The Center for Craft's new strategic direction plan, Craft Matters 2023-27, spotlights the idea of communities of practice as a way to consider broader access and inclusion for craft. How will we recognize and value the contributions of diverse communities and the individuals who build them? Answers will change how these contributions are recognized and valued in the future. Inherently, the values implicit within craft include the importance of community-building and a commitment to fairness and equity in recognizing and distributing the concept of value.

Join the Center for Craft's Executive Director Stephanie Moore and moderator Dennis Stevens of RedefiningCraft.com for a lively panel discussion to include Tanya Aguiñiga, Juliana Barton, and Steven Lee, as they share their knowledge and passion for a fuller understanding of craft in the US.

To learn more about Craft Matters 2023-27 visit Center for Craft's website linked here.

About the Moderator

Dennis Stevens is a designer and developer of pedagogical strategies that use technology to engage online communities in educative conversations. Dennis is a visual artist, writer, inventor, small business owner, and strategy consultant. He holds a Doctor of Education (EdD) degree in Art and Art Education from Teachers College, Columbia University; a Master of Arts (MA) Degree in Instructional Technology from the Connie L. Lurie College of Education at San Jose State University and an undergraduate Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree from the College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities at Clemson University. Before college, Dennis served as a Gunner’s Mate in the U.S. Coast Guard. He was born and raised in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Dennis has written about hybrid intersections of art, craft, and design on and off for the past two decades, and his most recent work can be found at RedefiningCraft.com

About the Speakers

Tañya Aguiñiga was born in 1978 in San Diego, California, and raised in Tijuana, Mexico. An artist and craftsperson, Aguiñiga works with traditional craft materials like natural fibers and collaborates with other artists and activists to create sculptures, installations, performances, and community-based art projects. Drawing on her upbringing as a binational citizen, who daily crossed the border from Tijuana to San Diego for school, Aguiñiga’s work speaks of the artist’s experience of her divided identity and aspires to tell the larger and often invisible stories of the transnational community. She is the founder of AMBOS (Art Made Between Opposite Sides), an ongoing series of projects that provides a platform for binational artists. She was recently awarded the Latinx Art Forum: Latinx Artist Fellowship (2022), Heinz Award (2021), and American’s for the Arts Johnson Fellowship for Artists Transforming Communities (2018). Her work is in the collection of the Hammer Museum, LACMA, Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt and Renwick Museums, and the Museum of Art and Design, among others.

Juliana Rowen Barton is a historian and curator whose research centers on the confluence of race, gender, and design. She is the Director of the Center for the Arts and Curator of Gallery360 at Northeastern. As an independent curator, she works on Designing Motherhood, a book (MIT Press 2021), exhibition, and story-banking initiative that explore and expand conversations around maternity and childbirth across cultures and communities. Throughout her career, she has worked on exhibitions and programs at the Center for Craft, the Barnes Foundation, Center for Architecture/AIANY, Museum of Modern Art, and Philadelphia Museum of Art, where she co-organized Design in Revolution (2018) and Designs for Different Futures (2019-2020). She also taught critical theory of race and architecture at the Weitzman School of Design. Barton holds a PhD and MA from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA with Highest Distinction from the University of Virginia.

Steven Young Lee is an artist in Helena, Montana, and was the Resident Artist Director of the Archie Bray Foundation for 15 years until 2022. In 2004-05, he lectured and taught at numerous universities throughout China as part of a cultural and educational exchange in Jingdezhen, Shanghai, and Beijing and spent two months in Seoul, South Korea, studying ceramic tradition and history. Lee has lectured extensively in North America and Asia. In 2021, his work was included in “Crafting America,” a survey of contemporary craft at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and OBJECTS: USA 2020 curated by Glenn Adamson in partnership with R&Co in New York, NY. His work has been collected by the Smithsonian Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of Art, the Portland Art Museum, the Newark Museum of Art, the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, the Everson Museum of Art, the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul, Korea, and many private and public collections. Lee earned his BFA and MFA in Ceramics from Alfred University.

Stephanie Moore currently serves as Executive Director for the Center for Craft. Over the past 12 years, Moore led the Center's relocation and property development plan to downtown Asheville, strengthened programs, and launched the Craft Matters 2023-2027 strategic plan. Previously, Moore was the Director of Visual Arts for VSA (an affiliate of the Kennedy Center), the international organization for arts and disability. Moore provided the direction of visual arts initiatives for 18 years and curated over 40 exhibitions, including the groundbreaking Revealing Culture held at the Smithsonian Institution and designed by Michael Graves & Associates. Moore holds a BA in art history/studio art from James Madison University and an MA in nonprofit management/underrepresented cultures from George Washington University. She currently serves on the board of New Bedford Research & Robotics.