*This exhibition will be on view through October 31, 2026.

Craft has the capacity to connect people to one another, to ground us in a specific place, and to bridge generations across time. Connections in the Making includes works by regional artists, craftspeople, and entrepreneurs that tell many different stories about ways craft connects us.

Blacksmith Rachel David hosts skill-building workshops that demonstrate how craft brings people together. Over the past six years she has hosted free forging demonstrations and workshops for predominantly BIPOC and LGBTQIA++ individuals. David makes craft approachable for a wider and more diverse group of people.

Craft can also connect us to a place.  Basketmakers Gabriel Crow, Lucille Lossiah, and Ramona Lossie (Eastern Band Cherokee) use materials and dyes native to Western North Carolina to create exquisite baskets that highlight the inseparable relationship between land and the Cherokee people. 

Finally, craft connects our cultural pasts to the present. Artist Rachel Meginnes sees herself as a collaborator with makers whose names were once known. She deconstructs old quits and weaves them into new compositions. “The hands and minds that made these heirlooms are gone,” Megennis explains, “my own choices respond to the material that remains and the choices of past makers that I study.” 

Come discover your own ties to craft and why making matters today by exploring the eleven stories that form Connections in the Making.