Helen W. Drutt English
‍On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Craft Research Fund, Center for Craft is proud to honor Helen Drutt with its Catalyst Award for her remarkable dedication to craft scholarship.

Renowned worldwide for her significant contributions to the advancement of the modern and contemporary craft movement, Helen was one of the founding members of the Philadelphia Council of Professional Craftsmen in 1967 and served as its executive director until 1974. In 1973, she founded Helen Drutt Gallery in Philadelphia, and that same year developed the syllabus for the first college-level course in the history of modern craft. 

As part of her visionary work over decades, she has built an extensive archive and library—which has become an invaluable resource to artists, scholars, curators, and institutions around the world. Helen also has written and published extensively, contributing greatly to the field. We are thrilled to recognize Helen’s contributions as an educator and scholar.
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Photo credit: Brigitte Lacombe

Michelle Millar Fisher, PhD
Dr. Michelle Millar Fisher is currently the Ronald C. and Anita L. Wornick Curator of Contemporary Decorative Arts within the Contemporary Art Department at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Her work focuses on the intersections of people, power, and the material world.

At the MFA, she is working on her next book and exhibition, Craft Schools: Where We Make What We Inherit, which was funded, in part, by a Craft Research Fund grant that allowed her to travel by train across 48 states over three years..

Photo credit: Monica McGivern Photography

Jacqueline Bishop
Award-winning writer, academic, and visual artist Jacqueline Bishop is featured in the Center’s upcoming exhibition Archives in Practice. In conversation with the show’s curator, Mellanee Goodman, she’ll discuss the Craft Research Fund grant that led to the creation of one of her pieces, Sojourner Truth Ain't I A Lady.

Bishop was born and raised in Jamaica and now lives between Miami and New York City. In addition to her role as clinical full professor at New York University, Bishop was a Dora Maar/Brown Foundation Fellow in France; a UNESCO/Fulbright Fellow in Paris; and a Fulbright Fellow in Morocco.

Chef Eric Morris
Award-winning chef Eric Morris recently opened Hell or High Water in Black Mountain, North Carolina. Previously, he was the executive chef at Cultura in Asheville, which was selected as a James Beard semifinalist for Best New Restaurant under his leadership.

SHENEQUA
‍SHENEQUA is an Afro-Caribbean multidisciplinary Artist and Teaching Artist who received her Master of Design in Fashion, Body & Garment at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago under the mentorship of Nick Cave. A 2022 Center for Craft Career Advancement Fellow and a 2014 Center for Craft Windgate-Lamar Fellow, SHENEQUA now serves on the Center’s Board of Directors.
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Photo credit: Carter Shelby

Amira Chowyuk
Center for Craft Materials Research Fellow Amira Chowyuk is an MFA candidate at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where she fuses her background in ecological research, renewable technology, and bioresource science with contemporary design practices, research methodologies, and visual media studies.
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Photo credit: Eugene I-Peng Tang

Sara Clugage‍
Sara Clugage is a New York–based artist who focuses on political issues in craft and food. She is Editor-in-Chief of Dilettante Army, an online magazine for visual culture and critical theory, and is currently at work on a book project about Jell-O, animacy, and abstraction.