medium

: Fiber

BARN's facility on Bainbridge Island, WA, is home to eleven member-run studios. BARN/Rick Gordon

BARN (Bainbridge Artisan Resource Network) is a regional center for craft on Bainbridge Island, Washington. Our dedicated volunteers and staff provide fun, welcoming spaces where everyone can explore creativity, learn new skills, work with others, and give back to the community.

BARN operates eleven member-run studios spanning woodworking, glass arts, fiber arts, metal fabrication, culinary arts, jewelry making, and more. Since opening our 25,000-square-foot facility in 2017, we’ve grown to serve over 1,400 members with 2,700+ classes and events annually. BARN’s mission centers on growing and inspiring creative community through craft, learning, and service.

Beyond skill-building, BARN members actively contribute to the region through dozens of community service projects—from building furniture for at-risk youth to preparing meals for community events. We believe everyone can be creative, and we offer comprehensive tuition assistance and programming designed to remove barriers to participation. Whether someone is a complete beginner or seasoned artisan, BARN provides the tools, expertise, and supportive community to help creativity flourish.

Bainbridge Island,
WA
Arts/Cultural Organization Craft School
Fiber Glass Metal Mixed Media Other Paper Wood
The Red MIll Museum Village on the South Branch of the Raritan River in Clinton, NJ. Kaitlyn Sharkey

At the Red Mill Museum Village, our vision is to connect current generations to the past as well as to one another. We uphold our mission of preserving, maintaining and presenting the social, agricultural, and industrial heritage of the area through hands-on experiences that turn visitors into makers. By preserving tools as living teaching objects and telling the stories of those who made, used and collected them, we highlight how creativity and skill once sustained daily life through community.

The museum’s centerpiece is the 1810 Red Mill, originally built as a woolen mill. The 12 historic buildings on our 10-acre site include limekilns, a limestone quarry, schoolhouse, log cabin, two-family Tenant House and operational blacksmith shop.

Throughout the year, the museum offers a variety of educational exhibits, and immersive programming designed to keep the enduring value of skilled handwork and shared heritage alive.

Clinton,
NJ
Museum
Clay Fiber Metal Other Wood
A gray clapboarded two-story 17th century home with an overhanging second floor situated next to a tall building on one side and a brick courtyard with garden beds and a pear tree on the other side. A second floor walkway provides access to the second floor and is hung with red, white, and blue bunting. The Paul Revere Memorial Association

Built around 1680, the Paul Revere House is a rare example of 17th-century urban architecture.  One room interprets the 1680s, while three other rooms contain artifacts from Revere’s era, including select Revere family furniture. Paul Revere purchased the home in 1770 and lived here with his family when he made his famous messenger ride on the night of April 18-19, 1775.

Today the site includes a Visitor Center with exhibits highlighting Revere’s skilled craftsmanship; silver made in Revere’s shop is always on display. Regular public events feature the talents of musicians, artisans, and craftspeople who are keeping alive the traditional trades of the 18th century.

Visit our self-guided site year-round!

Summer:

April 15 – October 31: 10:00 AM to 5:15 PM

Open daily

Winter:

November 1 – April 14: 10:00 AM to 4:15 PM

Closed on Mondays during January, February, and March

Closed Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day

Boston,
MA
Museum
Clay Fiber Metal Other Paper Wood
Five colorful tapestries hang in a row. They are intricately woven and suspended in a forest with green and brown foliage in the background and foreground. Marcos Kueh, Kenyalang Circus: Exotic Workers Series, 2023. Industrial woven recycled PET, dimensions vary. From the Surface Design Journal's Summer 2025 Issue, Modern Weavers/New Spirit

We at the Surface Design Association (SDA) promote awareness and appreciation of fiber art and support to artists and writers through publications, exhibitions, and events.

We are a community of thousands of textile artists, curators, educators, and enthusiasts across 40 countries and 6 continents. Our community encompasses the breadth and depth of contemporary artists and designers working with or inspired by fiber art and/or textile-based materials, methods, and techniques.

As an organization, we embrace fiber and textiles in the broadest terms including performance, social practice, and sound-based works. If you love textiles, you already belong.

International
Arts/Cultural Organization
Fiber
Tuck and Roll: The Art of Armadillos, On View: May 24, 2025 - Jan 11, 2026, curated by Guusje Sanders. This installation brings fun to our Entry Level cases by showcasing armadillo figures from Mingei’s permanent collection! Featuring works made by artisans across the Americas, this playful installation emphasizes how these extraordinary creatures have delighted people’s imagination. It is free to the public in the "community level" of the museum. Six armadillos in a variety of colors and materials from Mexico, Brazil, the United States of America, and El Salvador. 1999-11-004, 1993-55-132, 1993-55-172A, 1993-55-146, 1993-55-143, 1993-55-066.

San Diego’s Mingei International Museum celebrates folk art, craft, and design from all eras and cultures of the world. The Japanese word mingei means “art of the people”  and the museum collects, conserves, and exhibits arts of daily use made by contemporary and historic designers, artists, and craftspeople, known and unknown.

Established in 1978, Mingei’s inaugural exhibition was Dolls and Folk Toys of the World. Since then, the Museum has shared over 183 exhibitions covering a diverse range of cultures, themes, and media. Recent exhibitions include Across the SpooniverseBlue Gold: The Art and Science of Indigo, African by Design, and Fashioning an Icon: The Virgin of Guadalupe in Textile Design.  Upcoming exhibitions explore subjects such as mid-century modern design, Indigenous works in glass, DIY skateboard culture, sustainable fishing, feedsack quilts, Japanese shrine paintings, and global percussion.  

Mingei champions artists and craftspeople, and we envision a world where people find joy, beauty, and inspiration in our shared human creativity.

 

San Diego,
CA
Museum
Clay Fiber Metal Mixed Media Other Paper Wood
Hand-forged John C. Campbell Folk School sign. Photo provided by John C. Campbell Folk School

Tucked away in the mountains of western North Carolina, the John C. Campbell Folk School (“the Folk School”) offers weeklong and weekend classes for adults in craft, art, music, dance, cooking, gardening, nature studies, photography, writing, and more. Our non-competitive and small-sized classes are offered year-round on a scenic 270-acre campus, attracting students from all over the world. The Folk School transforms lives, bringing people together in a nurturing environment for experiences in learning and community life that spark self-discovery. “I sing behind the plow,” the Folk School’s motto since its founding in 1925, reflects the importance of lifelong learning and growth while finding joy throughout every step of the process.

Brasstown,
NC
Arts/Cultural Organization Craft School
Clay Fiber Glass Metal Mixed Media Other Paper Wood
Brandy Clements, 4th Generation Chair Weaver with Rosie at the woven chair museum. Nathan Rivers Chesky

Silver River Center for Chair Caning is the nation’s only chair caning school & museum. Operated by David Klingler and Brandy Clements (a 4th generation chair weaver), it has recently re-located to Weaverville, NC just a few miles north of Asheville. During their 15 years in the River Arts District, they wove over 10,000 chairs hand taught hundreds of sessions to aspiring weavers, furniture makers, and those who just want to save their heirloom chair.

They are considered experts in their field and ambassadors of the craft. They teach both in-person and online at the school and on YouTube, as well as on location at craft schools like Arrowmont & John C Campbell Folk School. They travel the country spreading the love of chairs across the land, speaking at museums and craft shows, teaching kids, adults, and anyone who finds themselves in their presence.

Silver River is an Official Education Center of the Southern Highland Craft Guild. Their new instructional book, The Woven Chair, published by Blue Hills Press is launching alongside their grand re-opening New Years 2026.

Weaverville,
NC
Arts/Cultural Organization Craft School Gallery Museum
Fiber Mixed Media Other Wood
Craft in America Center

The Craft in America Center is a small museum and library that presents artist talks, scholarly lectures, hands-on workshops and concerts in addition to regularly changing exhibitions. Our publications offer a deeper dive into the practices of select artists and topics.

The Center works in tandem with the acclaimed PBS documentary series to give voice to traditional and contemporary craft, ranging from functional to purely conceptual. Being a brick and mortar venue, the Center provides the public an opportunity for direct personal engagement with art, artists and ideas.

The Craft in America Center produces 5-8 exhibitions a year, both on site and traveling.  Exhibitions highlight the work of numerous Los Angeles craft-based artists while providing a local platform for the nation’s accomplished artists working across all craft media. For those not able to visit in-person, digitized exhibitions and recorded talks and interviews are archived online as accessible resources for all. 

Los Angeles,
CA
Arts/Cultural Organization Museum
Clay Fiber Glass Metal Mixed Media Other Paper Wood
The beautifully designed International Quilt Museum, Lincoln, NE. Photo by Larry Gawell

The International Quilt Museum is home to the world’s largest publicly held quilt collection, dating from the early 1600s to present and representing more than 65 countries.

Its mission is to build a global collection and audience that celebrate the cultural and artistic significance of quilts.  The museum is many things to many different people: it’s a treasure trove of quilts from around the world spanning five centuries, a unique academic program and resource attracting scholars from far and wide, a connection point for quilt enthusiasts of all sorts, and a world-class museum with state-of-the-art exhibitions, digital galleries and stunning architecture.

The International Quilt Museum is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums; it also holds memberships with the American Alliance of Museums and Association of Academic Museums and Galleries. It enjoys a partnership with the North American Reciprocal Museum Association (NARM) and Blue Star Museums, honoring active members of our military and their families with free admission between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

Lincoln,
NE
Arts/Cultural Organization Museum
Fiber
Hunterdon Art Museum exterior at night. courtesy of the Hunterdon Art Museum

The Hunterdon Art Museum presents exhibitions of contemporary art, craft, and design in a 19th-century stone mill that is on the National Register of Historic Places. A landmark regional art center since 1953, the museum showcases works by established and emerging contemporary artists and also offers a dynamic schedule of classes and workshops for children, teens, and adults.

Our mission is to educate, challenge, and inspire community through the arts.

Clinton,
NJ
Museum
Clay Fiber Metal Mixed Media Other Paper Wood
"California Studio Craft: featuring works from the Forrest L. Merrill collection" on display at SFO Museum in Terminal 2. Photo by SFO Museum

Established in 1980 by the San Francisco Airport Commission, SFO Museum’s mission is to delight, engage, and inspire a global audience with programming on a broad range of subjects; to collect, preserve, interpret, and share the history of commercial aviation; and to enrich the public experience at San Francisco International Airport. The Museum has been accredited by the American Alliance of Museums since 1999 and retains the distinction of being the only accredited museum in an airport.

SFO Museum operates more than twenty-five sites throughout the Airport terminals, including fourteen galleries that exhibit a rotating schedule of art, history, photography, science, and cultural exhibitions. Among the sites is the San Francisco Airport Commission Aviation Library and Louis A. Turpen Aviation Museum, which houses a permanent collection of more than 160,000 objects related to the history of commercial aviation.

San Francisco,
CA
Museum
Clay Fiber Glass Metal Mixed Media Other Paper Wood
Aqueduct (2016) detail by Courtney Mattison. Glazed stoneware and porcelain. 250 x 250 x 50 cm (98 x 98 x 20 in). Courtesy of the artist. Images courtesy Glen McClure for Virginia MOCA. Included in the 2026 exhibition "Clay Sustains: Vessels of Change" on view January 17-April 5, 2026 that will feature 15-20 established ceramic artists focusing an exceptional body of work on issues of environmental crisis and cultural sustainability. Part of the Art Center's 2025-26 exhibition series "Centering: Clay and Community"

About the Palo Alto Art Center:
The Palo Alto Art Center is your place to see and make art, activate your creativity, and expand your community. Created by the community, for the community in 1971, the Palo Alto Art Center provides an accessible and welcoming place to engage with art. We engage approximately 150,000 people every year through a diverse range of programs.

Palo Alto,
CA
Arts/Cultural Organization Craft School
Clay Fiber Glass Metal Paper
IAIA President’s Convocation in the Dance Circle. Photograph by Jason S. Ordaz

The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA)—the University for Indigenous Creative Excellence—is the only higher education institution in the world dedicated to the study of contemporary Native American and Alaska Native arts. IAIA offers undergraduate degrees in Cinematic Arts and Technology, Creative Writing, Indigenous Liberal Studies, Museum Studies, Performing Arts, and Studio Arts; graduate degrees in Creative Writing, Studio Arts, and Cultural Administration; and certificates in Broadcast Journalism, Business and Entrepreneurship, Museum Studies, and Native American Art History. Recent partnerships such as those with The Walt Disney Company, Nike, The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), and NBCUniversal Media help students set down footprints in the creative community. IAIA serves approximately 500 full-time equivalent (FTE) Native and non-Native students, representing nearly 100 federally recognized Tribes. IAIA is among the leading art universities in the nation and is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC).

Santa Fe,
NM
Arts/Cultural Organization Museum University or College
Clay Fiber Glass Metal Mixed Media Other Paper Wood
Museum Front. ExteriorPhotography by Justin Hankins, 2018

The Hermitage Museum & Gardens, formerly home to the Sloane family, is an early 20th-century Arts-and-Crafts art museum located on the shore of the Lafayette River in Norfolk, Virginia. The Hermitage features a nationally recognized art collection spanning 5,000 years, within richly decorated interiors from the early 20th century. The mix of cultural objects, decorative and fine art within the setting of exceptionally crafted historic interiors, is a celebration of artistic handwork in all its forms. The museum also offers contemporary exhibitions, a newly renovated Goode Family Visual Arts School, and 12 acres of gardens and grounds that offer art and culture to the community. The Hermitage invites people of all backgrounds to explore and discover nature and the arts through its spaces that inspire creation, learning, conservation, and connection.

General admission to the site’s extensive grounds, museum collections and special exhibitions is free. Special ticketed museum and educational programs offer the public one-of-a-kind opportunities to engage with art and nature.

The Hermitage Museum is proud to be a Smithsonian Affiliate since 2012 and holds accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums since 2017.

Norfolk,
VA
Arts/Cultural Organization Museum
Clay Fiber Glass Metal Mixed Media Other
Alba Triana 2024 Competition Winner at the 2025 Competition Awards Ceremony. Second Floor Media

ArtFields was founded in 2013 to revitalize Lake City, SC, bring access to the arts to an underserved area, and celebrate artists living and working in the South. Our flagship event turns the town into a gallery with artists competing for $100,000 in prizes. We host rotating exhibitions in three galleries, maintain a public art collection, and provide art education for local youth.

Lake City,
SC
Arts/Cultural Organization
Clay Fiber Glass Metal Mixed Media Paper Wood