Join us on Thursday, November 4th to build a 1:10 scale model of BA Harrington's Lineage #1 sculpture of a Hadley Chest. In this workshop, you will learn about the history of the Hadley Chest, see how it was referenced in sculpture in the exhibition Suite Américaine, and recreate one in miniature scale.

The featured artist of Suite Américaine, BA Harrington, will speak about the Early American gender-specific furniture forms that inspire her work and lead the making of a 1:10 scale version chest. She, alongside Center for Craft staff, will teach you how to assemble, join, glue, and hinge pre-cut wooden pieces. Once assembled, you will paint, decorate, and fill your miniature chest.

Registration is $35 and attendees will receive laser-cut wooden pieces, miniature dowels, hinges, hardware, paint and construction materials. This workshop uses hammers, wood glue, paint, and brushes. This workshop is in-person and recommended for ages 16 and older. All experience levels are welcome.

About the Exhibition

Suite Américaine is a solo exhibition by artist and material culture scholar, BA Harrington, which inflects historical American furniture forms with a contemporary feminist imagination. Developed with support from the Center for Craft’s Craft Research Fund Artist Fellowship, Harrington reconstructs Colonial and Early American gender-specific furniture forms — dowry chests (also called hope or dower chests), ladies work tables and ladies writing desks — to demonstrate the revolutionary potential of furniture to actualize the creative agency of women. Harrington’s work exposes, activates, and celebrates the rich interiors of objects that once stored and concealed the labor and craft skill of women.

The daughter, granddaughter, and sister of carpenters, BA Harrington carries craft lineage into contemporary practice. Part of a growing, intersectional cohort of women-identifying woodworkers, Harrington learned her trade, like many before her, by reproducing furniture forms of the past. Suite Américaine holds a reverence for the history of American furniture-making, but is inflected with a contemporary feminist imagination. The use of French in the exhibition’s title is a nod to the eighteenth century term for a furniture set and also allows the artist to feminize the word “American.” Similarly, the work on display acts as a feminist intervention on historic furniture.

Suite Américaine will be on view at the Center for Craft until November 26th. VIEW EXHIBITION PAGE -->

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Covid Safety

The World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ("CDC") have declared the novel Coronavirus ("COVID-19") a worldwide pandemic. Due to the capacity of COVID-19 to be transmitted from person-to-person, the Center for Craft requires that all visitors entering the building and galleries agree to act reasonably to limit their use according to the following representations. Center for Craft requires that all visitors act reasonably to confirm and agree to the following conditions. To the extent permitted by law, visitor assumes all risk and agrees that the Center for Craft may reasonably rely on the truth of the following representations in admitting persons to the building and galleries without further investigation.

Visitor is aware of the risk of visiting as a potentially dangerous activity that may cause injury or illness from exposure to disease such as COVID-19, and which may lead to injury, disability, or death of the visitor, other visitors, and their guests. Neither visitor nor any of their guests have experienced signs of sickness (e.g., cough, shortness of breath, difficulty in breathing, fever, chills, repeated shaking w/chills, muscle pain, headache, sore throat, new loss of taste or smell) or any other less common symptoms (nausea, vomiting or diarrhea) relating to COVID-19, within 15 days prior to the event.Neither visitor nor any of their guests, nor any member of their immediate households, has been medically diagnosed to be infected by COVID-19 within 15 days before entering the building. Anyone who may be experiencing symptoms should immediately contact a healthcare provider for further directions and consult www.cdc.gov/COVID19.Visitor and their guests, who have traveled internationally or as otherwise advised by CDC, by sea or by air within 15 days prior to the event have affirmatively adhered to self-quarantine and CDC guidance www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/travelers/.Visitor agrees to abide by all executive orders, directives, guidelines, and ordinances adopted from time to time by North Carolina state, municipal, and federal authorities regarding social distancing and protective coverings and which apply to the operations of the building (which will take precedence over the Standards if different), to abide by all posted COVID instructions and warnings, and to act reasonably to require Visitor’s guests to do likewise, at all times.