As the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft turns 10, it’s celebrating the artist residency program that motivated its founding.
Crafting Live(s): 10 Years of Artists-in-Residence features new work by half of the more than 70 artists who passed through the program. The exhibit is HCCC’s first residency alumni show, and all craft media are represented, including clay, fiber, glass, metal, wood and mixed media.
“Some artists created pieces that reflected on their experiences as residents and others presented objects representative of their current interests and methods of making,” writes guest curator Keelin Burrows, Windgate Charitable Foundation Curatorial Fellow at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
The show’s 58 works fall into several themes: “Traditions within Modernism,” “Gender and the Body,” “Nature and the Built Environment” and “Historical and Cultural Relics.”
“While many of the works and artists cross and even transcend strict categorical distinctions, it is interesting to see how certain relationships begin to form,” writes Burrows, who conducted studio visits with alumni. “For instance, there are various ways in which the artists connect with craft, whether through the use of traditional materials or techniques, through referencing or reacting to the history of craft as a formal discipline, or through dealing with a set of prescribed working ethos related to craft as a practice, and even as a performance.”
In a sign of the residency program’s vitality, people who frequent Houston galleries and museums will recognize many names on the roster, including Anila Quayyum Agha, Elaine Bradford, Gabriel Craig, Michael Crowder and Edward Lane McCartney.
On view through Sept. 3, the show kicks off with a reception tonight at 5:30 and a walkthrough at 11 a.m. Saturday with Burrows and some of the artists.
CRAFTING LIVE(S): 10 YEARS OF ARTISTS-IN-RESIDENCE
Reception 5:30-8:30 p.m. Friday. Gallery tour 11 a.m. Saturday.
Through Sept. 3
Houston Center for Contemporary Craft
Free
