Adam Crowell is a wood artist currently based in South Carolina. He creates melodic percussion instruments that are part functional art and part musical instrument. Charleston Magazine says of Crowell: “Combining his love of percussion and a lifelong knack for handiwork encouraged by his father, a hobbyist carpenter, the local musician and woodworker sculpts melodic African tongue drums that blend rhythm and song into a single artful percussion piece. Crafted with unstained exotic woods such as African mahogany, Brazilian cherry, Canary, and purpleheart, his six-, 10-, and 12-note boxed drums have caught the attentions of both percussionists and art aficionados.” Read more about the artist from the American Craft Council, The Post and Courier and the Woodworker’s Journal.

What first interested you in working in your medium?
I built my first drum for myself while working as a musician in Los Angeles. I wanted something new to play and, with woodworking guidance from my father, I built it myself. A few other percussionists wanted something similar, and I wound up making a few drum sales. When I realized that I could turn my passion into a career, I spent every free moment prototyping and refining my instruments until I had built up enough product and credibility to officially launch Boxed Music.

What is special about the medium you work with? How does it inform the work you create? 
The thing that's most unique about wood is also its greatest cause for frustration. No matter how well acquainted I am with a specific type of wood, I have to refine the process every time based on knots, wormholes and swirling grain. Wood is a fickle medium, but it's the challenge that makes the outcome so special.

What do you love about your workspace? 
My shop just outside Charleston, S.C., is in an industrial park -- a neat little cluster of businesses with everything from an Italian ice company to cabinetmakers to a private gym. Since Boxed Music consists of just me and my administrative assistant, an American dingo named Bonnie, it's nice to work within a community. Plus, I've got 1,500 square feet of space where I can generate as much sawdust as I want.  

What was your inspiration for a recent piece?
I wanted a functional piece of art that could be enjoyed by a single person or shared by a group, so I invented an instrument called the Wenzi. The Wenzi consists of three separate drums --a rhythmic high, a rhythmic low and a melody -- all displayed in a sleek, sculptural stand. Wenzi means "company" in Swahili.

You can preview the work of the 2013 award winner for best artist new to the show here. See more of Adam’s work on his website at boxedmusicdrums.com.

We continue our blog series getting to know this year’s Show jurors with Eric Rymshaw, a Philadelphia-based architect and interior designer who is the design principal at Fury Design, Inc. where he partners with James Fulton. Their work includes large-scale residential interior and architectural projects, as well as corporate interiors. As collectors, Rymshaw and Fulton have been attending the Craft Show since its inception. Fury Design advocates for both craft and fine art with their clients and often commissions artists to create one-of-a-kind objects for interior and architectural projects.

What's the most rewarding or challenging thing about serving as a juror?

I really enjoy the diverse point of view that jurors bring – it’s like collaborating with really smart perceptive professionals who know their subject and share openly. It always opens my mind to new ways to look at artists and what they make. It often makes me realize how much I still can learn.

What makes the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show different? 

It’s the constant pursuit of excellence in the artists that are accepted into the show. Year after year there are amazing artists who surprise us.

What do you look for when selecting artists for the PMA Craft Show? 

I look for artists who not only excel in the craft of their work but as important their ability to design a beautiful object. My own love is for clay and wood. 

Which craft trends did you see coming through this year? 

Restrained modern minimalism. Clay and textile art are having a resurgence.

Josh Simpson is one of Western Massachusetts’ best known, most prolific and successful glass artists, whose portfolio has enhanced gallery exhibits and private collections throughout the world. His glasswork can be seen at the Smithsonian Institute, the Boston Museum of Fine Art, the Corning Museum of Glass, the Yale University Art Gallery and museums in Prague, New Zealand, Spain, Switzerland and Canada.

A longtime supporter of community arts, Simpson was instrumental in starting the glass blowing program at Snow Farm, The New England Craft Program in Williamsburg, MA. In 1985, he co-founded and was also the first president of the Craft Emergency Relief Fund, a national foundation that has helped many hundreds of artists survive personal crises, such as Hurricanes Katrina and Irene. He has also been President and Treasurer of the Glass Art Society, and a member since 1972. Simpson is married to chemist and researcher Cady Coleman, the 30th woman in space, the 333rd astronaut, and NASA’s senior most active astronaut. Read more of his bio at Josh Simpson Universe and get updates on new work from his website and Facebook profile.

What first interested you in working in your medium?

I think what initially piqued my curiosity, and has now commanded my attention for well over 40 years, is how impossibly challenging it is to work with glass. It is a ridiculously hot viscous liquid that obeys only gravity and centripetal forces. The challenge for me as an artist is to coax this molten material into a shape and form that I want it to be in.

What is special about the medium you work with? How does it inform the work you create? 

The magic of glass is its translucency. I can bend and magnify or diminish the light around it.  Even the shadows of glass objects have color!

What do you love about your workspace? 

I live among the hills of Western Massachusetts. The landscape and sky here is inspiration for much of the glass that I make. From where I sit at my bench I can see more than 50 miles down the valley. There are days when the drama of the ever-changing view down the valley, thunderstorms, snow squalls, clouds, sunlight and the changing seasons make it hard for me to work! 

There is no light pollution here. At night I have a perfect view of the sky and because I often have to adjust my glass furnaces at totally odd hours, I am sometimes rewarded by the most amazing views of the night sky. Aurora Borealis, the Milky Way, constellations, lightening, satellites, the Space Station... it’s all there. It’s taken me more than 40 years to configure my studio so that it’s exactly the way I want it. It is probably one of the best-equipped glass facilities in the world, and it’s perfect for me to create the glass that I’m known for.

What was your inspiration for a recent piece?

My most recent work is a series of “Corona Platters,” meant to evoke the wonder of the universe that I feel when I look at Hubble and Chandra Space Telescope images. 

You can preview the work of the 2013 Craft Show award winner for excellence in glass here. 

We continue our blog series celebrating the power and beauty of handmade objects, titled “The Best Craft I Ever Bought.”  In this series, creative and passionate Philadelphians tell us the stories behind the craft objects they’ve welcomed into their lives and what the objects mean to them.

In this post, Garth Johnson, Curator of Artistic Programs at The Clay Studio in Philadelphia, shares a secret: his favorite craft isn’t ceramic. A writer, educator and artist, Garth has taught at College of the Redwoods in Eureka, Calif. Georgia State University, Columbus State University and Golden West College. His first book, 1000 Ideas for Creative Reuse, was published in 2009. His artwork has been shown nationally and internationally, including a solo exhibition at The Clay Studio in 2009 and the group exhibition “Horizon – Landscapes, Ceramics and Print” at the National Museum of Art, Architecture, and Design in Oslo, Norway. His work can be found at www.theothergarth.com.

My clay friends and my co-workers at The Clay Studio might be surprised by my choice of the “Best Craft I Ever Bought.” Even though I have pottery and ceramic sculptures by some of the greatest masters in the field, my favorite craft is a crude painted wood carving of Sesame Street’s Ernie and Bert’s sweaters that stands about eight inches high.

The painted wood sculpture of Ernie and Bert’s sweaters standing together on a small plinth is iconic—just a glance by anyone the least bit familiar with Sesame Street creates instant recognition. In fact, my 2-year old daughter connected the sculpture with Ernie and Bert after only seeing them on YouTube a couple of times.

Even though the sculpture was a bit out of my price range at the time, I knew I had to have it. I had first met the artist, Sean Samoheyl, in the mid-aughts when I was living in Atlanta, Georgia and writing frequently for my blog, ExtremeCraft.com. Sean, who lives and works at the Twin Oaks commune in central Virginia, found out about my blog and sent me a link to some images of his work. He makes eccentric, raggedy carved wood sculptures and fantastic puppets. Over the past few years, Sean has embraced “traditional” woodworking techniques and has a chair-making business that painstakingly crafts rockers with delicate spindles and bentwood arms.

I’ve been thinking a lot about being “haunted” by images and objects. This might be the object in my life that haunts me the most. I’ve always been a person who derives feelings from things, and I spend a lot of time chasing those feelings in words, excited conversations or through my own art.

Not to get all introspective and cerebral, but there’s a powerful sense of absence in this sculpture…of loss even. Sure, Ernie and Bert are literally absent here, but I’m even a little bit haunted by Ernie and Bert’s presence. Their ambiguous relationship has been the subject of intense analysis (and projection) over the years. There’s something in this simple sculpture that evokes generations of closeted relationships to me. Maybe it’s just the way I tend to over-analyze and connect things, but a part of me always thinks of the AIDS epidemic—which if you think of it, would have squarely hit men like Ernie and Bert, who came of age in the ‘70s.

Sean’s sculpture is everything I value in craft. Of course I value workmanship, but I put the power of vision above all else. On the surface, the Ernie and Bert sculpture is whimsical. My 2-year old certainly likes to look at it and talk to it. I bring a lot of baggage to my relationship with the sculpture—all of us bring baggage to the crafted objects we interact with on a daily basis. Can a favorite craft object be “difficult” or even a little bit sad? I’d like to think so.

Visit the 2014 Philadelphia Museum of Art Crafts Show Wood category and Ceramics category to see the original hand-made objects in these mediums available from our 2014 artists. 

Behind-the-scenes insight on contemporary craft continues in our Juror Q&A blog series, this time from Craft Show 2014 juror Elisabeth Agro. (See the first Craft Show Juror Q&A post featuring the Museum of Fine Arts Boston’s Yvonne Markowitz here.) As the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Associate Curator for Craft and Decorative Arts, Agro often serves on the juror panel of the Craft Show.

What's the most rewarding or challenging thing about serving as a juror?

There are two aspects that are most rewarding to serving as a juror as often as I do. First, it permits me to meet and get to know the other jurors, who range from being curators of all kinds of spaces, gallerists, established makers and academics. Secondly, it is always rewarding to see new submissions from talented artists who are pushing the boundaries of their medium and work.

I guess the challenge is to rally my fellow jurors to make the best show possible by really bringing my "A" game into the room.

What makes the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show different? 

When this show was launched in 1977, it was the first of its kind, so it has those laurels to rest upon. This show, like others, is a fundraiser for a major museum. What sets it apart from other craft shows is how not only do all the proceeds go directly to varied museum-wide activities from exhibitions to education, but a percentage goes directly in a fund that is applied to the acquisition of contemporary craft. I don't need to explain how critical that is, do I!

What do you look for when selecting artists for the Craft Show? 

I am always on the lookout for up-and-coming artists who are pushing the boundaries of their medium or practice. It is especially important, in my opinion, that their work reflects their individual and unique voice. As the museum's curator, I always enjoy watching artists grow and come into their own. The Craft Show is a great way to get your work seen, especially if you are an emerging artist or even at mid-career. All shows need an infusion of new talent; it’s what keeps them fresh and vital. So artists, never shy away from applying!

Which craft trends did you see coming through this year? 

This year there was a striking proliferation of work across all media that could be categorized as minimal but blended with a twang of the industrial. This should not be very surprising, since it seems to be the trend in many household, office settings and everyday surroundings. What is surprising is to see this trend share the stage with the application and love of ornament, whether applied on the surface or to be used structurally. I can tell you that this decorative art historian always loves to see that!

Elisabeth Agro received her B.A. in Italian Studies from Mary Washington College, Fredericksburg, VA, and an M.A. in the History of Decorative Arts from Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution/Parsons School of Design, NY.

At the Philadelphia Museum of Art, she has executed several exhibitions: Wrought & Crafted: Jewelry and Metalwork 1900–Present, Interactions in Clay: Contemporary Explorations of the Collection, Craft Spoken Here and organized Calder Jewelry. The founding of the American Studio Craft movement is a subject of ongoing research. Agro is currently planning the second installment of At the Center: Masters of American Craft, part of a five phase installation program in the American Art galleries focusing on the Museum’s craft collection.

The Craft Show brings some of the country’s most notable craftspeople and their wares to our city. Today, we’re introducing a new blog series that celebrates the power and beauty of handmade objects, called “The Best Craft I Ever Bought.”  In this series, creative and passionate Philadelphians tell us the stories behind the craft objects they’ve welcomed into their lives and what the objects mean to them.

Our first blogger is Karen Karuza, a professor of fashion design who teaches at The Art Institute of Philadelphia and Moore College of Art and Design. She’s worn many (fashionable) hats, teaching ESL in Mexico, working in the fashion industry on New York’s Seventh Avenue, and as an antiques dealer specializing in religious iconography. She is a practitioner of the Mysore style of Ashtanga yoga and blogs at Confessions of A Yoga Hussy.

Nearly three decades ago, Oaxaca, Mexico found me. My son was born in Oaxaca,

I taught in a private school. I ran a cafe. But life changed and we returned to the States.

Seven years ago I was on a summer teaching sabbatical in Oaxaca documenting its incredibly rich textile tradition. Huipiles – traditional indigenous garments worn by women — have always been one of my favorite collectibles. In any crowded market, a woman’s huipile identifies what village and indigenous group she is from. Huipiles tell the story of one’s life.

One size fits all. Every woman looks lovely in a huipile. Even so, huipiles had fallen “out of fashion” in the early 21st century. Perhaps Oaxacan women wanted to appear more “North American” and ”modern.”

Wandering through a small specialty shop in the Tourist Corridor one lazy afternoon, I came across the most extraordinary “modern” version of huipiles.  Quality fabrics, scaled slightly smaller, slightly more cropped than the traditional versions, adorned with embroidered images and words.

Oaxacan artist and poet laureate Natalia Toledo, who is also the daughter of noted painter, sculptor and activist Francisco Toledo, had designed and made these huipiles. She writes in Spanish but also in Zapoteca- one of many fading indigenous dialects in Oaxaca.

An inky blue huipile caught my attention. It was embroidered with multicolored words that formed a poem, written by Natalia Toledo, one side in Spanish, one side in Zapoteca:

My house is your house

Fringes they weave on my head

Death is a cricket

That awaits on the leaf of your door

I cherish this huipile -- it reminds me of what I love about Oaxaca: the strength of the women, the lyricism of every day magic realism, the spectrum of color everywhere, the confrontation of life and death.

When I wear this huipile, feel connected to that place of my heart.

Visit 2014 Craft Show Wearable Fiber Art  to see the gorgeous, artist-made, wearable artwork that will be available from our Craft Show artists.

As much as fine craft artists turn to the PMA Craft Show Pinterest page for artistic inspiration, we’ve found that craft buyers browse our pins to preview the work available at the Show and for home décor ideas. And while we love seeing craft on display, it’s just as exciting to see artwork from professional crafters nationwide put to use at a dinner party or as part of your next fashion statement.

Our most repinned website images for the month definitely show that Pinterest users are looking through work from our craft artists with fashion in mind. Check out these top pins from our 2013 Craft Show artists--and be sure to follow us on Pinterest as we begin to share the work of our 2014 selected artists.

1. Sophie Truong, leather tote: 2013 Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show, leather category. Find the Chelsea, MA-based artist at stitchandtickle.etsy.com. 

2. Melissa R. Schmidt, glass necklace: 2013 Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show, semi-precious jewelry category. Find the Maplewood, MO-based artist at melissaschmidt.etsy.com.

3. Judith Kinghorn, sterling silver and gold pendant: 2013 Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show, precious jewelry category. Find the Minneapolis, MN-based artist at judithkinghorn.com. 

Take a browse through our Pinterest boards, organized by artistic medium and by how you can put those crafts to use in your home or in your wardrobe.  

To get to know our PMA Craft Show jurors this year, we’re introducing a new blog series to hear what they look for when selecting artists and what craft trends they see coming through in submitted work.

Our first featured juror is Yvonne J. Markowitz, the Rita J. Kaplan and Susan B. Kaplan Curator of Jewelry in the David and Roberta Logie Department of Textile and Fashion Arts, Museum of Fine Arts Boston. Serving in the first curatorship of its kind in America, Markowitz oversees the museum's exceptional collection of jewelry. She is also the past editor of the Journal of the American Society of Jewelry Historians, an editor of Adornment, the Magazine of Jewelry and Related Arts, co-director of the annual Adornment conference (ASJRA), and the author of numerous jewelry-related books and articles. Her most recent books are Artful Adornments: Jewelry from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Jewels of Trabert & Hoeffer-Mauboussin: A History of American Style and Innovation; and Jewels of Ancient Nubia (with Denise Doxey). 

What's the most rewarding or challenging thing about serving as a juror?

I enjoyed meeting the other jurors and all those at the Philadelphia Museum of Art who organized the process. It was also exciting to see craft outside my area of expertise.

What makes the PMA Craft Show different?

Its professionalism and the quality of the artists hoping to be selected.

What do you look for when selecting artists for the PMA Craft Show?

Originality, technical skill, and a sense of the time. When I say “a sense of the time,” I’m an Egyptologist by training and oversee the MFA’s encyclopedic collection of jewelry – ancient to modern – about 20,000 objects. It makes me very aware of the historical precedents that informs jewelry as well as outside influences.

Which craft trends did you see coming through this year?

For jewelry, I see leading artists less concerned with conceptual approaches to design and meaning and a greater emphasis on wearability.

Photo: Markowitz is posed with a bejeweled Gorham decanter that was exhibited at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, a late 19th century ladies’ watch in the Renaissance revival style by Tiffany & Co. and a necklace designed G. Paulding Farnham for Tiffany & Co. around 1900, also in the Renaissance revival style. 

The 38th Annual Philadelphia Museum of Art Contemporary Craft Show is still months away, but we’re already giving you a behind the scenes look at the creative process by sponsoring a talk with author, furniture maker and 2014 Craft Show juror Peter Korn. Peter will discuss and sign his book Why We Make Things and Why It Matters at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on May 4. We hope you’ll join us!

Peter Korn Author Talk and Book Signing

Sunday, May 4, 2:00-3:00 p.m.

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Van Pelt Auditorium

Service charge applies for ticket reservation ($2.50 museum members/$3.50 non-members); registration required 

Museum admission not required to attend this program.

What does the process of making things reveal to us about ourselves? How do the products of creative work inform society? Peter Korn, Executive Director of the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Rockport, Maine and author of the highly regarded book Why We Make Things and Why It Matters: The Education of a Craftsman, is the person to ask. He draws on four decades of hands-on experience to write eloquently, and often poignantly, about the why of craft and the satisfactions of creative work.

Press on Peter Korn’s Why We make Things and Why It Matters:

Boston Globe: A “craftsman writes that the creative process can be a professional journey.”

The New York Times: “We have a certain innate biological character, and I think that working creatively with actual materials — bringing new and meaningful things into the world with your own skills — helps us inhabit our humanity to the fullest.”

Portland Press Herald: “The book is a conversation about what it means to be human, what a good life is and how work fits into that.”