The Center for Craft Curatorial Fellowship was created in 2017 to provide emerging curators with a platform to explore and test new ideas about craft. Each curator or curatorial team receives a $5,000 honorarium, access to professional development tools, mentoring, and the opportunity to work closely with the other Curatorial Fellows and Center for Craft staff to produce their exhibition, develop educational materials, design an exhibition catalog, and deliver a curatorial talk.

For the first time in the Center for Craft’s Curatorial Fellowship Program’s history, the three 2023 Curatorial Fellows have worked as a cohort, developing their distinct exhibitions to be displayed concurrently, in conversation with one another. Join us on the evening of Friday, February 17 to experience these three exhibitions together and hear the Curators discuss their journeys as fellows, curators, scholars and artists. This opening reception celebrates the culmination of each Curatorial Fellow’s exhibition: Crafting Denim, curated by Sonya Abrego;  Something earned, Something left behind, curated by Kehayr Brown-Ransaw, and NEO MINERALIA, curated by Oscar Salguero.

Remarks at 6:45 pm.

This event is free, accessible and open to all.

Parking:

We hope you will be able to join us next Friday, February 17 for the 2023 Curatorial Fellows Opening Reception. Parking is provided by Hometrust Bank (10 Woodfin St, Asheville, NC 28801). Use code CRAFT217 at the pay and display. We are happy to share Biltmore Wines has provided wine for the evening! Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions.

About the Exhibitions:

Crafting Denim

On View: February 17 - October 21, 2023

Crafting Denim explores the work of three contemporary denim makers, Bowery Blue Makers, W.H. Ranch Dungarees, and Raleigh Denim, who all take an artisanal approach to making jeans. Takayuki Echigoya of Bowery Blue Makers brings a global perspective: his work draws from the long-standing appreciation of American denim in Japan and blends influences from both cultures. Ryan Martin from W.H. Ranch Dungarees highlights regional independence; his work draws from his home state of Kansas and from the history of making and wearing jeans in rural communities. And Raleigh Denim, the largest of the three workshops, brings community, uniting experienced makers from North Carolina’s manufacturing past with youthful contemporary designers. Each has a distinct approach and background, but are all invested in making jeans in small-scale workshops where attention is paid to the details, quality, and origins of each material. Machines and hand tools that would be obsolete in today’s large garment factories are revived by makers who value subtle distinctions and create pieces that are meant to last.

NEO MINERALIA

On View: February 17 - October 21, 2023

NEO MINERALIA presents a selection of new rock specimens crafted by ten international artists exploring the potential of rocks as reflections of our effects on human and nonhuman ecologies. Departing from traditional rock formation categories (Igneous, Metamorphic, Sedimentary), the artworks highlighted propose the emergence of Synthetic and Digital rocks. By embedding human-manufactured materials (plastics, e-waste) and human-originated data points (critical, financial, social) into the craftsmanship of these rocks, the artists propose that these geological entities can serve as vessels of stories, warnings, and futures in our evolving entanglement with nature.

Something earned, Something left behind

On View: February 17 - October 21, 2023

Something earned, Something left behind is a group exhibition concerned with reconciling a history of craft and exclusion of POC narratives and displacement. It centers on artists working with cultural traditions at the forefront of their practice to engage conversations of identity, healing, and reconnection. This show gives reverence to ancestral homelands, hyphenated identity markers, expectations to assimilate, and the pressure to give up parts of oneself in order to fit a new identity.

Few objects in the world are apolitical in their historical affiliations. How have the cultural, political, and economic decidedness of objects impacted their meaning and worth? These works on view investigate and analyze the transactional and political languages of objects.

The Curatorial Fellowship is supported, in part, by the Stoney Lamar Craft Endowment Fund.

Thank you to Phillips, the leading auction house in art and design, for sponsoring the Curatorial Fellowship exhibitions.

Special thanks to HomeTrust Bank for providing parking for tonight’s event.