Lois Mailou Jones (1905–1998) was an artist and educator. Her work can be found in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Muscarelle Museum of Art, and The Phillips Collection. She is often associated with the Harlem Renaissance.
Toshiko Takaezu was an American ceramic artist, painter, sculptor, and educator with an oeuvre spanning a wide range of mediums, including ceramics, weavings, bronzes, and paintings. She is noted for her pioneer work in ceramics and has played an important role in the international revival of interest in the ceramic arts. Takaezu was known for her rounded, closed ceramic forms which broke from traditions of clay as a medium for functional objects to explore its potential for aesthetic expression, taking on Abstract Expressionist concepts and placing her work in postwar abstractionism. She is of Japanese descent and from Pepeeko, Hawaii.
William Victor Higgins was an American painter and teacher, born in Shelbyville, Indiana. At the age of fifteen, he moved to Chicago, where he studied at the Art Institute in Chicago and at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. In Paris he was a pupil of Robert Henri, René Menard and Lucien Simon, and when he was in Munich he studied with Hans von Hayek. He was an associate of the National Academy of Design. Higgins moved to Taos, New Mexico in 1913 and joined the Taos Society of Artists in 1917. In 1923 he was on the founding board of the Harwood Foundation with Elizabeth (Lucy) Harwood and Bert Phillips.
Elizabeth O'Neill Verner was an artist, author, lecturer, and preservationist who was one of the leaders of the Charleston Renaissance. She has been called "the best-known woman artist of South Carolina of the twentieth century."
Brenda Putnam was an American sculptor, teacher and author.
Mary Jackson is an African American fiber artist. She is best known for her sweetgrass basket weaving using traditional methods combined with contemporary designs. A native of coastal South Carolina and a descendant of generations of Gullah basket weavers, Jackson was awarded a MacArthur Foundation fellowship in 2008 for "pushing the tradition in stunning new directions." Mary Jackson is a recipient of a 2010 National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Lissa Hunter is an American artist known for her basketry, drawing and mixed media work. Her professional activities include teaching, writing, and a long association with Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine as teacher, student and trustee.
Paul Marioni is an American artist who works in the medium of glass.
Cynthia Schira is an American textile artist and former university professor. Her work is represented in the collections of many major public museums.
Lauren Kalman is a contemporary American visual artist who uses photography, sculpture, jewelry, craft objects, performance, and installation. Kalman's works investigate ideas of beauty, body image, and consumer culture. Kalman has taught at institutions including Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design. Currently she is an associate professor at Wayne State University.
Jennifer Trask is an American artist. She received a BFA in Metalsmithing from the Massachusetts College of Art, and an MFA from the State University of New York at New Paltz.
Sharif Bey is an African American artist, ceramicist and professor. He produces both functional pottery and ceramic and mixed- media sculpture, using a variety of forms and textures. His body of work reflects his interest in the visual heritage of Africa and Oceania, as well as contemporary African American culture. With his colorful large-scale bead sculptures, Bey explores the cultural and political significance of ornamentation and adornment.
Andrea Gill is an American ceramist.
Anne Currier is an American ceramist. She was born in Louisville, Kentucky, but she now resides in Scio, NY. Currier is known for her abstract ceramic works, which play with positive and negative space. Many of her works resemble the human form and architectural elements. In an artist statement, Currier revealed that her work was inspired by Greek and Buddhist sculpture. Currier also expressed that the play with visual planes, as found in the Cubist movement, was an inspiration.
Carolyn Crump is an American quilting artist whose work focuses on African American culture. Her work is included in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Michigan State University African American Quilt Collection.
James Frederick Melchert was an American artist best known for his ceramics and sculptures.
Ron Fleming also known as Ronald Franklin Fleming was an American woodturning artist whose pieces featured foliage motifs. His works are in the permanent collections of American museums such as the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Renwick Gallery and the White House Permanent Collection of American Craft.
Syd Carpenter is a African American artist and a retired professor of studio art, known for her ceramic and sculpture work, which explores African-American farming and gardening. She has received multiple fellowships, including a Pew Fellowship and an NEA Fellowship, and her work is currently in the Smithsonian American Art Museum's collection and the Philadelphia Museum of Art's collection.
Edith Bondie (1918-2005) was a basketmaker whose work is in the Smithsonian Institution, the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, and the Besser Museum for Northeast Michigan.
Appalachian Folk Art is a regional form of folk art based in the Appalachian region in the United States. In an article about the contemporary form of this art, Elizabeth M. Williams stated, “the definition of folk art is obscure.” Folk art is a way to convey the feelings and mannerisms of cultures through handmade visual art and conveys a message to the observer. Though folk art itself was brought to the Americas by Europe, it has adapted to each region and has cultivated traditions in each region.
(age 72)