Center for Craft, Creativity and Design announces 2013 Craft Research Fund Recipients

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The Center for Craft, Creativity & Design (CCCD) is pleased to announce the recipients for the 2013 Craft Research Fund grants. This year, 11 organizations, curators, scholars, and graduate students will receive a total of $95,000 to support and expand scholarly craft research, exhibitions, catalogs, and projects in the United States, including the Museum of Find Arts Boston, the High Museum of Art, and the Berkeley Art Museum, among others.

This marks the 9th year CCCD has awarded Craft Research Fund grants, the only major funding source for craft research in the United States. Assistant Director Marilyn Zapf states, “The Craft Research Fund has played an integral role in raising the level of discourse in the craft field over the last ten years. More scholars are pursuing craft history as a serious topic of study today than ever before and we continue to observe a shift in institutional attention given to craft exhibitions, publications, and acquisitions. These grants have legitimized craft as a subject worthy of study and made possible important research and exhibitions that would have otherwise not come to fruition”.

The goals of this peer-reviewed grant are to support innovative research on critical issues in craft theory and history; to explore the interrelationships among craft, art, design and contemporary culture; to foster new cross-disciplinary approaches to scholarship in the craft field; and to advance investigation of neglected questions on craft history and criticism in the United States. The Craft Research Fund grants are funded by a private charitable foundation.

This year’s selection committee included: Elissa Auther, Associate Professor of Contemporary Art, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, Charles Grench, Assistant Director + Senior Editor, UNC Press, and Ezra Shales, Associate Professor of Design History, Massachusetts College of Art + Design.

2013 Craft Research Fund Recipients:

$7,000 Emily Zilber, Ronald C. and Anita L. Wornick Curator of Contemporary Designative Arts, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Support for American-based research informing Objects in Flux: Exploring the Boundaries of Craft, a major exhibition featuring a select group of international artists working in traditional craft media.

$13,000 Sarah Schleuning, Curator of Decorative Arts and Design, High Museum of Art
Support for exhibition research and catalog featuring the work of Earl Pardon, a lesser known but significant American modernist artist and designer known for enameling and metalsmithing.

$10,000 David Wilson, artist and independent curator, Berkeley Art Museum
Support for The Possible, an innovative exhibition project at the Berkeley Art Museum bringing together practitioners in a range of disciplines – crafts, design, visual art, and others.

$14,955 Sonya Clark, Craft/Material Studies Chair, School of the Arts, Virginia Commonwealth University
The Hair Craft Project investigates the relationship between textile arts and the craftsmanship of contemporary African American hairbraiders within the localized intercultural context of Richmond, Virginia.

$7, 642 Jessica Cochran, Curator of Exhibitions, Acting Assistant Director, Center for Book and Paper Arts & Melissa Potter, Associate Professor, Interdisciplinary Arts Department, Columbia College Chicago
Research for Social Paper, and exhibition and catalog to open at the Center for Book & Paper Arts charting the evolution of the art of hand papermaking in relation to discourse around socially engaged art with special attention to craft, labor, community, and site specificity.

$8,000 Danny Orendorff, Curator-in-Residence, The Charlotte Street Foundation
Support for exhibition exploring craft apprenticeship as a metaphor and method for the establishment of intergenerational bonds for historically disadvantaged people and populations.

$11,575 Elizabeth Perrill, Assistant Professor, Art History, The University of North Carolina, Greensboro
“Burnished by History: The Legacies of Maria Martinez and Nesta Nala in Dialogue” – a scholarly article and companion artists’ interview focused on the legacies of ceramists Maria Marinez (U.S.A.) and Nasta Nala (South Africa).

$8,000 Daniela Rosner, Assistant Professor in Human Centered Design and Engineering, University of Washington
Ethnographic fieldwork toward a journal article on the relation between engineering and craft practice in the work of maintenance and mending.

$7,000 Namita Gupta Wiggers, Director and Chief Curator, Museum of Contemporary Craft & Elisabeth Agro, The Nancy M. McNeil Associate Curator of American Modern and Contemporary Crafts and Decorative Arts, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Co-Founders of Critical Craft Forum
Support for Critical Craft Forum to expand, envision, and prototype innovative structures for disseminating craft knowledge and fostering scholarly social networking.

$2,828 Theresa Marie Van Orman, Goucher College
Support for master’s thesis research investigating the back-to-the-land movement and its role in preserving and perpetuating the heritage of craft and music traditions in Stone County, Arkansas.

$5,000 Alia Pialtos, University of Colorado, Boulder
Support for master’s research investigating the science and poetry of materials and their ability to metaphorically allude to broader aspects of human experience.

The Center for Craft, Creativity & Design is a national nonprofit charged with advancing the understanding of craft in America through research, critical dialogue, and professional development.