A Summary of Current and Upcoming Exhibitions as of January 2019
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Shana Novak: Memory Keeper
April 14, 2018 – April 9, 2019
Café
Shana Novak, a photographer and insightful creative, recognizes how deeply personal artifacts define us, and reflect our nature to seek connection through the physical world. Her commissioned portraits are realized through elaborate photo shoots, each artfully produced to evoke the object’s essence. Her creative process begins with the stories behind each item—including memories, relationships, and experiences. Then using strategic lighting, and inspired positioning, Novak conjures the heirloom’s true spirit and captures it on film to preserve for generations to come. Shana Novak works under the moniker The Heirloomist out of her New York City studio.
Uneasy Beauty: Discomfort in Contemporary Adornment
October 6, 2018 – April 21, 2019
Stone and Barstow Galleries
Uneasy Beauty: Discomfort in Contemporary Adornment brings together 75 examples of contemporary jewelry and costume that demonstrate the immense power of adornment to impact us physically, emotionally, and intellectually. Showcasing wearable work in various media from regional and national artists, the exhibition explores the outer limits of comfort through works that constrict body movement, irritate the skin, make extreme demands, or touch sensitive culture nerves. Uneasy Beauty is curated by Suzanne Ramljak, an art historian, writer, curator, and former editor of Metalsmith magazine.
Context: Language, Media, and Meaning from the Surface Design Association
October 27, 2018 – February 24, 2019
Community Gallery
Context is a juried exhibition of work created by members of the Surface Design Association Massachusetts & Rhode Island chapter and the Connecticut chapter. This collaborative project explores traditional, nontraditional, and contemporary practices of incorporating written language in textile-inspired art and design. Context is juried by Bruce D. Hoffman, an independent curator, artist, writer, educator, and director of Gravers Lane Gallery in Philadelphia.
Felt: Fiber Transformed
November 17, 2018 – May 12, 2019
Keith Gallery
The artists in Felt: Fiber Transformed use fundamental felting techniques to create the diverse contemporary works in this exhibition. Drawing on selected pieces from the print exhibition in Fiber Art Now—a publication of the Fiber Art Network—six contemporary artists offer an exciting look at work in the medium of felt today. This exhibition was curated by Noelle Foye, Director Emerita at the New Bedford Art Museum, as well as a freelance writer, arts consultant, and former Education Director at Fuller Craft Museum. Artists in the exhibition include Eva Camacho-Sanchez, Lisa J. Hinrichs, Lee Johnson, Shelley Jones, Teasy Shiruo Sun, and Kiyoshi Mino.
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.
Tom Kiefer: El Sueño Americano – The American Dream
January 26 – July 28, 2019
Lampos Gallery
Fuller Craft Museum presents the powerful work of photographer Tom Kiefer and his series, El Sueño Americano – The American Dream. This powerful body of work features the confiscated belongings of migrants apprehended near a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol facility in southern Arizona. Images of personal effects deemed “non-essential” or “potentially lethal” by Border Patrol agents evoke the humanity and struggle of the refugees who are willing to risk their lives searching for a better life in America.
Welcome Blanket
January 26 – February 17, 2019
Great Room
Welcome Blanket is a participatory, global initiative created by Los Angeles-based artist/designer Jayna Zweiman. Zweiman—who gained national prominence as the co-founder of the Pussyhat Project—organized this effort as a way to reimagine President Trump’s proposed border wall as a space for handcrafted blankets. Once made and collected, the blankets are distributed through immigration organizations, refugee resettlement agencies, and other community-based groups. Fuller Craft Museum is honored to host the Welcome Blanket exhibition, featuring a selection of works that were previously on view at the Smart Museum in Chicago.
Donna Dodson: Zodiac
February 2 – May 19, 2019
D. Tarlow Gallery
This lively exhibition presents acclaimed woodworker Donna Dodson’s two sculptural series referencing animal characters associated with the Chinese and Western zodiacs. With such charming creatures as a lion, a bull, a ram, a penguin, a beaver, and a falcon, Dodson’s carved wood menagerie is sure to delight and inspire audiences of all ages.
SMARTS: Southeastern Massachusetts Arts Collaborative
March 9, 2019 – March 24, 2019
Community Gallery
Recognized across the Commonwealth since 1986, the Southeastern Massachusetts Arts Collaborative, better known as SMARTS, is a year round nonprofit organization dedicated to the arts and creativity. The SMARTS Middle School Touring Art Exhibit was initiated by the SMARTS Collaborative in 1993 to provide middle school teachers an opportunity to show their students’ work to each other and to the community at large.
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
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 22-acre outdoor surroundings.
Brockton Youth Creates Biennial
July 20 – October 6th, 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.
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.
Human Impact: Stories of the Opioid Epidemic
September 28, 2019 – March 15, 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 this immersive project. After meeting with impacted families, the makers create new works inspired by the conversations and additional information about the crisis.
Social Justice Sewing Academy
October 26, 2019 – January 26, 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.