CraftForms celebrates 25 years of craft
RADNOR >> Nancy Campbell, executive director of the Wayne Art Center, came to love crafts when she worked in stained glass during college in Greeley, Colo.
Her love of glass and fabric art meshed with the interests the late Frank McPherson, of Rosemont, who was a board member and artist who created wood sculptures.
“Frank was very passionate about craft,” said Campbell. “We bonded because we had similar interests. And we got talking one day that we have all these art exhibitions but we don’t have a craft exhibition.”
That spark began the CraftForms in 1994, which was, at first, a small exhibit of local artists and craft makers. Now 25 years later, CraftForms 2019 drew entries from all around the country and other countries, as well, and is one of the premier craft exhibitions in the U.S., said Campbell.
Campbell and McPherson asked William Daley, a well-known ceramic artist, who was the head of the craft department at the University of the Arts, and the late Richard Reinhardt, the head metals department there for their help. Both advised them on their first CraftForms show.
“What I’ve found about these crafts people is they’re just so giving,” said Campbell. “They want to help you…They spent all this time with us and consulted with us and encouraged us to go ahead with this project. These people have big reputations.”
Patti Hallowell, the CraftForms exhibition coordinator, said, “In the last couple years, I’ve learned that what we’re doing here is part of a bigger picture. And that’s been a revelation to me and it’s something I can get very excited about.”
Through the American Craft Council in Minneapolis,
an organization devoted to crafts, Hallowell learned that craft has always been a big part of the Philadelphia area dating to the Revolutionary
times, when the city was a manufacturing center and known for its furniture. And after World War II, many men came back from the war and used the G.I. Bill to get an education in the arts, which led to seven art schools that responded to the demand to teach artists and craftspeople in Philadelphia, she said.
“They’re naming Phila
delphia the crafts capital of the United States,” she said. “It’s pretty exciting and all, feeding the nourishing of craft in Philadelphia,” said Campbell.
The Wayne Art Center has also developed relationships with other craft artists at institutions throughout the country.
“We started branching out and asking artists from around the country to jury our show,” said Campbell. “We started expanding our network.”
The juror of the 2019 show, which runs from Dec. 6 to Feb. 1, is Jane Milosch, who is the founder and director of the Provenance Research Initiative in the Office
of the Under Secretary for History, Art and Culture at the Smithsonian Institution. In that capacity, Milosch finds art that was looted by the Nazis and returns it to the family that owned it, Campbell said.
“CraftForms is a yearlong event for us,” said Hallowell. Once the show closes, they begin on March 1 soliciting entries for the next year’s show.
“It will be an online call,” she said. “They begin submitting their images online.”
Hallowell said each artist submits two pieces so they had just over 1,400 works by some 700 craft artists entered this year for the juror to choose. Of those, she chose 88 pieces.
“We offer them an honorarium for their time and expertise,” said Campbell.
“What I’ve found about these crafts people is they’re just so giving. They want to help you…They spent all this time with us and consulted with us and encouraged us to go ahead with this project. These people have big reputations.”
— Nancy Campbell, executive director of the Wayne Art
Center
“In the past we sent all of these (images) out on slides and they would have to send them back.”
Hallowell, a Radnor resident, is also a painter and former gallery owner.
“I am always working on something,” Hallowell said. “I have a studio on my third floor.”
The pieces on display for CraftForms include objects created from ceramics, fiber, metal, glass, wood, mixed media and 3-D printing.
“There is a story behind every piece,” said Hallowell. “And that to me is the richest part of all of this.”
The other day, two artists from upstate New York dropped off their pieces and were very impressed with the Wayne Art Center, telling Campbell that they have nothing like it in their towns, she said.
“Sometimes we take things for granted,” said Campbell. “It’s wonderful to hear that…When we finished our second expansion in 2008 we had a second gallery space.” They moved CraftForms to the larger gallery and have held companion shows in the smaller gallery each year with a different theme.
The companion show this year is “Westward Ho,” which brings the works of artists from Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Wyoming. The curator for “Westward Ho” is Gail Brown, an independent craft curator, who is from Wynnewood but now lives in Santa Fe, N.M.
A show of Wayne Art Center students’ work, “Attraction to Abstraction,” will also be on display simultaneously. CraftForms and the annual Plein Air Festival are the largest fundraisers for the art center and support their year round exhibits and classes, said Campbell. Campbell is also very grateful for their sponsors.
“Without them we could not do it,” she said.
Many special events related to CraftsForms 2019 are also slated, including a Collector’s Panel on Jan.
11 from 1 to 3 p.m.; a Designer Open House from 5 to 7 p.m. on Jan. 17 and a Patron Wine Pairing Dinner on Jan. 23 from 6 to 8 p.m.
For more information go to www.wayneart.or or www.craftforms.org or call the Wayne Art Center at
610-688-3553. The Wayne Art Center is located at 413 Maplewood Ave. in Wayne.