about the Center
Over the past three decades, the Center for Craft has invested $8.29 million and counting in grants and fellowships to craft artists, researchers, and organizations nationwide. Our programs have always responded to what the field needs next—lifting creative practice, expanding scholarship, and raising visibility for how and why craft matters.
As we prepare for the 2028 opening of the nation’s foremost Community Library and Archives dedicated to American craft, we are deepening our thinking about the intersections of preservation and innovation, local and national, past and future. A new initiative launching later this year will fortify the field like nothing we have done before.
Join us for a year of announcements and bold new directions as we move craft forward, together.
Vision, Mission & Values
Our work is concentrated on the most creative and original artists and ambitious research in order to fortify the field with rigorous standards of making and intellectual inquiry.
The future of the craft field is in the hands of the next generation. We support the ideas, voices, and the professional development of emerging craft makers, curators, scholars, and critics.
We understand craft as relevant and meaningful to a broad spectrum of disciplines. We invite “cross pollination” through collaborations, discussions, and sharing across subjects.
We respect, value, and celebrate the unique attributes, characteristics and perspectives that make each person who they are. We foster open communication of diverse perspectives and bring a broad range of individuals together to enrich and support programming.
We intentionally work both lean and efficiently, expanding and contracting our resources to fit the needs of each project.
We value the importance of higher education to train both makers and researchers. We also recognize that learning happens outside of formal educational systems, including studios, galleries, and other alternative spaces.
By joining forces we can build audiences, and increase capacity. Partnerships allow us to strengthen the craft community and leverage shared resources.
We encourage and stimulate inquiry and dialogue. This allows the craft field space to dance with a concept – to clarify, examine, and document a complexity that allows for growth and deeper understanding. We work to address the scarcity of intellectual engagement with craft in higher education and museums by supporting research and scholarship.
Craft is a particular approach to making, grounded in materials, skill, and process. Artists, makers, scholars, and curators continue to grow the field—embracing new definitions, technologies, and ideas—while honoring craft’s history and traditions.
Craft demonstrates creativity, ingenuity, and practical intelligence. It strengthens communities, connects us to cultural histories, and contributes to a sustainable future.
Milestones at the Center
Study commissioned by Handmade in America recommends a new organization to integrate craft history, criticism, and education at the college level.
Center for Craft is established as an inter-institutional public service center of the University of North Carolina (UNC) by the Board of Governors and General Assembly in May.
Center for Craft receives 501(c)(3) nonprofit authorization on July 22.
The Kellogg Center—the Center for Craft’s first home—opens in Hendersonville, North Carolina.
Center for Craft holds its first Craft Think Tank, gathering thought leaders from around the country to address the needs of the craft field.
Center for Craft announces the first round of Craft Research Fund grants, which award $95,000 to craft researchers, museums, students, and scholars for craft-related exhibitions, publications, and projects.
Center for Craft awards the first Windgate Fellowships, providing $15,000 to 10 undergraduate students annually.
Center for Craft supports the launch of the Journal of Modern Craft, the first peer-reviewed academic journal to provide an interdisciplinary and international forum in its subject area.
Center for Craft publishes Makers: A History of American Studio Craft, the first comprehensive survey of studio craft in the United States.
The Craft Research Fund expands to include Exhibition Research grants.
Center for Craft purchases a historic three-story building in downtown Asheville and consolidates efforts under the 501(c)(3) as an independent entity from the UNC system.
The Center’s gallery opens to the public, exploring contemporary processes of making.
The Center curates and produces an exhibition of works by previous Windgate-Lamar Fellows for the SOFA (Sculpture, Object, Functional Art & Design) Expo in Chicago.
Elissa Auther is named the first Windgate Research Curator, a collaborative position between the Museum of Arts and Design, Bard Graduate Center, and Center for Craft.
UNC Asheville partners with the Center for Craft to launch the Center for Creative Entrepreneurship, now called Craft Your Commerce, a program by Mountain BizWorks serving Western North Carolina’s small businesses.
Center for Craft launches the Curatorial Fellowship to support emerging curators presenting new ideas about craft.
Warren Wilson College partners with the Center for Craft to launch the first master’s-level program in critical craft studies in the United States, which ran for five years through 2022.
Center for Craft establishes the Stoney Lamar Craft Endowment Fund to support fellowships and internships for emerging artists and curators.
Center for Craft hosts a Grand Reopening celebration following the first renovation of its wholly-owned facility at 67 Broadway.
Center for Craft develops and launches a renewed mission and strategic plan, Craft Matters, focused on broadening the impact of craft beyond academic contexts and amplifying why craft matters to society.
Center for Craft reactivates its Craft Futures Fund to support craft artists and organizations in Western North Carolina impacted by Hurricane Helene. It mobilizes to disburse $1.3 million in unrestricted funds to 892 recipients.
Center for Craft celebrates 20 years of the Craft Research Fund, providing cornerstone funding for neglected questions in craft history, theory, and criticism—with nearly $2 million distributed to 255 projects in 41 states, DC, and Puerto Rico.
At an event in October, the Center announces the acquisition of the American Craft Council Library and Archives, a landmark transfer that will move one of the nation’s foremost collections on American craft to Asheville.
Center for Craft turns 30, marking three decades of shaping and catalyzing the future of craft.
Michael Andry, Libba Evans, Ray Hemachandra, Suzanne Isken, Kelsey Keith, Steven Young Lee, Al Murray, Kayleigh Perkov, Molly Purnell, Fred Sanders, Emily Zaiden
Stoney Lamar
67 Broadway St, Asheville, NC 28801
(828) 785-1357 | info@centerforcraft.org
Gallery Hours: Tues–Sat, 10–6 get more info
Gallery Hours: Closed — Reopening Fall 2019
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