The Center for Craft is excited to present a solo exhibition of patchwork textiles and inflatable sculptures by the Ohio-based fiber artist. Adrian’s volumetric, pneumatic work transports viewers into artifice, desire, and worldbuilding. Drawing from rich legacies of queer fiber art & theory, the exhibition features monumentally scaled works that physically respond to viewers presence by filling with air.
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17
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Oct
28
Feb 17, 2023
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Oct 28, 2023
Photo credit:
Photograph by Bowery Blue Makers
Jeans – with their standardized pockets, rivets, and denim – are so much a part of everyday wardrobes that they are easy to overlook. Yet, in workshops across the nation, independent makers are reevaluating the garment and creating jeans by hand, using antiquated equipment and denim woven on midcentury looms. Crafting Denim explores how and why jeans have come to exist at the intersections of industry and craft, modernity, and tradition.
A product of industrial factory production for over a century, jeans are being recast by a new cohort of small-scale makers including craftspeople like Ryan Martin of W.H. Ranch Dungarees, Takayuki Echigoya of Bowery Blue Makers, and Sarah Yarborough and Victor Lytvinenko of Raleigh Denim, who favor choice materials and small-batch fabrication. The jeans they make merge craft traditions with industry and extend the conversation between hand and machine.
Each maker creates a distinctive product but shares a deep appreciation for materials, tools, history, and denim. These jeans are in dialogue with the past and in line with contemporary interests in sustainability. The small workshops featured here are sites of innovation and preservation, and visitors are invited to take a close look at an everyday item and imagine alternative contexts for making and living in our own clothes.
This exhibition was developed as part of the 2023 Center for Craft Curatorial Fellowship. This program was created in 2017 to provide emerging curators with a platform to explore and test new ideas about craft. Each curator receives an honorarium, access to professional development tools, mentoring, and the opportunity to work closely with the other Curatorial Fellows and Center for Craft staff to produce their exhibition, develop educational materials, design an exhibition catalog, and deliver a curatorial talk.
Meet the artists
Faye Junaluska
Cherokee, NC
Lucille Lossiah
Ramon Lose
Cullowhee, NC
ᏯᏗ ᎺᏂ Betty Maney
Cherokee, NC
ᏗᎳᏂ Dylan Morgan
Cherokee, NC
ᎺᎵ ᏔᎻᏏᏂ Mary W. Thompson
ᏎᎳᏂ ᏔᎻᏏᏂ Sarah Thompson
Patricia Welch
Meet the artists
CRAFT RESEARCH TALK
View the catalog
View the catalog
View the catalog
about the artists
Photo credit: Jamie Hopper
Photo credit: Jamie Hopper
Photo credit: Jamie Hopper
about the curator
Photo Credit: Lauren Krohn
she/her
Dr. Sonya Abrego is a New York City-based design historian specializing in American fashion. She takes an interdisciplinary approach to examining the interconnections between dress, popular culture, art, craft, and design. Sonya has published in scholarly and popular venues, has presented at conferences across North America, and presently teaches at Parsons School of Design and the Fashion Institute of Technology. Her first book, Westernwear: Postwar American Fashion and Culture, is published with Bloomsbury Academic.
exhibition Images
exhibition Images
Aram Han Sifuentes is a recipient of the Center for Craft’s 2022 Craft Research Fund Artist Fellowship. This substantial mid-career grant is awarded to two artists to support research projects that advance, expand, and support the creation of new research and knowledge through craft practice.
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UNC Asheville transforms lives through leadership and education. The designated liberal arts and sciences institution for the UNC System and one of the nation’s top 10 public liberal arts universities, UNC Asheville enrolls 3,600 students and offers more than 30 undergraduate majors and a Master of Liberal Arts and Sciences degree. UNC Asheville also encourages students to take part in a nationally acclaimed undergraduate research program and participate in interdisciplinary learning. From internships and hands-on projects, to study abroad and community engagement, students experience an education that extends beyond campus into the vibrant City of Asheville, the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains and the world.
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A liberal arts college grounded in social responsibility, where hard work and community are more than just words.
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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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