The Association of Clay & Glass Artists of California is dedicated to establishing and maintaining high standards of craftsmanship and design in clay and glass. ACGA began as the Association of San Francisco Potters in 1945. We now have over 300 members including clay and glass artists, students, patrons and supporters, galleries, network organizations and corporate sponsors from throughout California.

A primary goal of ACGA is to provide opportunities for our members to exhibit and sell their work. The Association regularly presents museum and gallery exhibitions of clay and glass, and we present the annual Clay and Glass Festival in July at the Palo Alto Art Center.

We invite you to add your name to our mailing list or join ACGA. All members receive our monthly newsletter. Artists may apply to become exhibiting members at semi-annual jury sessions. Artists, collectors, art professionals, corporate sponsors, students, and friends are always welcome to join our ranks.

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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.

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The Huntington Beach Art Center creates opportunities for local, regional, and national artists and the community to share in a climate of experimentation, education, and experience. HBAC is a public/private partnership with the City of Huntington Beach and the Huntington Beach Art Center Foundation, a non-profit private corporation. The Art Center is operated through the City of Huntington Beach Community Services Department, Cultural Services Division.

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Visions Museum of Textile Art (VMOTA) began as Quilt San Diego, a non-profit arts organization founded in 1985 to promote contemporary quilt making as fine art. The organization’s mission was to present the prestigious, international, juried Quilt Visions biennial which was hosted at various museums in the San Diego area. In 2007, volunteers organized a community build and created our permanent location in the arts district at Liberty Station in San Diego, California.

VMOTA now features 20 exhibitions per year including online exhibitions, Member Challenges, and the Quilt Visions and Interpretations biennials. The museum also presents lectures and workshops by noted quilt and textile artists.

Visions Museum of Textile Art celebrates and advances contemporary quilting and textile art through exhibitions that explore cultural traditions, contemporary relevance, and innovative creativity. By fostering connection, dialogue, and inspiration, we empower individuals to appreciate, engage with, and contribute to the rich legacy and evolving practice of textile art, building a community that values diversity, creativity, and shared experiences.

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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 Spooniverse,  Blue 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.

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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. 

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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.

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The American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA) champions the art, history, creation, and technology of ceramics through exhibitions, collections, outreach, and studio programming.

With rotating exhibitions across our four galleries, there’s always something new to explore. AMOCA offers in-house field trips, MudMobile visits, teen programs, college/adult tours, and family events to provide opportunities for all to experience the wonders of clay. In person and virtual programing includes opening receptions, artist talks, exhibition tours, and monthly pay-what-you-can First Fridays.

Our Ceramics Studio offers classes and workshops, studio rentals, firing services, and an artist-in-residence program.

For current public hours, exhibitions, programs, classes, workshops, and more, visit our website at www.amoca.org.

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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.

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PSG opened in San Francisco in 1997, with a relocation to Los Angeles in 2022.

Focused exhibitions present ideas and use materials that challenge institutional culture, embracing work that expands art historical lineages, while dissolving boundaries between High and Low art.

Artists mine the rich, multifaceted traditions of craft, upending expectations, decolonizing  structures, breaching personal boundaries.

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The Fresno Art Museum is best known for exhibiting modern and contemporary art from California, as well as art by women artists and works on paper, alongside exhibitions that reflect the visual arts traditions of the ethnic groups that contribute to the rich diversity of the San Joaquin Valley.

The Fresno Art Museum’s permanent collection comprises over 3,800 paintings, prints, and sculptures by notable local, regional, national, and international artists. It features a remarkable collection of Art of the Ancient Americas, spanning over 2,500 years of the major artistic traditions of cultures in West Mexico, the Yucatan Peninsula, and the Peruvian Andes.

Founded in 1949, the Fresno Art Museum has been located at First Street and Clinton Avenue in Radio Park since 1960. The American Alliance of Museums has accredited the museum since the 1970s.

Mission & History :: Fresno Art Museum

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The Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (the MAH) was founded in 1996 to inspire new ways of thinking through the cultivation, exhibition, interpretation and intersection of contemporary art and history.  The MAH’s exhibitions, curricula, and public programs bring together diverse audiences to engage more deeply with each other, fostering critical discourse about our past and present in fun, educational ways.

The MAH achieves its mission by:

• Presenting art and history exhibitions that are educational, inspiring, engaging and highlight the rich and vibrant cultures that live in our community
• Collaborating with community partners to further our reach across the California Central Coast and Greater Bay Area
• Maintaining a permanent collection and archives of contemporary art and historical artifacts and making these assets more accessible to visitors, educators, and students
• Stewarding the land and programs, and hosting school groups and tours around Davenport Jail and Evergreen Cemetery
• Stewarding the Kincentricity Garden in partnership with the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band
• Serving as the cornerstone of Downtown Santa Cruz through our Abbott Square location and ensuring this space is a vibrant town square

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The Museum of Craft and Design is the only museum in San Francisco devoted to craft and design.

Founded in 2004, MCD showcases designers, makers and artists through an exciting and distinctive series of craft and design-focused exhibitions and public programs.

As a non-collecting institution, the museum actively collaborates with artists, designers, museums, and universities, as well as design venues and practitioners to create inspirational experiences in the world of craft and design for visitors of all ages.

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⁣Founded as a museum in 1973, Craft Contemporary reveals the potential of craft to educate, captivate, provoke, and empower. With a focus on contemporary art made from craft media and processes, Craft Contemporary presents dynamic exhibitions by established and emerging artists and designers who are often underrepresented in larger art institutions. Craft Contemporary complements these exhibitions with a creative line-up of educational programs, including hands-on workshops led by professional artists. Craft Contemporary cultivates an environment for people in Los Angeles to deepen their relationship to art, creativity, and one another.

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