Welcome everyone.
And thank you for coming to our second future insight talk.
Very excited to have this conversation around stewardship and legacy
today.
I would like to go ahead and thank those who made this top
possible.
The guest presenters, of course.
We couldn't do this without their support.And they are at re sharing their expertise.Live captions provided by Rev.com. For 99% accurate post-meeting transcripts and captions, visit Rev.com.
So staff who's been amazingly supportive of me and marketing andthe it side of everything.So I think it's really important that we always thank the staff and
all the work that they do to make these.Talks possible.The Wingate charitable foundation who helped us fund this.
And because we will get an opportunity for you all to actually engage
in the, with the presenters and breakout rooms,
you all also are able to make this top possible.
So thank you so much for being here.
I'd like to take a moment to recognize the land that ACC occupies.
ACC recognizes and acknowledges the traumas of institutional and
structural racism.
And exclusionary practices in the craft sector and is committed to
working toward a more inclusive, just an equitable world.
ACC has committed to amplifying and telling more inclusive narratives
that reflect the diverse, cultural, and social makeup of America.
Our headquarters are located in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Residing on the traditional ancestral and contemporary lands,
the Dakota people.
Land seated in the treaties of 1837 in 1851 and
land partitioned by peer, but no son.
Of the Ojibwe woman and French Voyager in the 19th century.
The Minneapolis and St.
Paul metropolitan area is home to one of the largest and most tribally
diverse urban American Indian populations.
Numbering well over 35,000.
The native community of Minneapolis is comprised of many nations.
The largest being the Dakota who's culturally,
his history begins at the confluence.
Of the Minnesota and the Mississippi rivers,
which is a sacred place that is called the [unknown].
[Unknown] and the O G boy whose homelands extend northward from the
city.
ACC resides in the land that was cared for and called home by the O G
way people.
Before then the Dakota and the Northern Cheyenne people and other
native peoples from time immemorial.
This land holds great historical,
spiritual and personal significance for its original stewards,
the native nations and peoples of this region.
We recognize and continually support and advocate for their
sovereignty of the native nations in this territory and beyond.
By offering this land acknowledgement. We affirm tribal sovereignty.
And we will work to hold the American craft council accountable to
American Indian peoples and its nations.
The American craft council connects and galvanizes diverse craft
communities to advance craft's impact and contemporary American life.
ECCs initiatives have evolved over time and through the pandemic.
There are four pillars that frame our strategies.
The first pillar is public voice for craft.
Serving as the nexus of information,
ECC is a content producer in the national network builder.
Broading audit,
building broader audiences who participate in and support craft.
Our second pillar is stewardship and legacy,
which happens to be the focus of today's conversation.
In stewardship and legacy,
we document and preserve generational knowledge.
And support new research and scholarship in the field.
Our third talk will be around our third pillar creative economies.
Creative economies we believe is investing in makers and their
entrepreneurial efforts so that they can fully live creative and
sustainable lives.
And what went throughout all three of these talks is our fourth
pillar, which is social impact and community.
ACC believes in investing in and supporting the diverse ways that
craft impacts communities and culture, the humanity it evokes,
and the future. It is creating.
The exhibition, crafting America, curated by Jen Padgett,
associate curator at the crystal bridges museum of American art.
In Glenn Adamson, who is guest curator and scholar.
Defines on their walls. What is craft?
The term was defined as.
Kraft is a simple or complex as you want to make it.
In its essence, craft is skilled making on a human scale.
For the sake of these conversations,
we will be discussing craft with this definition in mind.
Eat your insights.
Our interactive talks with the audience and our to initiate
conversations around specific topics,
allowing the craft community to both learn from others and ideate
ways, both ECC.
And other craft focused organizations and individuals can support
makers. As we strive to understand a post pandemic world,
create equity in the field and understand the new economy.
Future insight talks will allow us to listen to craft communities and
their needs.
Develop solutions and implement and innovate new ways and new
ideas for support.
Live captions provided by Rev.com. For 99% accurate post-meeting transcripts and captions, visit Rev.com.For today and welcome.Thank you.
Quinn, I should share my screen screen now. Yes. Yes.Okay.Well, it's nice to be here. Thank you, Gwen.
And the American craft council.For this opportunity.Gwen.
Gave me a very nice open introduction,
but I wanted to talk a little bit about how I got to this work.
My work with legacy documentation.
Began in 1993, which was the era of American craft,
the national museum of women in the arts hosted a.
Conference that was titled women and craft.
And I.
Unbeknownst to me, this was really my very beginning of my research.
I was presenting on craft leaders in my region, including.
Olive Campbell who founded the John Campbell folk school, Lucy Morgan,
who founded the Penland school of craft Clem Douglas,
who founded the spinning wheel, which is no longer existing.
Charlotte Yale.
Eleanor Vance who founded Biltmore industries.
And several others.
That.
Just launched me on this path.
So because I was working on this craft arrival in
both North Carolina, but.
My research focused on Kentucky, Virginia.
And some of West Virginia,
but this position I took at Western Carolina university
was very much interested in the craft revival as it took place
in Western North Carolina.
So.
This.
We turn that off.
Okay. This project.
Which was a four-year project.
Multi-institutional created a database of 5,000 items
with multiple interpretive essays.
And several online resources, including a bibliography lesson plans,
glossaries and links to a national
organizations.
So the, I'm not sure how many of you know,
how these digital databases work.
There are often for.
For the ones that I've done, it's a.
There's the database that runs behind.
This website and the website is a portal into the database.
So there's actually two very different.
Technical products.
So we divided the craft arrival.
A story into the story, the crafts, the people and the collections.
So the story was about.
The historic craft institutions that sprung up.
Beginning in the late 1890s and we cut off in
1945.
So the cutoff of 1945 was very specific because obviously
world war II.
But 1945 was also the year that the American craft council was
founded.
And so this is the story of the more disparate craft.
Movements that were going on before the formation of the American
craft council.
Each of the, so you can see there's a dropdown box.
We were focusing on the historic
institutions that primarily taught craft or promoted craft.
This is an example of Penland school of craft history.
And then navigation bar here shows you others.
Besides the very lengthy discussion.
One of the very interesting functions of these
projects. These digital databases is that you can flip
between the.
Web portal, which is in the front and the database, which is behind.
And by clicking, for example,
if you clicked on this weaving Institute brochure from 1935,
you would be able to then read that brochure.
The crafts was a section that described the history context and a
little bit of information on technique.
On a variety of traditional crafts.
And you'll see my work probably of the whole group is most
focused on tradition being that, you know,
this is the early 20th century.
So you can see the variety of crafts that we covered.
Also because weaving played a prominent role.
There is a very robust weaving index.
That identifies over 30 traditional weaving patterns.
So this was a piece that is in one of our partner collections
or description here. The, this pattern.
And then a pullout of what the pattern
itself look like.
The people includes in-depth biographies of those who
contributed to the craft revival and also makers.
So each of these is a dropdown box with basket weavers Brasstown
carvers Cherokee, carvers.
And what I tried to use.
The language of the time and of the time.
These people call themselves mountain workers because all of this took
place in the Appalachian mountains.
Whether it was as far north of Kentucky and all the way down into
Western North Carolina.
Here's an example of what,
one of those essays, the biographies of.
With these mountain workers. This is Doris Allman.
Allman was neither a maker nor a craft promoter.
She was a photographer, but her work was so.
Much of a foundation of what we have to
see how these people.
Looked and worked. And her work is throughout the,
the database.
So I wanted to throw out a little digital pitfall that we ran
into right there in the beginning.
We submitted a press release to the Asheville citizen times.
And low and behold the photograph, the copyrighted photograph,
I might say that we submitted was offered up
on mugs and t-shirts et cetera.
We had to close that down right away, as you can imagine.
So the people included lots of Cherokee
people where I live is less than an hour from the Qualla boundary,
which is the land of.
Eastern band of Cherokee.
We had so many Cherokee artisans that we split that off into its
own.
Database and website.
So this is Cherokee traditions from the hands of our elders.
We organize this in a similar way, arts and crafts language,
different entry portals.
The Cherokee traditions,
people page has a large number of
biographies and several videos that we have.
That were contributed by Western Carolinas mountain heritage center.
The arts and crafts section allows one to choose a craft and artisan.
And then for example,
I'm going to sort of pretend that I clicked on basketry.
And this actually well illustrates the difference
between the,
the web front page and the database that's functioning behind all of
this.
So the digital.
I'm sorry.
The digital collections database.
Includes numerous collections.
You can see some of them listed on the left and one can search.
Solely in one collection or search across the collections,
which makes for some very nice.
We had some very nice serendipitous.
Occurrences where we would have in Kuala arts and
crafts.
Mutual, which is a Cherokee Guild. For example,
have photographs to baskets.
And the Southern Highland craft Guild had photographs.
Of.
Those same people making the baskets.
And so we were able to pull these stories together into
one.
Large database.
We worked very closely with the Cherokee to vet objects.
To include a watermark on the images and to restrict
proprietary knowledge and by restricting proprietary knowledge,
what I mean is.
There are sacred things that.
These charities share among themselves that are not to be shared with
outsiders. And we had to restrict.
Those from being put on the database.
This project did receive a great recognition.
It received the outstanding project award from the association of
tribal archives, libraries and museums.
I'm just going to end and talk briefly about a contemporary project.
And the two that I mentioned are kind of in a maintenance mode.
Those were built from 2005 up
until 2015.
The blue Ridge craft trails only began a few years ago.
It is a project that is focused on contemporary
craft.
In 25 Western North Carolina counties.
And it's an economic development project.
That has created a curated drivable.
Crash trails to connect.
Makers to outside markets with goals to enhance
cultural tourism, increase income, and improve local economies.
So that's available@blueridgecrafttrails.com.
I neglected to mention that.
For the others.
You can go in through Western Carolina university's website,
but.
Are there. They barely, they come up.
If you Google Kraft revival or Cherokee traditions.
So you can see this project is sponsored by an organized
by the blue Ridge national heritage area.
It is, has created a number of trails,
heritage trails and music trails. And this is the craft trails.
Here are those 25 counties.
These are basically the mountain counties of Western North Carolina.
We've divided them into smaller regions. I live here in the far west.
To access the artists and galleries in that
region,
you would click in this little box and it's your dropdown box and you
would select town.
And it would show you who is in that town.
Another search avenue is to select
a craft.
And that would take you to all of say the basket makers in
this 25 county region.
Just as an example of what, once you make that click,
where you go,
we have almost 300 artists and galleries up online
already.
Each has a profile page that includes photographs.
Descriptions.
If this were an individual craft maker,
it would have some history of that person, a little biography.
The direct contact, contact information,
which is all listed here and a map.
And if one were to click on, get directions.
It will actually make a Google map from wherever your
location is to.
To the site.
And that's the end of my presentation.
I look forward to talking with some of you in the breakout room.
Great.
Thank you so much.
We'll be putting links.
In the chat that pertain to what everyone's talking about.
So I already put a link in the chat.
For the craft revival.
Digital archives.
I will also be sharing with you a link for the blue Ridge national
heritage area.
In the chat here in a moment as well.
So just kind of keep your eyes feel for that too.
If you're looking for those links as each guest presenters talking
about a specific area that they work within.
I will be including those in the chat for you all.
So Anna.
Thank you so much for introducing those to us.
And angelic, I'd like to invite you to turn your camera on, please.
Great.
So Angelica.
[Unknown] the Blaine is a New York.
And Los Angeles based curator writer and arts administrator of
contemporary art and craft.
She serves as the assistant curator at the museum of arts and design.
Or mad.
Maybe you may know it in New York city.
Vince Kuranda also curates exhibitions independently.
She is the co-creator and co-host of the podcast, Clayton color.
And to hold an Emmy and the history of decorative arts design and
material culture from the Bard graduate center. So Angelica welcome.
Our conversation.
Thank you. Thanks for the invitation. It's.
For those who don't know Matt and the craft council.
I have a long history.
So it's always good to be able to bring both into institutions
together for different events and things.
I'm going to get started here, but my.
In the way.
This is me.
I wanted to get started with actually how I got into craft.
So this is Nithya child in Puerto Rico.
I've always been very artsy and crafty.
But I, I guess growing up, I never really thought that I,
it was something that I was going to pursue.
Many, I think this, a lot of people go through the thing with.
Your parents kind of encourage you to be a doctor, a lawyer.
But so eventually my parents moved.
Moved us out to Orlando, Florida.
Right. Did high school.
And I went to undergrad.
I went to the university of Florida and originally I thought I was
going to be a scientist.
I really liked science too. But while I was there,
I realized that I did not,
I did not want to work in a lab for the rest of my life and it just
kind of randomly,
I ended up taking an art history class and loving it.
So it went from my minor to my major when I switched.
In that process. I, when I became an art history major,
I took this class on decorative arts.
Which at the time I had no idea what that meant.
But here are two examples of things that we talked about and you said
it allowed us to play policy play.
They're ceramic.
I got super fascinated with the material and just the idea that
this one.
Surviving update could tell so much about a P a group of
people or culture or an individual.
And at the same time I was taking actual surroundings making classes,
and I've never thought of myself as an artist. That's not what I am,
but I really did enjoy working with the material as well.
So basically I go hug.
And I decided that I wanted to continue to sort of specialize my
studies on ceramics for grad school.
I went through the bark brothers center.
And the upper west side in New York.
And this is a picture of me in their study room,
which they have a ton of objects that you can go and sort of play with
and then study them, things like that.
And while I was there originally,
I was focusing on European decorative arts,
especially things like porcelain, for example, like SAF.
Or my sin.
But as life was, have it eventually there were no classes,
every level and that in my second year, and it just so happened.
I went to this show at the Yale art gallery, treating bicycle,
Liam Miller called the new ceramic precedence in modern art.
In this show.
It's really important to me because I got to see.
Basically combined the art history that I learned in undergrad,
which was always just paintings, paintings, paintings, paintings.
And then being able to see ceramic works in there
in the same sort of storyline. And that was really important to me.
And from there, I decided to switch to modern contemporary ceramics.
Especially American.
I work with kind of everybody,
but American ceramics have been my focus since then.
And actually, while I was in grad school,
I did an internship at the museum of arts.
Mad.
And I helped in that internship to do an audit of the collection.
So basically I went object by object stating sort of
stats like demographics.
What year was collected,
what year it's from so that they could then create the curatorial
staff here at the time.
To create a collection strategy.
And that was a very important audit.
It told us a lot about the collection.
The collection right now has about 3,100, a.
A little over 3,100.
And the great majority of it,
our surroundings are that's the largest holding of optics that we
have. And I'll talk a little bit more about that in a second.
So, this is my role. I'm mad.
Like I said,
I started as an intern and I was a part-time project manager,
then a full-time project manager and so on and so on.
And I made my way up to assistant curator now.
In this role.
Well, actually,
before I get to talking about what I do specifically here,
I went to discuss what I think the role of a curator is,
which to me has three components. One has been a storyteller.
I think.
Our job as curators. It's not just putting stuff,
just putting optics out there and saying here's some like cute things
to look at. I think there's a little, there's more to that.
I think we need to provide context.
And hopefully we're able to sort of walk an audience through why this
optic matters or why we're showing this work.
Then being an ally of artists, especially I think in my role.
In terms of product management.
Before I got to my role as assistant curator,
I I'm always that person who's talking to the artists,
what are your needs?
How can we accurately reflect what your intention
was?
Or when I'm writing a label,
making sure that what I write is actually what the artist wants to say
with their work, things like that.
I still feel like I'm the person in the room that everybody's talking
about different things. And I'm like raising my hand.
Like what about the artists?
So I feel like it's a big part of being a curator.
And then last week community building,
I feel like the other two categories kind of come together to then
establish that community building that we can do through programs or
just through the,
our accessibility in the way that we were conveying the story.
And some objectives of how I personally like curating.
I like to prioritize and amplify the voices and concerns of bipolar.
Artists. And that's not to say, I only work with bike buyback.
Buyback artists. So that's not true.
But.
It's just a big, big thing in my personal sort of ethos.
Highlighting a diversity of means of expression. And to me,
that's why, you know, craft has been marginalized for so many years.
I want to put out there how important it is.
I think it's craft is actually very versatile for me.
The definition of craft goes way beyond skill making.
I think it's a methodology.
I think at times it can be a feeling it's a concept.
So I I'm trying to sort of.
Underscore how important craft and craft materials and methodologies
are.
Then also establishing accessible and safe spaces to talk current
events.
Community develop platforms that support artists, and then also again,
create opportunities for community engagement.
And this is,
these are some examples of some shows that I've worked on.
I've worked on over 20 shows while I've been at mad.
I kind of seen it all at this point.
But this is an example of a solo show I worked on with Tanya.
Who is an LEBS art is mostly working five-year,
but she kind of works with all kinds of mediums that from Tierra
encounters on the border, which was a show that focuses on jewelry.
In response to the issues with the U S Mexico border.
Surface depth, the decorative after me or Shapiro,
which was curated by our current chief curator, at least an author.
And got to work with her on the show and it was kind of life-changing
for me, it was very impactful show for me.
We got to combine historical work and historical work of fearing
Shapiro.
But contemporary work,
maybe you'll recognize that the front we have the work of
Jeffrey Gibson.
And on the far, right.
We have a piece by Sanford Biggers that we were able to acquire into
the collection.
And so part of my job is because I specialist in ceramics is proposing
acquisitions for the collection.
Especially focusing on ceramics.
So something that we discovered in that audit is that a
66% of our surroundings holding our by white men.
That's probably not surprising to most people who are familiar with
craft or really.
The art world in general.
And so when it came time for me to come up with a collecting strategy,
I decided to focus solely on.
Our artists of color on women and members of the LGBTQ community.
So these are two examples of recent acquisitions.
I've been able to usher into the collection.
But it's it's I think it's very important.
To also bring the young voices into the collection.
A lot of the work that we have is from sort of early on in our
establishment. So things from like the fifties and sixties,
which is when.
Sort of Matt started.
And then one project that I've worked on since the beginning.
Since it started at mad is the it's the Burke Bryce,
which started with establishing 2018 on men.
Still ongoing.
And you may ask, what is it? It's the $50,000.
Oh on restricted award,
given to one artist working in one of the craft mediums.
So are sort of five mediums that we specialize at the museum
are.
Clay fiber glass, wood and metals,
particularly jewelry.
So an artist that works in.
One of those mediums gets selected by a jury to be the winner of the,
of this award that we hope.
We'll do a lot for them. So really the question is why does it matter?
And to me it's because of people like this.
So these are the three winners we've had so far.
[Unknown] Lugar, Indira Alegra and Shariece Pearlina Western.
Who's our most recent winner.
It wasn't purpose,
but I absolutely am thrilled that all the,
all the winners have been artists of color,
which I think really sends a message about normalizing.
Supporting artists of color.
Most of the time,
have a harder time because of systemic racism and the waste of the
systems are set up.
So, but.
These are words have been able to do a lot for them,
whether it's because they want to donate it back.
To their communities, whether they needed for medical,
for medical bills or because it's going to help them.
Focus under career instead of having to have a job on the side.
These kinds of awards.
Can be, I feel life-changing in life saving.
So I wish there were more.
This is an example.
From the first year or some images from, from the first year.
We put on an exhibition of all the finalists work,
because even though we're only able to give one a war,
we want to sort of show everybody how exciting the contemporary craft
field is.
So I'll just go through some images here that the one that I just
passed was [unknown].
Lupus work. We have Rita.
At the front Jordan Sr at the back.
We have Heidi loud on the left.
Earrings.
At the front, which I think he's actually in North Carolina,
very close.
To Ana. And when.
And this is Willman Bryan.
This is the second year, but we have vagina again at the front.
Amber Cohen on the left,
some other humanists Flores in the center and then wind them up as to
the two, well, to the back. Right. And then to the right, right.
Is Baeza.
Butler who, by the way, I don't know if you know her word.
That's not a painting. That's a quilt.
Okay.
I want to note it.
And this is the work of Sarah. It's a Pata.
Like many of us,
we have to sort of pivot when pandemic life happened
and it was just much harder to go physically anywhere.
So the 2021 Burke prize is a digital
prize. You can, you can go see the finest work digitally.
And so I think when it's putting the link on the chat,
so you can go explore by yourself.
This is just a screenshot of the main page, some of the.
It was very challenging. It's very challenging to do craft digitally.
I'll say it was definitely a different way of curating for
me.
But one of the exciting things I think we were met.
And I think that we managed to do was do some 3d modeling of
some works. And if you go on the website,
this is a piece by Nikki green,
you can go and kind of go all around the piece.
You can actually see parts of the piece that you would not even be
able to see in person like the bottom of the piece.
And also really seen that inside because when you think about it,
when you're in a museum, there's always stations.
Or you need to stay kind of far back from the artwork.
So you actually get to see really well what's on the inside of this
piece.
And here's some pictures from the second year,
from the whole group and some programs that we got to have.
It's really awesome to create sort of a community of people through
these cohorts.
I've built amazing relationships with these artists.
And I'm really grateful than honored to have to have the opportunity
to do this.
And also, where are they now?
They've honestly gone on to do incredible things.
Somebody like be some Butler who was the finalist in 2019,
she's had this solo show travel all over the country
guiding so, so much press over it. Roberto Lugo, who was fine.
Most of the first year had this.
Really great commission from the Brooklyn museum and sort of the list
of the things they've gone on to do is.
And it's endless. They just,
they just done it all and I'm really proud of them. And again,
so, so grateful that I got to be.
A little part of third journey.
And then, so I do independent work as well.
And I just wanted to highlight sleight of hand,
which is a show that I did.
During my curatorial fellowship at the center for craft and Asheville.
We have a very good relationship with the center for craft as well.
And I, while I was doing the show.
It was in the thick of the pandemic. So there were a lot of changes.
And eventually,
because ceramics are really hard to ship that it's the bane of my
existence is very expensive and decided to do sort of a smaller
version of the original idea I had and that what that ended up being
was a show focused on six ceramic artists or artists,
contemporary artists that focused on ceramic.
They're all artists of color.
And they use the use humor in their practice to talk about some
serious issues, such as race, gender, immigration status,
and things like that.
And this has been like a really huge research product for me.
It's an ongoing research project that I hope to turn into a bigger
show someday,
but I was really grateful to have the opportunity to put this show
together and, and have it live even the.
Times were hard.
So here are some more examples is Diana Desenia Alvarado.
This is my arm usage. If.
Who's actually a Berquist finalist this year.
This is what did the Othello.
Even my Oregon.
And then, like I mentioned, I have a podcast it's called clean color.
I co-created it. And co-hosted with Alex Anderson,
who was also.
Involved in ceramics is a ceramic artist.
And this show also focuses on young artists of color
who work primarily with ceramics.
I never thought it would have a podcast.
It's something I never like wanted to do necessarily.
But, like I said, I liked creating platforms for artists.
And so when this opportunity came along,
I decided to go for it just because it would be one more place where
they could put their voice out there and people could have access to
them.
I think that's it. I'm done.
That's great Angelique.
Thank you so much.
And thank you for all that you do to bring artists of color
visibility.
I really love that.
That's some big part of, kind of what's important to you. So,
and all the work that you've done around that.
And I got an opportunity to see the center for craft exhibition,
and it was quite lovely. So it was a three.
Time a pandemic when nobody was going out and seeing people. So.
So thank you for that.
Thank you.
Could you please turn your camera on? Oh, sure, absolutely. Sorry.
There we go.
Now you get to see me again. Sorry about that.
Great. I would like to invite Basque Goodrich.
To turn her camera on, please.
All right.
Hi, Beth.
So that's good.
Rich joined to the American craft council as the librarian in 2017.
She manages the library archives and digital collections for the
organization and provides research and reference support for both ECC
staff.
Members and the public.
Beth received her BA in theater,
arts and communications from Kalamazoo college in Michigan.
And her M L I S with a concentration and information organization from
the university of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.
She has worked in a number of repositories in the twin cities,
including the Hennepin county library,
the Minnesota digital library at Manitex and the American Swedish
Institute.
Prior to entering the library field.
Beth was a dressmaker and designer of.
Bridal and evening gowns.
Outside of the library. She enjoys reading.
And experimenting in the kitchen with the bounty of the garden.
So Beth welcome. And thank you for being here.
Thank you so much, Graham.
Thank all the attendees here for joining us on this.
Future insights talk.
I'm delighted to be here.
I am coming to you from the American craft council offices,
which are located on the lands, which in the difficult.
All the language are called Minnesota.
Which means land where the water reflects the sky.
The ACC library is located here within our offices.
And it dates back to 1956,
which was when the library was given a formalized space
within the museum of contemporary crafts in New York city.
Which later became the American craft museum.
And today is still active as the museum of arts and design.
The collection in its entirety was moved to
Minneapolis with the ACC offices.
Thanks in large parts were a number of people who were.
Very adamant that this collection needed to remain together and
tapped.
And we're able to steward the collection.
Info to the Minneapolis area.
As Gwen mentioned, I have been the librarian with the ACC.
Since 2017.
And I'm going to share my screen right now.
And give everyone a little bit of a tour.
Our library and the collections that we hold.
So here on our Y.
Websites.
You can access.
All kinds of our resources.
From.
From anywhere.
And I will give you a little bit of a description about our
collections,
which I think of as being kind of three distinct
collecting groups.
And as a solo librarian,
I manage all aspects of the library.
First, we do have a print collection.
Which contains.
Over 20,000 volumes of books, exhibition catalogs.
Bound volumes of back issues of periodicals.
Newsletters.
And here we have you, you can access our library, catalog and search.
All the items that we have within our catalog.
Alongside our print collection. We also have.
A collection of artist files,
nearly 4,000 artists files that are focused on craft
artists, artists,
generally who have had some kind of a relationship with the ACC over
the years.
I there they were included and.
Exhibitions at the museum of contemporary crafts.
They were featured in our magazine,
either craft raisins or American craft magazine,
or had some other relationship with the AACC.
And all of those artist's files are included in our
catalog. So for example,
if you were to search on an artist's name,
In our catalog.
Along with all the other research resources about that particular
artist, you will also see here.
That we have an artist file for that particular artist.
And within the record,
you can see a brief description of what kinds of materials.
Our CRE are held within that artist file.
Typically those.
Those files will contain resumes.
Postcards.
Correspondence exhibition catalogs, press clippings.
All kinds of ephemeral materials, that kind of document.
The activities of the artists.
The second distinct.
Collection that we have is our archives.
And we have four major archives.
Archive collections within our library.
You can also access descriptions of what we hold within those archives
on our websites.
The four major collections that we have are the institutional archives
of the American craft council.
We have the archives of the museum of contemporary crafts and the
American craft museum up until 1990 in 1990.
That is the year that the museum split off from the craft council and
became an independent organization.
But we still hold the archives for the museum up until 1990.
We also have the archives for the world craft council and the craft
students league of New York, which was.
An organization for craft students that was active from the
twenties.
Up until about 2005.
Here on this page, you can see these links.
If you click on these links, you can go into a page.
That has a deeper description of the series of
collections within that major collection. So this is the.
The description.
Description page the landing page for the American craft council
archives. And you'll see all the different series that we have.
And you can also click these links and we'll take you again.
To a deeper description of that particular series.
This is a description of the series for America house,
which was a retail shop that the.
The council operated from 1941
until 1972. I believe.
And then if you scroll down, you can see actually a folder by folder.
Listing of the items that we have within that.
Within that.
Collection.
I wanted to also show the, the page,
the landing page for the museum of contemporary crafts.
And here you'll see a chronological listing of all of the
exhibitions that were held at the museum up until
1990.
And again, you can click these links and it will take you into deeper
descriptions of what is held within.
That particular.
That particular collection for that exhibition.
The third distinct.
Collection that we have is our digital collections.
We have a very robust digital collection.
That is accessible from our website as well.
And these materials are primarily materials that have been digitized
from the archives of the American craft council or from the museum of
contemporary crafts.
So these will be exhibitions, conference materials.
Materials or images from our craft fairs,
as well as a full,
full scans of every issue of craft risings magazine,
and American craft magazine from 1941 up until 1990.
And we have a few other smaller collections.
From outside organizations here,
you can see the Minnesota crafts council.
This is their collection of newsletters.
We have some materials from the society of north American Goldsmiths,
oral histories from the furniture society.
And materials from the friends of fiber art international,
which was an organization for fiber arts collectors.
And those materials were all provided to us,
had been digitized by those organizations and then provided to us to
share on our platform.
One final.
Aspect of what we show on our website regarding the
library is that that may be of interest to some people is to see our
collection development policy.
Which talks about what the library's mission is.
What our purpose and mission is the scope of the collection,
the types of materials that we're interested in and,
and are looking to collect.
Guidelines for our collecting subject areas and types of
materials.
And this might be useful to anyone who's
considering making donations of materials to the library or anyone who
just wants a little bit of a.
A deeper understanding of.
What it is that we do and what we collect.
Within within our, our library space.
And if anyone has any questions about our
collection, feel free to contact me.
I would also like to say that we are considered a public library.
You don't have to be a member of our organization to use our
resources.
I am assisting people from all walks of life,
all types of interests.
From all over the world and you can reach me by phone,
email chat.
Or come into our space. If you were in the twin cities area.
And make an appointment to use our resources on site.
And if you come here to our, about the library and visiting page,
You can.
Find links to our hours and
means to connect directly with me. I am here five days a week.
And I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have.
Great. Thank you so much for sharing all that.
It's been in this space. It's great.
It's easy to get lost in the space for hours or days at a time.
And I know that you've done a lot of work to organize and find some of
those extra goodies.
And packed in boxes and not just read at discovered or are seen
before.
So thank you for the introducing all those aspects of what's available
through the craft council.
I did also put best email in the chat so that if you do.
I'm gonna reach out to her. You're welcome to do that.
And if you happen to be the Minneapolis area,
she would love to welcome you into the archives.
So take time to go in and spend some time in there. So. Great.
Thank you so much.
All right. Great. I'd like to invite.
Dr. Tiffany momen.
To also bring her camera on, please.
Great.
So Dr.
Tiffany Moman is a public historian and assistant professor at
Suwanee.
The university of the south with years of experience,
participating in preserving a community histories.
Her work has taken her throughout the Southeast organizing community
based historic preservation projects.
Tiffany is the founder and co-director of the black craftspeople
digital archives, black craftspeople.work.
I'll put the link here in the chat in just a moment.
It's a black digital humanities project that centers black crafts
people,
their lives and their contributions to the making and building of
America.
Throughout her career.
Tiffany has lectured on the subject of black crafts,
people and organizations such as the colonial Landsberg foundation,
the museum of early Southern decorative arts.
The Winterthur museum and gardens and the daughters of the American
revolution museum and others. So Tiffany,
you will welcome today to our conversation.
Thank you. I'm going to go ahead and.
My screen.
I just want to say good afternoon, everyone.
And today I'm going to give you a brief overview of a black
craftspeople digital archive.
[Unknown] website.
I founded in 2019 and that I co-direct with my colleague, Dr. Tyron.
A history professor at the university of North Carolina Greensboro.
So the black crafts people get it on archives.
And Hans,
what would we know about black crafts people by telling both a spatial
story?
And a historically informed story that how I specialize with black
craftspeople and.
The optics they created.
There was a creation of a digital archive and a digital map.
Screenshots of both or picture here on screen.
We aggregate data from black on black class people from their arrival
on this country through 1900.
And currently the archive is home to 960 black crafts people,
both free and enslaved involve in 45 traits from rural rights and
tanners to cabinet makers, skull, Smiths, dress makers, carpenters,
blacksmiths, and more.
Located in the 18th century, South Carolina,
low country in 19th century, Tennessee.
And so I approached this research specifically through the decorative
arts.
What I found was that I was never satisfied with the way that
decorative arts museums and decorative arts and storage sites
interpreted.
Black craftspeople.
And so this project makes an intervention into that moral.
I asking you questions, presenting new evidence.
Arguing and exclaiming that black craftspeople are as,
just as important to the story of the making of this country,
as any other crafts person behind the objects.
That we've grown to love in our countries.
And I apologize if it's a bit noisy here.
It's the last day of class and south students are.
So, and it was the summer of 2018.
That completely changed the trajectory of my research.
When I found the inspiration for the black crafts people, digital art.
I decided that I would move away from the traditional decorative arts
approach to doing research.
And take a more humanistic approach.
And that summer I spent that summer researching a black carpenter and
house joiner.
Nancy John Williams, who live in 18th century, Charleston,
South Carolina.
And my approach was to move beyond the onset.
He created and really examine his life.
I often tell people that William's changed my life.
And I tell this story to often.
Like I said, cause he was the impetus for the black craftspeople gets.
But beyond that, his story is such a good story.
Because it touches on so many aspects of what it meant to be black in
this country, in the colonial period.
Don Williams is notable for so many reasons that I've forgotten to
call him the divine craftsmen and the holy city and the holy city.
Of course.
For Charleston.
So while he dots death at the hands of the South Carolina slave
courts.
What's had accused him of attempting to incite an insurrection and
flee to Spanish, Florida.
While I'm slaying.
He also labor to create when indigo bats.
That aided well-known button.
And slaver Eliza Lucas, Pinckney, and her successful cultivation.
Indigo. He was baptized into the Anglican church for his name.
His name was changed from class to Don.
Williams.
He learned to read and write and possibly attended the Reverend
Alexander gardens school for in slate.
The vigils.
He did all of this while living away from his.
Enslavers home and a home with his rent paid by his, since labor.
He married and had four children.
And may of 1750 when Charles.
He advertised in the South Carolina.
For work.
And you can see that advertisement, a copy of that advertisement.
They're on the bottom of the screen.
He was given land by Charles.
Near the present day location.
At the Charleston city market to build a home for himself.
And he also received a Royal land grant from South Carolina,
Royal governor William Henry Lytle.
For 600 acres on the Santee river.
So it is trauma.
Remarkable story.
And the image of the house, there is the paint Manson.
The home that John Williams.
The carpentry would work in.
On from 1746 to about 1750.
And so our approach at the BCDA is to take these three avenues.
And first we begin by examining sources and these can be anything from
newspaper articles to census records, to wills and estate records.
We come through them looking for details.
And we record all of that info.
I tell my students all the time that I spend so much time reading 18th
century newspapers.
Out of South Carolina.
Just looking for information that we can add to the digital archive.
And so our second approach.
As to examine.
Optics.
And the purpose here is to take objects,
existing objects and research them to find out more about their
creation.
When we examine.
We step away from that traditional art history approach.
And we center the craftsperson.
And our third avenue this place. And when I say place,
I'm thinking beyond just latitude and longitude.
I am thinking about the presence of people. And so of course,
All of being successful at.
Th these three avenues here all rest upon understanding the context
of black life in this country.
And so once we've completed the research process, we then.
Then add the craftsperson to the digital archive and digital map,
creating what you see on screen here.
And so right now we are looking at Charleston,
South Carolina and all of his land and all of its landmarks.
But I am most interested in that little blue.at the center of the
screen.
And the middle of the yellow square there.
You were on our digital map.
You would click that dot and it would immediately bring you to the
story of Joe and enslaved jeweler held.
Held in bondage.
Charleston.
I do alert Don Paul grumpy. And so here,
we've connected Joe to the location of grantees,
home and sob in 1771 through the map.
We've linked him to his record and.
And the digital archive,
which you can see on the right side screen there,
that's connecting that primary source.
To place.
And I've also included an image of a broach here.
The collections of the tops and museum and attributed to John call.
Don call grantee's stop.
We know that grumpy.
The host of man,
train them to be jewelers and use their library and his socks.
That's complicating the narrative that.
Work alone.
And so our hope here is to find more stories, set to speeds,
and encouraged to museums and historic sites to tank.
Their narratives.
And fix their broken object interpretations.
And so one of the questions that we are often asked is if we will go
beyond South Carolina and Tennessee,
And the answer is yes.
And here are some of our target areas where we start is
ongoing.
One of the things that I always mentioned about this project is that
we do not like to work alone.
We love to collaborate with scholars with.
With museums.
Museums historic sites.
And so if we know of any black crafts,
When these regions, any good stories that you would like to share?
Please do let us know.
We will add that information to the archive and attribute that work to
you.
Last March.
We launched a Tennessee collection and we are working very hard behind
the scenes.
To finance our collection.
That's into make-a. I can finally,
I finally feel safe to say that it is coming it's in its it's in its
final stages.
We also have worked with.
Terms.
That were interning at the tips down foundation to help us complete.
North archive.
Sort of taking us.
Out of the M U S south year.
And so we are currently hard at work with our people and places
initiative.
And really this, this project with.
Came about,
because I was interested in doing more than just having the article
entries.
I really want it to tell more stories here. And so people and places.
So we have been working hard behind the scenes to make it good.
We were really interested in making it what it needs to be.
And so our website will feature short biographies of black makers,
and we will take some of the stories that we featured on our Instagram
accounts.
As well as new stories and tell stories of little known.
Makers,
and you will get to hear about people like the McCadden brothers.
Covington Tennessee.
And the buildings and home.
They thought for Covington's black community and you can see one of
the buildings there on screen is the Canaan missionary that discharge
there and coming to them. And it's a fine example.
And one of the only STM properties.
I still standing associated with the McKesson brothers.
And you'll get to read the stories of the parking family.
Of east Tennessee, a family of enslaved and later.
Blacksmiths.
And that's a photo of their blacksmith's shop.
That's still extents there.
Screen it's been moved from its current location.
To a new one.
We were also working with a student out of Warren Wilson college.
Restarts.
MCLASS maker Stacy picture there.
Onscreen. And so we are just, you know, gearing up and ready to sear.
These stories.
And so when conditions allow,
we hope to visit more sites associated with black craftspeople and
dates, more communities, and speak to more museum groups.
Like I mentioned.
I tell people all the time that through this process,
we have found no new optics.
No one has come up to us with a new optics.
Associated with a black crass person during our target.
Time period.
But what we've done is we've worked hard to ask more questions and
telling me stories of objects and new sounds across the staff.
And so you can find out more information about us at.
Black crafts people that, or if you are on Instagram,
you can follow us at black crafts people,
da we share stories four days a week till about 19,000
people.
And you can see the picture on the right that's me steadying outside
of.
A Tennessee state historical marker for William Edmondson about a year
ago now.
I'm taking part in our sign campaign.
To sell people that essentially black class works and look every.
Everywhere across the Southern landscape.
And to encourage people to tell these stories.
Thank you so much.
That's great. Thanks, Tiffany.
I think I'm bringing visibility to those who helped build America
is really important and you're, you're doing that.
With your digital archives.
So I think the work you're doing is very important to kind of tell
those stories that have not been traditionally told in the past.
So thank you for that.
Great.
All right next.
I'd like to invite TIMI and to please turn her camera on.
Glenn. Hey D man.
Jamie and Jacoby.
The Coban is the executive director of the James Renwick Alliance,
which is a national nonprofit.
Organization dedicated to fostering public appreciation education and
connoisseurship of American craft.
Jamie and has made it her personal mission to increase awareness about
collecting craft as a sole source of support for artists.
And for preserving the history of the field.
Formerly.
She was the executive officer for the creative crafts council,
the executive director of the Shenandoah arts council and owner of the
great gallery.
Jamie and received a BFA from Finlandia university and ceramics and an
MFA and curatorial practice from the Maryland Institute college of
art.
Jamie and welcome to today's conversation. Thanks for being here.
Thank you so much, Gwen. And thanks to the American craft council.
I think it's been so wonderful to hear everyone's kind of presentation
and perspectives about stewardship and legacy.
And I think we've kind of covered documenting and archiving.
Even education and collecting.
And I think that's mostly what I'll be focusing on.
So I'm going to be sharing.
I would say some information about the James Farmer Goliath.
For craft and then I'm going to be sharing inspiration for what I can.
I don't know, maybe see the future of collecting crap.
So as Gwen mentioned,
my name is Jamie Ann and we, the James.
Alliance for craft as a membership.
Based organization.
Founded in 1982, based out of Washington, DC,
we are dedicated to fostering appreciation, education and connoisseur.
And we really focus on those three different items in everything that
we do.
We fulfill this mission through programs, educational trips,
publications, and recognition of excellence.
So.
In our programming,
we have hosted about four to six trips a year,
which has totaled.
Over a hundred trips since 1984.
So these are educational opportunities for people to learn about
artists and to learn about the unique arts.
Industry in different places around the United States,
but also around the world.
We also host 17 to 25 events annually.
Including artists conversations.
Demonstrations museum visits,
private collection tours and other educational opportunities.
Our recognition.
Of excellence includes the ACC Baltimore wards. So during the show,
I thought I should mention this since.
ACC.
That's our wonderful host today.
We usually select one artist out of this show to honor recognize
and give a small contribution to.
Additionally,
we have a $5,000 unrestricted Chrysalis award for emerging artists,
which happens once a year.
We have our distinguished artists series,
which is a program that happens four times a year and has featured
almost 150 artists in total.
And actually, because we're talking about legacy,
I'm very proud to say.
That we recently received a grant for support to record an archive of
these weekends so that they are more accessible to artists,
scholars and the likes. So that was some good news.
I'm happy to share today.
Lastly, I would like to share our, the spring craft weekend.
Which we do annually and we alternate between a word.
It's for our masters, the medium and our distinguished educators.
So these are our most coveted awards that.
I have been given to 60 masters in the medium and just under 40
distinguished educators.
Most recently we honored Wendy Mariama, Consuelo,
Underwood David Harper, Clemens Sergei.
And Preston Singletary.
The photo here is actually the last awards that we did in person.
Before COVID.
So all of these efforts,
Our artist,
a certain notion of notoriety that supports their artistic legacy.
And speaking of artistic legacy,
I would be remissed if we didn't talk about.
The support that the James Farmer guidelines for craft gives to the
Renwick gallery.
So we have provided almost $4 million in support to the Renwick
gallery and we've supported the purchase of almost 200 objects for
their permanent collection.
Our most recent acquisitions have been purchased in honor of our 40th
anniversary and their 50th anniversary.
Which we'll be celebrating May 12th.
To 15. So.
Hopefully everybody can travel and it'll be a wonderful time to be in
Washington DC to celebrate American craft.
This is the first piece that we purchased as part of this dedicated
acquisition campaign. This is juicy by Roberto Lugo.
Other acquisitions have included safe journey by Preston Singletary,
who I mentioned was a 2021.
Master the medium.
And dragged piece by Susie.
Along with several others.
So it was one of the only national craft organizations dedicated to
both public collecting, but also private collecting.
The work that I do, the Alliance.
Has intrigued me to better understand our members and friends and the
role that they've played in the history of American craft.
Many have spent a lifetime.
And I really mean a lifetime collecting craft.
That ha.
And they've been able to amass a significant collection,
which has benefited countless museums in the entire craft field.
So this is a chart that's been produced by artsy.
Artsy is a wonderful platform for purchasing work.
This chart was done in 2019.
Now I'm going to say that if I were to do this chart or hopefully I
would imagine.
If I were to do the research for this chart.
I would see this here. I don't know if you can see my mouse.
This bar, which is a support to artists increased significantly.
I've yet to meet one collector in the craft field.
Whose main motivator is not supporting the artists that they meet.
So the question I consistently ask myself is how do we inspire new
generations of collectors and better encourage inclusion and all
collections as a method of stewardship and legacy.
First and foremost organizations like ours, curators, writers,
and others who have traditionally been considered gatekeepers.
Have the opportunity to take responsibility in this change.
As someone who believes in not just asking questions,
but implementing solutions. I think there are a few ways,
some of which I have had the privilege to pursue and other efforts
that serve as a source of inspiration.
So I'm going to go over some of these.
Bits of inspiration and a few things that we've already been
implementing.
Just picture though,
is an example of maybe what you would think of as typical collectors,
a Gabriel wills who's pictured in the center and he always covers his
face. It's his thing.
He has started a group of young collectors,
many of color called league OTO who are changing the paradigm and
popularizing collecting.
As a form of personal identity and expression.
So ultimately the solution to making collecting more inclusive is not
just about taking responsibility,
but also demystifying and democratizing collecting.
So, what does that mean?
Well, first and foremost, I think we need to redefine collecting.
I think this is a huge problem.
I always define an art collect.
As someone who prioritizes buying art regardless of their financial.
So Philly stewards,
this is a really interesting organization or forward-thinking
organization dedicated out of.
Are based out of Philadelphia.
And they're dedicated to encouraging collectors to buy Philadelphia
based artists.
They recommend spending between three and 5% of your overall income.
I'm not sure if I abide by a certain percentage,
but I think the concept is the same.
That everyone and anyone can be a collector.
Along the lines of demystifying,
the process of buying art and building a collection needs to be more
transparent.
Social media and the internet obviously have completely changed our
accessibility to find artists.
However, I think that there are still a number of emerging collectors.
Do not know that you can often paper artwork in monthly increments or
that there are other affordable acquisition options for museums.
So I think that there's a lot of opportunity there.
Of course I am encouraged when I find a lot of.
New young collectors sharing their collections on Instagram.
And I'm making that a more popular thing for younger
generations.
To implement this change.
I often speak about collecting with other groups or organizations.
I interview other young collectors.
And at the Alliance,
we host programs about topics related to collecting.
The idea of democratizing collecting encourages innovative ideas.
Not only do we need to inspire young collectors and collectors of
color,
but we can open up an opportunity to think about alternative methods
of collecting.
For example,
I think there's a lot of opportunity for crowdsource purchases.
When you think about it.
The Alliance has been crowdfunding acquisitions for the Renwick
gallery for decades.
But what if we opened it to other organ?
Institutions.
Or organizations,
or what if other organizations led crowdsourced acquisitions?
I think that there's a lot of opportunity in this,
and I even think it could trickle down to just like-minded individuals
who would all like to pitch in to see a piece in a museum.
A great crowdsourced example is the image here on the screen.
This is a purchase of Madam CJ Walker.
Hi, Sonya Clark.
For the Blanton museum of art in Austin, Texas.
Docent and local black business woman,
Marilyn Johnson led an initiative to purchase this piece of art.
To ensure representation in the museum.
She raised the funds with the help of the museum by reaching out to
other black business owners in the community and ultimately secured
over 50 private donations to purchase the piece.
So in a way.
The art.
And that we find in institutions is a reflection of power.
And buying craft can be an active agency.
Placing it in a prominent museum can be an intervention.
At the height of crack.
Collecting in the eighties and nineties collectors purchase work and
in, so doing ensured a future for American craft in art history,
I think that there should not be forgotten.
Or taken lightly.
Today we can continue their efforts and change the discourse by
purchasing work,
to inspire equitable collections that reflect the future legacy that
we want to see. And we want to leave for future generations.
I'm proud to say that of the pieces that the Alliance has helped
secure for the Renwick gallery. 70% have been by artists of color.
Or anniversary campaign is over,
but we can all work towards this effort.
And so I leave you with this helpful protest banner made by a rom Hans
of one.
Which is another recent acquisition.
To the Renwick gallery and look forward to hearing other potential
ideas.
Solutions.
And a ways we can further change the craft field.
Together.
Great. Thank you, Jamie. And that was wonderful.
And I think it's important for us to remind ourselves that part of
stewardship and legacy has everything to do with collecting as much
as archiving and documenting.
So thank you for bringing that perspective to the conversation.
I'd like to invite all the presenters to please turn their screens on.
Gotcha.
So we're gonna spend a few moments,
just kind of engaging in a group conversation, and then we'll be,
we'll be moving into those breakout rooms,
but I'd love to ask each of you really,
what is stewardship and legacy mean to you?
You've each kind of dedicated your career to this in some way,
but I'd really love to kind of get how you define it yourself.
And in the meantime,
I'm going to figure out what to do with the sunshine.
Sorry about that. Y'all.
I can't no.
The sunny.
Sunny day in Asheville. And so I apologize for that.
So, yeah, so I would love to hear what.
What does stewardship and legacy mean to each of you?
Maybe we'll go first.
I can, I can just quickly say, I think that.
Stewardship is about caring.
And the responsibility of.
Kind of maintaining things for the future.
And then I would say legacy is the result of that.
Great.
Anybody else want to weigh in?
I guess for me, it's just the, the,
the idea of when you leave somewhere,
you want to leave it better than you founded. So that's,
that's really just the gist of, of.
Everything.
That I'm doing. I'm.
I know I'm not anything that I'm doing is not going to necessarily
change the world,
but maybe a lot of actions from different people together can help.
So that's it.
That's great.
I think about.
Oh, when I think about legacy,
I often think about how the black cast people and
our.
The archives are.
Living their lives under oppression,
but still gone on to create beautiful things and a world that saw.
To have them do the complete opposite.
And so in store.
And legacy.
I always feel like I discussed how I grew so upset with the debit of
arts. I sorta felt like.
It's my duty as someone who likes this type of work,
who appreciates this type of work to recognize them and everything
that they contributed.
That's great.
When, when I first began my work.
As most of you see.
You know, I, I went to school when.
My art history classes. Didn't.
Not only include.
No people of color, but no women at all.
And so that was an opportunity for me when the.
National museum of women in the arts hosted that first conference.
It, it really changed the.
Trajectory of, of my work.
In terms of really digging deep into broadening what was
considered our history.
To include.
Makers of craft and include.
Other people beside the Riviera geniuses. And I think that's,
what's incredibly important of all the work that's being done here.
That's great.
I think in, in terms of the work that I do, I,
I look at stewardship as.
Kind of bringing forward and calling attention to.
Certain collections.
And being a good steward means really being an advocate for those.
Resources and, and those collections.
Legacy.
I looked at.
As being the story,
the story of an artist, the story of.
Of a community.
But along with that story,
it also has to do with how it's preserved and carried forward.
Into the future.
And tie to that.
Is also, how is that story being told?
And who is doing the telling of that story.
That's great.
So.
After, you know,
now that you've each kind of defined or are talked about kind of
really what's your chip and legacy means to you.
How can we steward more diverse artists and collectors in the field?
Each of you are kind of doing your own thing, but.
Do you have any other ideas or thoughts of ways that we can continue
to help support that out of those efforts?
I was going to say, I want to say something there.
Say some chairs be moved in.
The noise.
I think.
It's not only about trying to get sort of people through the door,
but there has to be people inside that are ready.
Can can have a connection with.
With that diverse,
whatever diverse group it is that you're trying to make your
connection with. They, there has to be that connection.
There have to be able to assess, see themselves in this space.
Before you kind of can get them through this space.
So I think that's a big thing that that institutions have to think
about in terms of like,
who is the person sort of doing the outreach outreach to get
collectors, to get artists,
to get the audience or community to come in.
It's it's both. It has to be on both sides.
Yeah, good point.
Any other thoughts?
I think it's about trying new things too. Right.
I had someone say to me during the pandemic,
Well, you just got to throw it against a wall and see if it sticks.
And I thought.
What a funny thing to say, but actually when.
When there's so many new opportunities and things are changing so
quickly.
I mean, you have to try new things. I know we're trying a.
You know, we beta testing sort of at the Alliance we say, okay,
we're going to invite a young artist to this and see if it's fruitful
or we're going to, we're inviting a group of.
A local tech company to.
An opportunity to buy craft, you know,
is that something that's going to work?
To support artists. I don't know. And I don't, you know,
I think we don't know the answers, but trying it sure as a first step.
Yeah.
And I Damien it,
go back to your presentation and also around kind of how do we
cultivate more diverse, younger collectors right in the field,
which I thought was really interesting to think about.
The crowdsourcing idea.
Which I think is really kind of fascinating thought. So.
I definitely want to explore that idea some more with you kind of
outside of today's talk,
because I think that the aging of the collector and how do we
cultivate younger people to appreciate the handmade and want to
collect.
Israeli a big, been a conversation that, you know,
I've been part of for at least 10 years. And I haven't,
we haven't quite seen that solution come to fruition yet and bubble
up. But I think that that,
that you're on you're at the tip of some really interesting thoughts
around that.
Hi, may I also want to comment or have some thoughts around that?
Yeah, go ahead.
I have a couple, couple of thoughts.
I think for those of us who are in a position to.
To manage collections.
I think there are several things we need to do. First of all,
I think we need to pay attention.
Pay attention to.
Who are the artists out there?
Who are, who are up and coming.
Who are speaking with?
A loud voice with a different voice.
And, and it takes work. It takes work.
You, you can't just sit back and wait for things to come to you.
You have to do the work to find out.
What is out there and who is out there.
And who has a voice that, that needs to be shared.
I think we also need to be curious.
We need to find out what it is that we don't know.
Don't rest on, on.
Our laurels.
And, and just start our current knowledge, but,
but be curious about the, the.
The art world, the craft world out there, the, the world of,
of information resources.
And finally, I think we need to be.
We need to be.
Generous. We,
we need to not continue to share the same old stories over and
over again.
Find new stories, find new voices to,
to amplify.
Yeah.
That was a great.
Ana.
Yes.
One thing that I have seen, and I think it's.
Critical to.
To any research work is to be able to share that with the community.
When you're finished.
I've seen too often.
And, and sometimes from some very prestigious
museums may do a project.
Especially with a marginalized community.
And the, the efforts of that project serve the.
Serve the museum. Well,
but there is not anything that is actually benefiting
the.
The subject, so to speak.
And I think that's always important to make sure that the people
that you're working with.
Receive the benefit of the research.
That's a good point.
And I think you and Tiffany kind of illustrate that where you have.
Don into this really focused research.
And then you've brought it to visibility by creating your digital
platforms around that so that people can access.
The work that you've all done.
But more and more people being able to create the accessibility would
be wonderful.
I also wonder if there's opportunity for more collaboration.
You know, in an organization like mine,
where we're mostly dedicated to education and programming,
or we're doing mostly education and programming.
Our opportunity for research or even our resources for research is
limited.
Could we partner with people who are already doing that research.
And then instead our.
You know,
a portion of that effort would be presenting it to the public in
innovative ways.
Hm.
It's a great thing.
Opportunity.
That's a great.
Great point because I, I mean,
I've been at three state universities and I I've seen so many great
research projects that benefit the professor and,
and certainly benefit the students.
But they.
It doesn't go beyond that and to be able to collaborate.
To, to make that research accessible would be.
Would be a great step forward.
Yeah.
That's great.
And I would add to all of these answers, just asking,
but listening and like heavy emphasis on the listening part.
Listening to how you may be able to amplify that work if they even
want you to amplify that work.
But really listening to what they need for you,
from you and thinking about how you can help them get to that next
step.
Very good point.
What.
Some like innovative ways individuals can document and archive
artists, or maybe even their own work.
I know that one of the things that kids come up a lot in these
conversations I've had with different presenters for the different
causes that.
The biggest challenge around documentation and archiving is the fact
that artists often don't do that for themselves.
Angelica.
Nodding as a curator,
I'm sure you've run into some of those challenges, Angelica.
Yeah. I mean, I.
I'm friends with young artists.
And I tried to be like, yeah,
you should probably keep like,
I don't know, a binder folder in your, some type of document,
you know, in which you are documented these things,
just as simple as like here's a picture of the thing,
title year bins materials, where did it go?
Do you have it?
Do you sell it to someone? What, what shows it's been on?
I mean,
that's the ideal world in which somebody is doing that kind of record
keeping.
Most often we don't find that either.
Four X or Y reason because they literally couldn't keep the record
or because they weren't good at keeping their record or they just
didn't even think about it. But.
I think it's, it's the hope that we maybe.
Curators or other people who are working.
With artists that.
You can like sort of encourage that and, and just, it,
honestly, I think it,
it benefits the artists in the end to be able to have that kind of
record keeping. But some people still won't do it just because.
They're just not into it.
I don't know.
But, yeah, it's, it's great. When those exist.
But also fun when they don't and you just go into very intensive
research.
Trips, maybe to the.
To the library at the ACC.
Absolutely.
I have encouraged.
You know, when.
Had any discussions like this with,
with an artist I have encouraged them and perhaps begun the.
Discussion by asking.
Who do you want to trust your legacy to?
Do you want to trust that your friends and family are going
to carry on that work forward or some stranger?
Do you want to leave it to some stranger to, to take care of that?
And if not, if you want to have some control over your, your legacy.
Then, please do some documenting.
You know, whether, you know, any little bit is better than nothing.
That's.
Yes.
And please don't trust that.
You can store.
Photos or images of all of your works in Facebook or Instagram and
trust that it's going to be preserved, please.
Don't please back it up.
Two three times.
You have your own external drive back.
Yes. Great.
We've seen that where people wake up one day and their whole Instagram
account is completely wiped out. And as we all know,
the Mehta platforms,
social media platforms do not have customer services.
Cut numbers you can call. So it's really challenging and difficult.
Most people just have to start over.
So I think that's really great advice, Beth. So thanks.
Anybody else has.
Yeah, go ahead, Jamie.
I know what you're about to talk about. So go for it.
Well, I think if he was about to say something, go.
Tiffany. Sorry.
Oh,
This is going to say that I, as a public historian,
I often find myself doing sort of these oral history workshops for
like community histories.
But I always have this sort of program in the back of my head where it
is in that same vein of.
Of doing those oral history type workshops, it's sales, crafts,
people, how to archive their information.
What types of materials to store their records?
And things like that.
Just to ensure that, you know, that, that knowledge,
that know how gets out there so that these things can be say,
I think along the lines of the oral history is,
and of course I'm seeing Mary Savik in the chat.
I think the American art archives.
And Annette late men, oral history is as an amazing resource.
I mean,
Even some of our early members, they Alliance,
I could listen to their oral histories and by the end of their
favorite cake, along with.
And Barton, you know, bits of information about American craft.
But also,
I'm not sure if you're all familiar with the artist's legacy project,
which is responsible for the Viola Frey.
Archives.
I think that's a really innovative project where kind of Beth,
what you were saying.
You know, they were, there was a few artists and they said, well,
I don't want my legacy to be up to.
Whomever. And so we're going to form an organization get together,
and we're going to make sure that we're responsible.
For one another.
So I think that's kind of an innovative project that I was kind of
unaware of that maybe method of thinking until.
The last, maybe five years.
Yeah.
That's great.
All right. Well, this discussion has been great.
And I know we could go on,
but I do want to go ahead and move into the breakout rooms.
Just some information, breakout rooms are assigned randomly.
Each presenter.
We'll lead the conversation inside the breakout room.
We do have some specific questions set aside for that room,
but it is also an informal conversation.
So as something else or other themes come up.
You're welcome.
To have those conversations.
We do have note takers in each of the rooms that will be just
capturing kind of some of the main ideas explored and discussed in the
room.
I will give you a five minute warning as well as a two minute warning.
Broadcast into the room for each of the participants. Are you.
No, the countdown will be in there for about 20 minutes.
And if you are not interested in moving into a breakout room,
you do not have to do so.
So,
all you need to do is just not accept the invitation as it comes up.
So just a little piece of information like about that.
You can just hang out with Jason and I here and tell those breakout
rooms re.
Finish up and we'll reconvene and conclude our conversation.
At the end, we'll probably end up finishing up.
About right at four, maybe.
A little bit after if you're an Eastern time or three adherence
central or two and mountain and one in Pacific time.
So did we are running about five minutes behind?
So I'm very excited to go ahead and open up those rooms.
If you have any trouble unmuting yourself for taking yourself off
camera,
sometimes that happens because you might have an older version of
zoom. Aren't older computer.
You can reach out to us and we will try to help you,
but often we cannot do much about that because it's about your
personal computer versus the tech side of zoom.
So just a piece of information on that.
So again, I'm going to go ahead and open the rooms.
Welcome back everybody.
We are going to be bringing our guest presenters back up
on screen here in just a moment.
20 Minutes goes fast. Doesn't it.
That's great to see everyone's faces now.
It's nice.
Let's see.
Great. Well I'm Jason is spotlighting the rest of their presents,
the other best. And.
Bringing her back on screen as well.
Anybody want to share some of the conversation that happened inside
the breakout room,
any themes or overarching ideas that you found interesting that you
want to share?
We engage younger people.
Now. Okay.
We had, we had no solutions.
Yes, except.
Except to sort of enhance the value of.
Of hand and making handmade.
And in our schools, we T we talked quite a bit about that.
Great.
And Jamie M what were you going to say?
I know you had something you wanted to weigh in on.
Oh, someone had said something that made me think about.
Potential innovation and de acquisitioning personal de acquisitioning,
which I think could be very interesting. I mean,
What Anna is saying.
What if we had people who were willing to de acquisition two
collectors, young collectors at half the cost of the piece or.
Maybe would be willing to gift.
Piece to a younger collector.
So that they have the opportunity to grow their own collection or
learn more about stewardship and legacy. So that's kind of exciting.
Yeah.
But that is kind of exciting, you know, it reminds me.
The very first time I was the curator at the Houston center for
contemporary craft to and Sianna Patty who runs a jewelry gallery in
Massachusetts.
Came to the, to the museum and.
Her collection.
And I fell in love with this brooch and it was way out of my price
range. And I had bought handmade items before,
but probably $120 or less kind of pieces of mostly jewelry or a
lot of times, because both myself as a glass artist,
my husband is a jewelry artist.
We do a lot of trade, right?
So our collections often happen with trade.
But I found out with this brooch and Sianna said, you know,
we can make monthly payment arrangements to you.
You know, slowly pay for that piece.
And I think a lot times where we forget or embarrassed to ask to do
that sort of thing, and Tammy.
And you brought that up a little bit in your conversation about
collecting as well, but.
Kind of encouraging people to know that there's alternative ways of
figuring out how to collect.
And, and bring in, in T you know,
pieces that are important or special to them.
And then yes. How do we continue to value or.
Communicate the value of the handmade.
I think it's really important to,
and getting people to understand why it's so expensive.
Right. Like, that's the biggest now I don't know.
Do you all hear that when people are like,
I talk about like a handmade mug and I spent $70, if people are like,
You don't live in our world.
Of craft or like, why did you spend $70 on a month?
And I was like, well, actually I spent $70 on an artist.
I just happened to get the mug as the reward for that.
And really communicating that. So I think that's interesting.
I came up Anna and your room and Jamie, and I think the idea.
Of thinking about out of the box ways to kind of really communicate to
your people how the value and then how they can figure out ways out
alternative ways to collect and save.
Just writing that big checker during over that cash.
Sorry, Jen.
That does that helps people buy art in Britain? They have a.
It's called.
Bye art.
I don't remember something like that.
But you can actually, and most galleries and makers.
Have the blue card.
And it will connect you with this organization and they will help you
by the art.
And they, they work.
That's fascinating.
I don't think I knew about that.
So I need to do some more research on that. I don't think of any,
can anybody think of anything in the United States that does that.
No.
The only thing I could think of that.
Kind of helps the collecting.
I think it's future fairs that usually puts on a lot of
artists work for and in general art,
but there's definitely craft objects in there that tend to be on a
lower range,
like a lot more affordable than if you were to go to many other art
fair, basically. So there are things out there for.
If you,
if you're trying to dis kinda splurt just once a year to build
slowly build that collection, I know I'm, you know,
I'm starting to do that. Like, I,
I feel like I'm in a place where I can slowly start building a small
collection of artwork.
Yeah.
And I think at the Alliance, we do a lot of programming. So, you know,
People who are younger, you know,
when they first joined our organization,
they might not know a lot of artists.
They start to get to know the artists, they start to buy well,
then they don't know they should be documenting their collection.
So then we talk about documenting. We talk about appraisals.
We talk about the market and how you don't want to flood the market
with items.
And so we talk a lot about those things to better the legacy of our
artists, because in many ways,
We are responsible, not only for the peace in which we have,
but the artist's legacy. And so that is a huge response.
The ability on collector shoulders.
Whether or not, you know, it, by owning something.
Or not.
No.
And I think it was somebody put in there that they heard of a program
years ago in the chat that they are not sure if it's still happening.
But they think of is at Oberlin college where the art museum there
would rent out pieces of their collection to students.
So they could live with our pieces for a preset timeframe.
Which is kind of interesting and it looks like that. Yes,
it is still happening in the Lakers also provided. So thank you. See,
I love the attendees participating in these conversations too,
because our collective knowledge might not be enough. We need the.
T attendees also to share their knowledge as well. So that's great.
And thanks Rachel for bringing it up and thanks, Dora.
For finding that link. That's wonderful.
Any other themes that y'all want to talk about that happened in your
breakout rooms? I know 20 minutes go so fast.
We talked about, we talked about how you.
And encourage young artists.
To young artists.
And collectors to start.
But.
Artists.
And.
Again, going back to Britain.
Lisa Hammond has programmed.
She started called the Dr. Potter.
And people donate money to it, to support.
The young potters in apprenticeships with other potters.
A lot of you, you.
It could be a Potter making stuff.
And you might want to have apprentices,
but you can't afford to support somebody to be independent and.
This program organizes that. And does that.
I don't know if there's anything like that.
Either. Well, pleather is from the arts council.
The North Carolina arts council has an apprenticeship program.
And I think I know when I used to live in Virginia, they also had one.
So, but it's in the form of a grant, which actually.
You know, I'm a grant writer.
Written and manage so many grants,
but it puts the onus on the artist to.
It's it's troubling to me.
I'm actually teaching a grant writing course for the arts next
semester, but you know,
not everyone wants to know how to write a grant. Not everyone.
I know so many artists who that's like the last thing that they would
really want to do. And.
We've created this system.
For.
Gaining funds that is, you know, just sort of monolithic.
Something that you all might not know,
but each state has an apprenticeship program.
It's run by most often the department of labor.
The one in North Carolina is called apprenticeship and see,
there is one in Minnesota as well.
They can be very robust and funded well or not so robust.
So it just kind of depends.
Go state by state.
Some of those programs do formally have what's called.
They actually give you a journeyman card when you go through your
apprenticeship program.
And of course this is an apprenticeship and it's very wide, right.
You pay, it can be from pattern making to upholstery making,
to furniture making,
or even just turning the legs of tables to of
course, others out.
Apprenticeships outside of the craft arena.
But we do not really have that same European apprenticeship
model here in the United States. That's done well or replicated well,
so for us in North Carolina,
the reason why we do have a formal craft apprenticeships is because we
have that robust statewide apprenticeship program.
It just depends on state by state.
It's just kind of really interesting to think about that,
but I've been doing a lot of conversations with our North Carolina
one.
As the many hats they wear.
And in supporting craft artists, it's something that I believe in.
And I have wanted to figure out a way to replicate and then create.
Create a template that can be easily replicated by other
apprenticeship programs in other states as well,
because there is a lot of funding that can come from the department of
labor,
both the Trump administration and the Biden administration has been a
lot of money into the department of labor. Our department of commerce.
It really kind of depends on the state. What,
where it lies for apprenticeship programs,
workforce development programs is another name that you may hear.
'em also used for those.
But there is,
like Anna said a need for us to figure out additional systems to set
up, to encourage that kind of, you know,
Learning and, and if in that European model way,
which I think is kind of interesting.
So just a little piece of information.
And Jamie Ann says it makes her think of a traditional patron model.
Right, which is I'm a little tryst Allah twist on the collector and
contemporary twist on that investor, which is Patrion.
So thanks for putting that link in there. That is a new,
a lot of artists have found great support that way.
And do you find people who can support them?
And get a thing.
Gallo a monthly stipend to help them, you know,
have the ability to make the work that they want to make.
Any other last thoughts or comments either from the guest presenters
are anything attendees that anybody who wants to share?
I just share one thought that or a one.
Concept that was brought up in our group was one of the participants
talked about.
A website that he is in the process of creating that would help
too.
Bring forward.
Artists within the craft field that.
Wood.
B be juried, but would kind of get rid of the algorithms.
So that even a first.
New artists. If they have excellent work that is recognized by,
by their, their peers, that they can be brought invited into this,
to participate in this website and, and gain rec.
And that way.
The more that they are engaged in that community.
That website community that that would kind of help to bubble up
there.
Their presence within the website. So Efram, if you're still on the,
a.
On the call.
I representing that.
Correctly.
Rachel.
In the chat.
We make.co.
Is that correct?
Yes, that's right.
That's great.
That sounds like a really interesting platform.
And I'll look forward to digging into that and seeing how that
continues to evolve. But thanks Beth, for sharing that.
Wonderful. Well, you know,
I feel like we could have added another hour into this conversation.
Like the first tack and it just,
I think it's really fascinating to have these conversations.
But I do want to think everybody,
both the attendees for participating in the breakout rooms and meeting
yourself even after the breakout rooms are putting your thoughts in
the chat.
I do want to thank the Wingate charitable foundation for funding and
supporting these talks.
And then last, but certainly not least Angelique Ana.
Jamie and Tiffany and Beth.
Thank you all so much for your time, your expertise and knowledge,
your support, both of the ECC for being here,
but also the craft community for what you do.
For the stewards and legacy.
Building that you all are doing kind of in your own special,
unique way. We just really,
I really appreciate you all being willing to share that with
everybody.
And to continue that. And so thank you.
It's such a gift for you all to take that time out of your busy lives
to share that with everybody else. So I really appreciate that.
So thank you for that.
And for those of you, hopefully we'll see you for our last talk,
which is next Wednesday.
So December 15th.
From one to 3:00 PM central time or two to four Eastern time.
And if you signed up for this talk,
you're automatically registered next. Week's talk to,
you'll receive an email next week with the link to join and we look
forward to.
Seeing you there and continue our conversation now.
Moving into the creative economy and how that looks as we come out of
the other side of a pandemic.
And again,
thank you all for being here today and we will see you next week.