In the Making: Craft, Community, & Art Education in the Valley of the Sun

This year-long collaboration engages K–12 art teachers, recent alumni, and current students from Arizona State University’s Art Education program in exploring how values of craft—ritual, history, material, reinvention, skill, rhythm, concentration, and storytelling—shape both creative and teaching practices. Through hands-on textile-making, reflective writing, and dialogue, participants investigate the intersections of artmaking, pedagogy, and identity. By centering ASU-affiliated educators as makers and storytellers, the project highlights craft as a framework for professional reflection and community-building across generations of teachers. The initiative culminates in a collaborative exhibition at ASU’s School of Art, showcasing textile works, written reflections, and public engagement that celebrate the role of craft in education and illuminate its power to connect creative practice with classroom teaching.

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The Appalachian Center for Craft is a unique state-of-the-art educational facility and cultural center combining teaching, research, cultural outreach and crafts marketing all operating in partnership. The Center operates academic programs, workshops, outreach programs and exhibitions and sales galleries as well as facilities for meetings and conferences.

The Center exists at a crossroads between urban and rural, academic and folk, high art and domestic life. Born of the vision and initiative of the people of TN and a group of remarkable advocates for fine craft, the Center opened in December of 1979. The complex was originally developed by the TN Arts Commission and funded by the Appalachian Regional Commission, and is now a division of TN Tech University.

Spectacularly located in Middle TN on the Highland Rim of the Cumberland Plateau, on the wilderness tract overlooking Center Hill Lake, the Center’s facilities are spacious and well equipped. The location was chosen with both regional and national service in mind, centrally placed in the U.S., in the middle of a rich Appalachian craft tradition. The wilderness setting is ideal for total immersion in the educational programs, and yet the location offers easy access from around the U.S.

This fusion of traditional crafts and creative education reaches from the grass roots to the international craft world. The Appalachian Center for Craft is a vital expression of the rich contribution of the unique character of Tennessee.

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Berea College’s Student Craft program exists as part of the college’s Labor Program and is not part of a degree program. In addition to providing a tuition-free liberal arts education to all students, Berea College provides every student a work position. One hundred students have positions in Student Craft, where they learn about craft from start to finish, engaging in production, achieving quality control, selecting materials, managing deadlines and collaborating on design.

Craft students arrive with a wide variety of creative skills and experiences. Some have significant experience gained from family members, school, or community programs; others have their first formal exposure to a design-education experience after they arrive. Regardless of students’ background or academic major, staff provide them with the education, skills and tools needed to engage in the design and creation of hand-crafted objects in five areas: Weaving, Woodcraft, Broomcraft, Ceramics and Outreach. In addition, Student Craft supports fellowship and artist-in-residence programs and classes given by the Woodworking School at Pine Croft that spread the College’s commitment to craft beyond the Berea College community.  All of these elements combine to make Student Craft an offering like no other.

 

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The de Saisset Museum provides ambitious and groundbreaking exhibition and educational programing to our diverse publics on and off campus that are timely and multifaceted in nature. We foreground projects that highlight the varied realities lived by our diverse community of practitioners and support Santa Clara University’s goal of educating the whole person through interdisciplinary collaborations and partnerships. Our work is experimental; we function as a test-site for new ideas, methodologies, and practices and aspire to be in a constant state of evolution. We are governed by a code of ethics that foreground diversity, equity, and inclusion, which is reflected in all that we do.

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The House of Welcome Cultural Arts Center is part of the House of Welcome, the first longhouse built on a U.S. College Campus. Our work as a public service center is to support and promote Native arts and cultures and engage with Indigenous cultures throughout the world.

We support studio arts specifically in fiber art and carving on our Indigenous Arts Campus which includes a fiber arts studio and a carving studio complex. The work includes college classes, short and long term arts workshops and residencies, locally. We also support a artist workshop program in Native American communities in a four state region including Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. We provide grant support to colleges and universities who are seeking to improve or begin work in a similar fashion with Tribal artists from Tribal communities within their own service regions.

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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).

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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.

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Located in Demorest, Georgia, the Mason-Scharfenstein Museum of Art (MSMA) is part of Piedmont University. The museum fosters artistic and cultural enrichment by exhibiting art, supporting the university, and engaging the Northeast Georgia community.

Opened in 2011, the MSMA serves as the permanent home for works donated to the college by Dr. Bill Mason, Class of 1957, and Bob Scharfenstein, both of Birmingham, Alabama. Throughout the year, the museum hosts temporary exhibitions featuring contemporary art, craft, and design.

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MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering is home to the world’s premier program focused on materials science and engineering—the study of matter and how it is made.

Our faculty, staff, and students undertake interdisciplinary materials projects that draw on fundamental sciences in pursuit of beneficial engineering solutions. From novel manufacturing methods to high-capacity batteries, their work has resulted in powerful discoveries and innovations that positively influence virtually every corner of society.

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