medium

: Metal

View of the Asheville Art Museum exterior. Image Sterling Silver.

The Asheville Art Museum was founded in 1948 by a group of artists to champion the creativity of Western North Carolina (WNC), bring art of national significance to the community, and encourage dialogue. Through generations of experienced and dedicated volunteer and professional leadership, the Museum continues to realize its mission: to engage, enlighten, and inspire individuals and enrich community through dynamic experiences in American art of the 20th and 21st centuries.

The Collection houses over 8,500 works in all media, including regionally and nationally significant paintings and drawings, prints, photography, sculpture, craft and decorative arts, and focal collections of works by members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Appalachian artists, Black Mountain College artists, traditional and studio craft, and regional architecture. The Museum has been particularly active in collecting historic and contemporary craft and studio glass with a focus on the Southeast and WNC.

Asheville,
NC
Museum
Clay Fiber Glass Metal Mixed Media Other Paper Wood
Worcester Craft Center is home to classes for all ages! Pictured students trying enameling for the first time!

Worcester Center for Crafts

Founded in 1856, the Worcester Center for Crafts (WCC) is the nation’s oldest nonprofit craft center, dedicated to cultivating creativity and community through the arts. Originally established to provide skills for immigrant women, WCC now offers classes and workshops in ceramics, glass, metals, fiber, printmaking, healing arts, painting, photography, and more for students of all ages and abilities.

Home to the Krikorian Gallery, the Mary and Van Aroian Community Gallery, and the Handcrafted Shop, WCC also supports artists in sharing their work. The craft center hosts signature events such as Hot Night in the City and the Holiday Festival of Crafts, connecting local and national artists with the community.

With its rich history and welcoming spirit, WCC continues to serve as a cultural destination, creative hub, and vital contributor to the New England community.

Worcester,
MA
Arts/Cultural Organization Craft School
Clay Fiber Glass Metal Mixed Media Other
A collage image featuring a female woodworker with blonde hair, an open book with the phrase "curating Philadelphia as the Craft Capital", a potter at the wheel, a blacksmith's hands and a weaver's hands

CraftNOW unites, celebrates, and supports the people, businesses, and institutions of the craft community of Philadelphia. Through education, curation and economic development, we work to continue Philadelphia’s vibrant history as a capital of craft- a place where craft is learned, created, seen, purchased, collected, and shared.

Philadelphia,
PA
Arts/Cultural Organization
Clay Fiber Glass Metal Mixed Media Other Paper Wood
Winterthur Cecil Bedroom. courtesy of Winterthur

Winterthur is the premier museum of American decorative arts, with an unparalleled collection of nearly 90,000 objects made or used in America since 1640. The collection is displayed in the magnificent 175-room house, much as it was when the family of founder Henry Francis du Pont called it home.

Winterthur is also 1,000 acres of protected meadows, woodlands, ponds, and waterways. The 60-acre garden, designed by du Pont, is among America’s best, with magnificent plantings and massive displays of color throughout the year. The graduate degree programs and extensive research library make Winterthur an important center for the study of American art and culture.

Winterthur,
DE
Arts/Cultural Organization
Clay Fiber Glass Metal Mixed Media Paper Wood
Experience American art at The Rockwell Museum, A Smithsonian Affiliate in Downtown Corning. Allison Usavage Photography, 2023.

The Rockwell Museum, in association with the Smithsonian Institution, tells the story of the evolving American experience through the work of American artists. Founded in 1976, The Rockwell is a community hub showcasing the diversity of American experience through compelling exhibitions and imaginative programs. The collection includes a mix of contemporary Native American art with traditional bronze sculptures, landscape paintings, and other works that embody America. Housed in the restored 19th-century Old City Hall building, The Rockwell is active in the local community and holds special events and educational programming with area schools. The Rockwell provokes curiosity, engagement, and reflection about art and the American experience.

The Museum’s campus includes the KIDS ROCKWELL Art Lab, located around the corner at 36 E. Market Street, featuring family-friendly activities, games, and hands-on projects connected to our exciting special exhibitions and collection of American artworks.

Corning,
NY
Arts/Cultural Organization Museum
Clay Fiber Glass Metal Mixed Media Paper Wood
Cabarrus Arts Council

Presenting, Promoting and Inspiring Creativity in Our Community

The Cabarrus Arts Council was founded in 1980 in response to the North Carolina Arts Council’s plan to establish a local arts council in every county. In 1982, the Cabarrus County Board of Commissioners selected the arts council to serve as its Designated County Partner, receiving and distributing Grassroots funding from the state and the state arts council.Today, the arts council programs and operates the Davis Theatre and The Galleries, conducts one of North Carolina’s largest art-in-education programs for both the Cabarrus County and Kannapolis City school systems, supports arts organizations and artists through grants and workshops, and serves as a catalyst and consultant for public and corporate art.

Concord,
NC
Arts/Cultural Organization Gallery Other
Clay Glass Metal Mixed Media Wood
Exhibits at the Wilson Museum feature fine handcrafted work from around the world and spanning thousands of years.

Founded in 1921 by Castine summer resident and geologist Dr. J. Howard Wilson, the Wilson Museum invites you to forge connections across history, places, and cultures.

From million-year old fossils to Bagaduce River horseshoe crabs, from the tools of early humans to Castine’s local history, from the shores of Penobscot Bay to people around the world, the collections, exhibits, and programs at the Wilson Museum feed curiosity and provide multi-sensory, immersive learning experiences.

Visitors of all ages can tour an early Castine home, watch craftspeople and artisans demonstrate traditional skills and tools, and engage in hands-on learning.

Castine,
ME
Museum
Clay Fiber Glass Metal Other Paper Wood
Peabody Essex Museum. Salem, MA.

Founded in 1799, the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in Salem, Massachusetts, is the country’s oldest continuously operating museum. PEM provides thought-provoking experiences of the arts, humanities and sciences to celebrate the creative achievements and potential of people across time, place and culture. By connecting people through inquiry, empathy and dialogue, PEM encourages an understanding of our shared humanity and fosters a sense of belonging in a complex, ever-changing world. We build, steward and share our superlative collection, which includes African, American, Asian Export, Chinese, contemporary, Japanese, Korean, maritime, Native American, Oceanic and South Asian art, as well as architecture, fashion and textiles, photography, natural history and one of the nation’s most important museum-based collections of rare books and manuscripts. PEM offers a varied and unique visitor experience, with hands-on creativity zones, interactive opportunities and performance spaces. The museum’s campus, which offers numerous gardens and green spaces, is an accredited arboretum and features more than a dozen noted historic structures, including Yin Yu Tang, a 200-year-old Chinese home that is the only example of Chinese domestic architecture in the United States.

Salem,
MA
Museum
Clay Fiber Glass Metal Mixed Media Other Paper Wood
Floyd Center for the Arts. Keela Dooley Marshall

Nestled in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Floyd Center for the Arts is a vibrant hub for creativity, learning, and community. Established in 1995 on the site of a former 1940s dairy farm, the Center has transformed the historic barn and surrounding buildings into galleries, classrooms, and working studios that serve artists and the public alike. Today, the campus offers exhibitions, workshops, and free community events that bring people together through the arts, including the annual Floyd Living Traditions Festival, which celebrates the region’s rich heritage of art, craft, and music. Through art education for all ages and abilities, scholarships, and a welcoming environment, the Center ensures that everyone has the opportunity to see, learn, and create!

Mission Statement:
The Floyd Center for the Arts connects people through visual arts, handmade craft, and music – honoring living traditions while embracing innovation.

Floyd,
VA
Arts/Cultural Organization Craft School Gallery
Clay Fiber Glass Metal Mixed Media Other Paper Wood
Front entrance to the Denton Maker Center. James Thurman

The Denton Maker Center, a non-profit organization, strives to be the central location for creative making in the greater North Texas region. This is accomplished by providing activities and resources that nurture a community of makers. Activities include workshops (both in-person and online), exhibitions, sales, open studio times, and related special events. Resources include tools/equipment, expertise of personnel, safe workspace, exhibition space, and a retail store. Generation of public interest and appreciation is accomplished through promotion of these activities and resources through personal networking, social media, website, print materials, and shared distribution by aligned institutions.

Denton,
TX
Arts/Cultural Organization Craft School
Clay Fiber Glass Metal Mixed Media Paper Wood
HINGED GOLD GORGET from Kerala, India, of high karat gold and ruby, early 19th Century. Photograph by Robert K. Liu/Ornament

Ornament celebrates a unique art because its context is the human being. We cover jewelry and clothing, from our ancient beginnings to the contemporary era. Our creative energies are drawn from an appreciation that what we make to adorn ourselves is a beautiful and meaningful expression of life.

Our vision is rich in contemporary, ethnographic and ancient history, anthropology, and archaeology. We believe that we can help sustain a healthy and compassionate society when we know more about our own and other cultures. As an international resource for forty-seven years, Ornament encompasses the world.

From the beginning we set ourselves the exciting challenge of documenting the art and craft of personal adornment. Ornament demonstrates the richness and diversity of this vast subject with a stunning display of creative works, past and present.

With informative profiles we support emerging and established artists in jewelry and wearable fiber who create artworks that stimulate, enrich and invigorate us today and are a profound and exquisite legacy for the years ahead.

Knowledge shapes the present and future when we renew our bonds both with the recent past and antiquity, revealing or tracing historical roots and customs, aesthetics, materials, and technical processes. Ornament exists to educate, inform and inspire.

San Marcos,
CA
Arts/Cultural Organization Other
Fiber Metal
Hallie Ford Museum of Art exterior. courtesy of the Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Willamette University

The only liberal arts college art museum in the Northwest, the the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University is located near the Oregon State Capitol in the heart of Salem, Oregon. The museum is a leader in the research on the art of the Northwest, with one of the most significant collections of Northwest art and a history of important publications and exhibitions. The museum’s collections reflect the rich Pacific Northwest culture and explore the history of art around the world.

In 2021, the collection of the former Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland was transferred to the Hallie Ford Museum of Art. It is now part of the museum’s permanent collection.  This collection of over 1300 objects is one of the oldest craft collections in the country.

Salem,
OR
Arts/Cultural Organization Museum
Clay Fiber Glass Metal Wood
Racing Magpie's buildings in mniluzahan (Rapid City, SD).Racing Magpie

Racing Magpie, founded in 2015, is a Lakota-centric creative community space located in Mni Luzahan (Rapid City, South Dakota), on Očhéthi Šakówiŋ homelands. We are a home for Native artists, creatives, and community members; a space for making, gathering, healing, and building relationships. Our work is guided by the Lakota principle of being a good relative, and we center this responsibility in everything we do: with people, with the land, and across generations.

We work at the intersection of art, community, and cultural continuity through five program areas:

  • Artist Support & Creative Development – Studio space, residencies, grants, a supply swap.
  • Exhibitions – Community-curated and solo exhibitions, traveling shows, and site-specific works.
  • Creative Education & Knowledge Sharing – Art classes, our Elder-in-Residence program, internships, Winter Camp.
  • Community Creative Events – Art markets, creative gatherings, and youth-friendly, drug- and alcohol-free events.
  • Place-Based Practice – Two multi-use buildings with a community garden, outdoor gathering space, and dedicated facilities for long-term sustainability.

Rapid City,
SD
Arts/Cultural Organization
Metal Mixed Media Other Paper
Proud graduates. Mississippi State University

The Mississippi State University Department of Art offers the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.

Accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD), the department offers three concentrations:  fine arts (including emphasis areas in ceramics, drawing, painting, printmaking, and sculpture), graphic design, and photography.

Mississippi State,
MS
University or College
Clay Metal Other Wood
Nordic Echoes in the Scandinavia House Galleries. Photo by Eileen Travell

Scandinavia House: The Nordic Center in America is the leading center for Nordic culture in the United States, offering a wide range of programs that illuminate the culture and vitality of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. It is the home of the American-Scandinavian Foundation (ASF), an American non-profit organization offering fellowships, grants, intern/trainee sponsorship, publishing and memberships.

ASF is the organizer of “Nordic Echoes — Tradition in Contemporary Art,” the first major traveling exhibition of contemporary Nordic folk arts and cultural traditions from the Upper Midwest. On view at Scandinavia House in 2025, the exhibition will travel to the South Dakota Museum of Art in Brookings, SD (October 2025-January 2026), the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis, MN (February-June 2026), and Vesterheim in Decorah, IA (October 2026-January 2027), and other locations in 2027.

New York,
NY
Arts/Cultural Organization Museum
Fiber Glass Metal Mixed Media Other Paper Wood