Heather Skelly

Museum is First in New England to Focus on Crafts

“Glass-top Table with Dogs,” made of walnut, ash and glass, by Judy Kensley McKie.

Joining New York’s American Craft Museum and the Corning Museum of Glass, the Fuller Museum of Art in Brockton, Mass., will soon become one of the few museums in the country to focus entirely on contemporary crafts.

Making it the first in New England to do so, the Museum’s board of directors voted unanimously for the change after reviewing the success of its recent crafts exhibitions. “When putting together the Lino Tagliapetra exhibition in 2001,” says Museum education director Dawn Wilson Low, “it came to our attention just how many world-renown crafts artists are living, teaching, and working in southern New England.”

Michael Darmody, the Museum’s development director, says the crafts world was “underserved” in New England.

The three wings of the education department — exhibition-based programs, community outreach and the Museum school — are creating several programs and events that will focus solely on crafts beginning in January 2003.

“Our major battle in the education departments will be redefining the popular concept of ‘craft’ to include high-quality, unique, hand-crafted works that require creativity, ingenuity and skill,” says Low.

American Craft Council executive director Carmine Branagan believes well-researched exhibitions are a major contribution to increased understanding of crafts.

“Twirl,” by John Eric Byers, made of mahogany, milk paint and varnish

According to Low, the exhibitions and programs, which include a lecture series, will be entirely devoted to crafts in 2003. The Museum plans to invite speakers with name-recognition to talk about current trends and issues in the craft field, as well as to give some historical context as to how the craft field is progressing in the 21st century.

The Museum’s docent outreach lectures will also have more craft topics. In researching for the upcoming expansion into crafts, Low noticed a lack of prepared materials and slides covering contemporary American crafts. “It is my hope … we will be able to develop our own outreach materials that can be packaged for other museums and schools,” Low says.

Art ASPIRE, the Museum’s major outreach program for established artists to mentor younger artists, will now include craftspeople in after-school residencies with young people in Brockton.

The Museum School has also sought craftspeople in the region willing to teach. This fall, the school will offer a glass blowing course off-site at Simple Syrup Studios, a “hot shop” opening in Brockton. The school plans other crafts workshops and courses in the near future.

As for the role of American crafts in the 21st-century art world, Low sees the line between “fine art” and “craft” becoming increasingly blurry.

“I think that the stigma of craft as being boring, stagnant, and traditional is being slowly erased,” she says. “People are waking up to the notion that crafts can be exciting, lively, and thought-provoking. It is our hope, as a contemporary craft institution, that we can promote craft as art.”