina, Akio Takamori, and Tip Toland. Fuller Craft Museum is proud to shine a light on the clay triumphs of these renowned ceramicists while proudly displaying the institution’s recent collecting achievements. Click here for images.
Striking Gold: Fuller at Fifty
September 7, 2019 – April 5, 2020
Stone and Barstow Galleries
In honor of its esteemed fifty-year history, Fuller Craft presents the exhibition Striking Gold: Fuller at Fifty. This invitational exhibition marks the institution’s “golden anniversary” by exploring the storied traditions, modern interpretations, and conceptual rigor of gold as an artistic material. Among the exhibition themes to be explored are avarice, vanity, power, consumption, ecology, divinity, cultural measures, alchemy, artifice, and transformation. Exhibited works will include craft media as well as fine art mediums to reflect Fuller Craft’s dual histories as both a fine art and craft museum. Curated by Fuller Craft Artistic Director and Chief Curator Beth McLaughlin, and art historian Suzanne Ramljak. Click here for images.
Human Impact: Stories of the Opioid Epidemic
September 28, 2019 – May 3, 2020
M. Tarlow Gallery
Artistic expression has long been an effective vehicle to explore critical societal issues and engage communities. Human Impact: Stories of the Opioid Epidemic aims to broaden awareness of the opioid epidemic and its ruinous effect, while offering messages of hope, resiliency, and recovery. Eleven artists working in a range of media were selected to participate in the immersive project by creating new works inspired by conversations with those deeply impacted by the substance use crisis. Click here for images.
Elliott Kayser: Year of the Pig
January 15, 2020 – January 2022
Outdoor Grounds
In 2019, the City of Boston presented Elliott Kayser’s Year of the Pig on the Rose Kennedy Greenway to celebrate the Chinese Zodiac Year of the Pig. The public art installation consisted of eight ceramic swine hidden along the length of The Greenway, leading pedestrians on a treasure hunt towards Chinatown. With the sculptures, Kayser hopes to reconnect people to a shared agricultural heritage and promote sustained environmental, economic, and community health. The Fuller Craft installation exhibits six of the original eight pigs, bringing them together in a new home.
Stephanie Cole: Secular Cathedral
January 25 – October 25, 2020
D. Tarlow Gallery
Stephanie Cole: Secular Cathedral offers an intimate view into an artist’s life through richly detailed, found object constructions. Working in a range of media – mosaic, stained glass, wood, fiber – Cole, 75, creates autobiographical artworks that are joyful and exuberant, yet poignant and introspective. The forms come alive with layers of deeply personal items collected by Cole over seven decades. From the minute to the monumental, these affecting bits and pieces symbolize the many phases of Cole’s life and the complex arc of her spiritual journey. Themes explored include family, the Earth, special milestones, identity, grief and love. Click here for images.
James Grashow: The Great Monkey Project
February 15 — September 13, 2020
Atrium Gallery
Imagine a riotous mob of monkeys, gleefully taking up residence above your heads. That’s just what you’ll find at Fuller Craft Museum’s exhibition The Great Monkey Project. Created by Connecticut artist James Grashow, this site-specific installation includes eighty life-size monkeys made entirely out or cardboard. The artist transforms the gallery into a whimsical theatre of simian forms as he elevates a throw-away material into the best kind of monkey business. Click here for images.
2020 Biennial Members Exhibition
February 8 – November 8, 2020
Community Gallery
The 2020 Biennial Members Exhibition celebrates the diversity of talents in the museum’s membership base. This biennial exhibition is an important opportunity for young, mid-career, and veteran artists to exhibit their work to the Fuller Craft Museum community. Artists both inside and outside of New England have participated in the past, showcasing stunning works of ceramics, glassware, furniture, textiles, basketry, woodturning, jewelry, and other craft-based media. In the past, the opening reception for this exhibition has been particularly successful at bringing together communities of artists who are vital to the Fuller Craft Museum mission. The juror for the 2020 Biennial Members Exhibition is Emily Zaiden, Director and Curator of the Craft in America Center in Los Angeles, California, where she has curated more than forty exhibitions focused on contemporary craft, art, and design for the Center and outside venues. Click here for images.
Serious Bling: Radical Jewelry Makeover––The Artist Project
February 15 – April 5, 2020
Keith Gallery
Radical Jewelry Makeover (RJM) is a global recycling project that spotlights gold mining’s devastating impacts and the criticality of sustainable jewelry making practices. Serious Bling presents adornments by The Artist Project, an RJM offshoot that provides opportunities for professional artists to engage with RJM by creating a series of work using their donated jewelry. Through their participation, featured artists encourage honest conversations about the difficulties facing jewelers who strive for ethical studio practices that curtail damage to the environment and human health. Click here for images.
Another Crossing: Artists Revisit the Mayflower Voyage
May 3 – September 20, 2020
Stone, Barstow, and Keith Galleries
Another Crossing: Artists Revisit the Mayflower Voyage is an international exhibition recognizing the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower crossing and its significance to American and world history. The project brings together ten artists from the United States and Europe with the challenge to use only seventeenth century technology and processes in their works. The global, cross-cultural effort includes two research trips––one to Plymouth, England and the other to Plymouth, Massachusetts––to inform the artworks’ production. Curated by craft scholar Glenn Adamson, Another Crossing is organized in partnership with the U.K.’s Plymouth College of Art and The Box (formerly the Plymouth History Centre). Click here for images.
Making History: The Art of 17th Century Boatbuilding
May 30 – November 29, 2020
M. Tarlow Gallery
Peter Arenstam, former Captain of the Mayflower II and current director of the Jabez Howland House in Plymouth, MA will work onsite at Fuller Craft to build a 13’ replica of a 17th-Century merchant sailing vessel, using traditional methods. Making History: The Art of 17th Century Boatbuilding is programmed in conjunction with the 400th anniversary of the 1620 Mayflower crossing and will feature period shipbuilding tools, related historic objects, and educational content.
Michelle Samour: Mapping Borders and Boundaries
September 26, 2020 – March 21, 2021
Atrium Gallery
Mapping Borders and Boundaries is a series of works by Michelle Samour that appeals to the artist’s ancestral past as a means of further engaging in the politico-geographic concepts of homeland, exile, and diaspora. Through cartographical repetition and reflection, Samour maps the historical (dis)possession of Palestine, ultimately decimating borders, boundaries and territorial constructs into geometric abstraction. The work critically investigates the meaning of shape/land/form within the guise of traditional Palestinian craft, including the vibrant colors of textiles and opulent Mother-of-Pearl carving.
Particle & Wave: PaperClay Illuminated
October 17, 2020 – April 11, 2021
Stone and Barstow Galleries
Particle & Wave: PaperClay Illuminated is a groundbreaking exhibition featuring 45 artists from across the globe who are redefining the potential of the ceramic arts and representing a commitment to their craft. Paper clay, sometimes referred to as fiber clay, is any clay body to which processed cellulose fiber (paper being the most common) has been added. This traveling exhibit provides historical information about the evolution of paper clay as an artistic medium as well as showcases the amazing diversity of form and expression that exists in today’s growing global community of paper clay artists.
Current and Upcoming Exhibitions (as of May 2019)
Click here for a pdf version with thumbnail images.
High resolution images provided upon request.
Mano-Made: New Expression in Craft by Latino Artists
December 15, 2018 – September 8, 2019
M. Tarlow Gallery
This exhibition features the work of three individual artists—Jaime Guerrero, Gerardo Monterrubio, and Consuelo Jimenez Underwood—who use craft media to articulate messages about American culture, personal experiences, Latino identity, and the ever-mutating socio-political tensions that exist between Mexico and Southern California as a whole. Mano-Made originally made its debut at Los Angeles’s Craft in America Center as three consecutive solo exhibitions by the Mexican-Californian craft pioneers. Fuller Craft Museum’s presentation exhibits all three artists together for the first time. Mano-Made was curated by Emily Zaiden, Craft in America Center Director in conjunction with the Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA initiative.
Elizabeth Potenza: “Look up,” she said, “there is more color than you ever imagined.”
January 12 – November 21, 2019
Atrium Gallery
“Look up,” she said, “there is more color than you ever imagined” is an installation of three formations of clear textured glass domes that refract shifting illuminations of color, programmed to slowly shift through an array of tones reminiscent of clouds moving through a blue sky. Every so often an interruption of bright colors ricochets through the matrix of domes, disrupting the meditative pace of the work and infusing it with the excitement of the unexpected.
Fertile Ground: Hilltown 6 and the Asparagus Valley Pottery Trail
April 13 – June 30, 2019
Community Gallery
Fertile Ground: Hilltown 6 and the Asparagus Valley Pottery Trail features work from the principle potters of the Asparagus Valley Pottery Trail and Hilltown 6, two groups of renowned ceramic artists working in Western Massachusetts. This region of the Bay State is rich in agricultural history and cultural vitality, with longstanding connections between pottery, food, and community that inform the ceramic practice of the represented artists.
Rooted, Revived, Reinvented: Basketry in America
May 18 – August 11, 2019
Stone and Barstow Galleries
Rooted, Revived, Reinvented: Basketry in America is a traveling exhibition organized by the National Basketry Organization in partnership with the University of Missouri to visually chronicle the history of American basketry— from its origins in Native American, immigrant, and slave communities, to its presence within the contemporary fine art world. Divided into five sections—Cultural Origins, New Basketry, Living Traditions, Basket as Vessel, and Beyond the Basket—the baskets in this exhibition convey meaning and interpret American life through the artists’ choices of materials; the techniques and forms they select; and the colors, designs, patterns, and textures they employ.
Maine Crafts Association: Ten Years of Master Craft Artists
June 8 – October 27, 2019
D. Tarlow Gallery
Fuller Craft Museum is pleased to partner with the Maine Crafts Association to celebrate the 10th anniversary of its Master Craft Artist award. This prestigious honor is bestowed upon select Maine craft artists each year in recognition of an exceptional body of work. Presenting a wide range of media, the exhibition features all 16 Artist Award winners, including Patricia Daunis-Dunning, David Wolfe, Christian Becksvoort, J. Fred Woell, Lissa Hunter, Katharine Cobey, Jacques Vesery, Lynn Duryea, Theresa Secord, Sharon Townsend, Sam Shaw, Rebecca Goodale, Elizabeth Busch, Anna Hepler, Steve Cayard, and Paul Heroux.
Take it Outside: Works from the Boston Sculptors Gallery
June 8 – October 27, 2019
Fuller Craft Museum Grounds
Just as Fuller Craft Museum was founded as an arts institution for southeastern Massachusetts, the Boston Sculptors Gallery was established to fill the void for New England sculptors to showcase their work to audiences of downtown Boston. In the juried exhibition, Take it Outside, current artists represented by BSG showcase their exquisite works of ceramic, metal, stone, and other media throughout Fuller Craft Museum’s exterior spaces and outdoor surroundings.
Brockton Youth Creates Biennial
July 20 – October 6, 2019
Community Gallery
Brockton Youth Creates Biennial shines a light on the work of art students within the Brockton Public School system. Showcasing a selection of work from children in grades 6 – 12, the project also honors the efforts of the dedicated arts educators and school administrators whose tireless efforts have made these vibrant and meaningful expressions possible.
Tending the Fires: Recent Acquisitions in Clay
August 17, 2019 – Ongoing
Lampos Gallery Tending the Fires: Recent Acquisitions in Clay presents recent additions to Fuller Craft’s ceramic collection. Exhibited works represent a range of processes and conceptual approaches in clay, from Cheryl Ann Thomas’s slumped, coiled sculpture to Jun Kaneko’s painterly “dango” to Steven Young Lee’s deconstructed pot. Figuration also comes into play, with strong examples by Patti Warashina, Akio Takamori, and Tip Toland. Fuller Craft Museum is proud to shine a light on the clay triumphs of these renowned ceramicists while proudly displaying the institution’s recent collecting achievements.
Striking Gold: Fuller at Fifty
September 7, 2019 – April 5, 2020
Stone and Barstow Galleries
In honor of its esteemed fifty-year history, Fuller Craft presents the exhibition Striking Gold: Fuller at Fifty. This invitational exhibition marks the institution’s “golden anniversary” by exploring the storied traditions, modern interpretations, and conceptual rigor of gold as an artistic material. Among the exhibition themes to be explored are avarice, vanity, power, consumption, ecology, divinity, cultural measures, alchemy, artifice, and transformation. Exhibited works will include craft media as well as fine art mediums to reflect Fuller Craft’s dual histories as both a fine art and craft museum. Curated by Fuller Craft Chief Curator Beth McLaughlin and art historian Suzanne Ramljak. Among the exhibition themes to be explored are avarice, vanity, consumption, environmental consequences, power, divinity, cultural and social measures, alchemy, artifice, transformation, and the body. Exhibited works will include craft media as well as fine art mediums to fully reflect Fuller Craft’s dual histories as both a fine art institution and a craft museum.
Human Impact: Stories of the Opioid Epidemic
September 28, 2019 – May 3, 2020
M. Tarlow Gallery
Artistic expression has long been an effective vehicle to explore critical societal issues and engage communities. Human Impact: Stories of the Opioid Epidemic aims to broaden awareness of the opioid epidemic and its ruinous effect, while offering messages of hope, resiliency, and recovery. Eleven artists working in a range of media were selected to participate in the immersive project by creating new works inspired by conversations with those deeply impacted by the substance use crisis.
Social Justice Sewing Academy
October 19, 2019 – January 19, 2020
Community Gallery
Based out of Antioch, California—and founded in 2017—the Social Justice Sewing Academy (SJSA) is a youth education program that promotes creative expression and social justice dialogue through the means of textile art. Quilts from SJSA have been showcased in exhibitions across the United States, and Fuller Craft Museum is proud to host a selection of these magnificent works, quilts of both aesthetic fascination and powerful content—reflecting on an even larger scale the recent rise of craftivism and the current state of fiber art in the U.S.
Another Crossing: Artists Revisit the Mayflower Voyage
May 2 – August 30, 2020
Stone, Barstow, and Keith Galleries
Another Crossing: Artists Revisit the Mayflower Voyage is an international exhibition recognizing the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower crossing and its significance to American and world history. The project brings together ten artists from the United States and Europe with the challenge to use only seventeenth century technology and processes in their works. The global, cross-cultural effort includes two research trips—one to Plymouth, England and the other to Plymouth, Massachusetts—to inform the artworks’ production. Curated by craft scholar Glenn Adamson, Another Crossing is organized in partnership with the U.K.’s Plymouth College of Art and The Box (formerly the Plymouth History Centre).
Press Release: Local Museum Security Takes Customer Service Seriously
Click here for a dropbox link to download the image above.
Image Courtesy of Fuller Craft Museum: Security Supervisor Michael Mayers (back row, yellow shirt) surrounded by security team members (clockwise): Jean Charles Dufaut, Bill Hartley, Nepthalif Jupiter, Psumi Howard, and Ralphy Coutard.
Local Museum Security Team Takes Customer Service Seriously
Brockton, MA—
“Our role as security in a cultural property setting is to preserve and protect the objects in the Museum’s collection and galleries while also assuring a safe and secure environment for our staff and visitors. Our security team, just as importantly, plays a critical role in the visitor experience. As a public space, we value creating an inviting and inclusive environment focused on sharing art as an experience while delivering high quality customer service.”
–Michael Mayers, Security Supervisor, Fuller Craft Museum
Often when we speak of the “stewards” of a Museum, we talk about the Board of the Directors, Curators, and other Senior staff––people charged with carrying out the mission of the Museum. However, more often than not, the people who implement that mission day-to-day and influence a visitor’s experience the most are museum employees who work in security and guest services. They have the most direct interaction with the Museum visitor, second only to the powerful presence of the art work. Security guards, the people at the admissions desk, the gift shop, the docents, tours guides– they can shape not only our experience of seeing art, but also what we think and feel about being in specific Museums, about being in Museum spaces in general.
Fuller Craft Museum’s Security Supervisor Michael Mayers knows this dynamic well. He brings a new approach to museum security that is rooted in customer service. His team brings a different kind of energy and focus to their work that takes into account the visitor’s experience. In an age of increasingly diverse audiences and a time when Museums strive to remain relevant, cultural centers where people may gather publicly to experience visual art, the potential impact of each visitor’s experience is much too valuable to leave to chance. Enter the new stewards.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Titi Ngwenya (508) 588-6000 x118, tngwenya@fullercraft.org
(Brockton, Mass.) Fuller Craft Museum, New England’s home for contemporary craft
Museum Hours: Tuesday – Sunday 10:00 am – 5:00 pm, Thursday 5:00 – 9:00 pm
Click here to read or download the Fuller Craft Museum Strategic Plan 2017 – 2022.
On the eve of the 50th anniversary of its foundation (1969), Fuller Craft Museum is proud to share its vision for the next five years. Our new strategic plan is built upon the values of integrity, innovation, inclusivity, excellence, collaboration, connection, and wonder. As the result of a 10-month intensive process, the new plan identifies the mission and vision of Fuller Craft, laying out a foundation of four key core goals: advance the field, expand our audience, engage the community, and sustain our resources.
“The journey in developing our Strategic Plan not only brought us back to the roots of our museum and need for community connection, but also challenged us to explore the limits of where Contemporary Craft can go—a defining moment in our own history.”
– Interim Director, Denise Lebica
As we aspire to be the nexus of contemporary craft, our new strategic plan will guide the Museum in all its endeavors, ultimately preparing us for another 50 years.
This new vision and mission leading Fuller Craft Museum into the future is the work of a dedicated Strategic Plan Committee led by Ed Krent, artist and museum design professional. We are so very grateful for their vision and commitment to this project.
About Fuller Craft Museum
Fuller Craft Museum, New England’s only museum of contemporary craft, is dedicated to the
objects, ideas, and insights that inspire both patrons and artists to explore life through the art
of contemporary craft. Fuller Craft Museum is located at 455 Oak St. in Brockton, MA. The
Museum is open Tuesday through Sunday, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm, with free admission for all
Thursdays from 5:00 – 9:00 pm. Admission is $10 adults, $8 seniors and $5 students, free for
members and children 12 and under and Brockton residents. For more information on Fuller Craft exhibitions and
events please visit www.fullercraft.org or call 508.588.6000.
Fuller Craft Museum, New England’s home for contemporary craft.
4 New Pottery Wheels
A Brand New Kiln
New Dip Glazes
New High Fire Clay Bodies
Exciting Upgrades to Our Ceramic Studio!
Thanks to a generous contribution from the Joan Pearson Watkins Estate, Fuller Craft Museum made several key upgrades to the Ceramics Studio. These improvements will foster a richer, more productive learning experience for our students. We have four brand new pottery wheels for a total of eight, so more people can register for each class. We have a brand new kiln, which allows us to move work through faster than before. We have new dip glazes, a new high fire, clay body, a new sink, a pug mill, and fantastic instructors.
June 22, 2019 – October 27, 2019
Reception: Saturday, June 22, 2019, 4:00 – 7:00 pm
Press Release for Take It Outside: Works from the Boston Sculptors Gallery
Click the image below and a version will appear in a new window for download.
Nora Valdez, Motherhood, 2015. Indiana Limestone. 60″ x 24″ x 18″
Jodi Colella, Reliquery, 2013. My mothers objects, bronze paint, patina, wax, silicone. 32″ x 36″ x 50″
Leslie Wilcox, Barkmoor, 2015. Stainless Steel, Screen, clear lacquer. 144” x 72” x 72”
Murray Dewart, Blue Pulse, 2017. Aluminum, aircraft epoxy paint. 8 feet high
May 18 – August 11, 2019
Opening Reception: Saturday, May 18, 4:00 – 7:00 pm, featuring a 4:00 pm Curatorial Lecture with Josephine Stealey, and Kristin Schwain.
Press Release for Rooted, Revived, Reinvented: Basketry in America
Click the image below and a version will appear in a new window for download.
Leon Niehues, Emery Cloth Bird, 2015. 3-M emery cloth, white oak, brass and stainless machine screws, 20″ x 14″ x 14″ Photo Credit: Joe Johnson.
Biba Schutz, Charlotte Russe, 2010. Bronze, copper, steel. 11″ x 10″ x 10″ Photo Credit: Joe Johnson.
Karyl Sisson, Mixing Bowls, 2003. Vintage cloth tape measures, polymer.
A: 3.125″ x 4.375″ x 4.375″; B: 2.375″ x 2.25″ x 2.25″; C: 1.75″ x 2″ x 2″ Photo Credit: Joe Johnson.
Marvin S. Peter (Inupiak), Baleen Basket with Walrus head Carving, 1961. Baleen, ivory. A: 2″ x 4″ x 4″ (lid), B: 2″ x 4″ x 4″ (body) Photo Credit: Joe Johnson.
Aaron Yakim, Oval ‘Jesse-style’ Melon Basket, 1996. Hand-split white oak. 8.5″ x 11.5″ x 9.5″ Photo Credit: Joe Johnson.
Dear Colleagues in the press,
Please make note of these guidelines for writing about specific terms relating to Fuller Craft Museum and the contemporary craft field. Thank you.
When referring to the Museum:
Use “Fuller Craft Museum”
Never use “the Fuller Craft Museum”
Use “Fuller Craft”
Never use “the Fuller” or “Fuller”
Never use “FCM”
When writing about the field of contemporary craft, please do not use the following misleading or imprecise terms:
arts and crafts
crafting
crafty
craftwork
craft-based art
Use the word “exhibition” and not “exhibit”
June 23 – October 21, 2018
Opening Reception, Sunday, July 15, 2:00 – 5:00 pm
Press Release for Grounds for Play: Sculptures That Excite the Imagination
Click the image below and a version will appear in a new window for download. For additional images, please contact Titi Ngwenya at tngwenya@fullercraft.org
Photos From Fuller Craft Museum Installation
Shawn Farrell, Cogs. Steel, paint. 36″ x 60″ x 40″ Photo by Caitlyn Joyce.
Stacy Latt Savage, Swarm, 2018. Mixed media. 60″ x 54″ x 54″ Photo by Caitlyn Joyce.
Madeleine Lord, Sheepish, 2017. Welded scrap steel. 33″ x 43″ x 18″; 20″ x 24″ x 13″ Photo by Caitlyn Joyce.
Linda Hoffman, Just Sitting, 2018. Stone and bronze. Photo by Caitlyn Joyce.
Philip Marshall, Metro, 2015. Steel, pigment. 96″ x 60″ x 60″ Photo by Caitlyn Joyce.
Representative Photos From Other Sites
Michael Alfano, Cubed. Pigmented resin, variable, 48″x 48″ x 48”
Madeleine Lord, Rocker (detail), 2017. Welded scrap steel, 72 x 30 x 20”
