Namita Gupta Wiggers | |
---|---|
Born | 1967 |
Nationality | American, South-Asian |
Known for | Craft, curator, artist, art history, educator |
Awards | Windgate Foundation, 2015; Award to Critical Craft Forum, Smithsonian Institution, 1992; Award for Museum Leadership |
Namita Gupta Wiggers is a noted expert in the field of contemporary craft, a curator, educator and a writer based in Portland, Oregon. [1] Her prior experiences as a studio jeweler, video ethnographer/design researcher, and museum educator shape her multidisciplinary thinking and consideration of craft in material, conceptual, and theoretical ways. [2]
She was born to Indian immigrants in Cincinnati, Ohio and received a BA in art history and English from Rice University in Houston, Texas in 1989. In 1994, she earned her MA in art history at the University of Chicago. [3] [4]
Namita began working as a Portland-based studio jeweler who sold some of her work to the Museum of Contemporary Craft (MCC) in Portland.[ when? ] In 2004, she joined the MCC as the head curator, and in 2012 she was promoted to head curator and director. In 2014, Namita stepped down from her position at the Museum of Contemporary Craft. [5]
She has lectured at The Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) and teaches an MFA of Applied Craft and Design at Oregon College of Art + Craft. [6]
Warren Wilson College appointed her director of MA in Critical and Craft Studies [2]
In 2008, Namita Gupta Wiggers cofounded Critical Craft Forum with Elisabeth Agro out of a desire for a place create a dialogue that spans the craft community. [7] Namita is on the Board of Trustees to the American Craft Council [8] and the Curatorial Board of AccessCeramics. [9]
Wiggers contributes to multiple online and print articles and books. She serves as the exhibition reviews editor for The Journal of Modern Craft and on the editorial board for Garland Publishing. Her publications include Unpacking the Collection (2008), Ken Shores: Clay Has the Last Word (2010), and Generations: Betty Feves (2012).
Marie Watt is a contemporary artist living and working in Portland, Oregon. Enrolled in the Seneca Nation of Indians, Watt has created work primarily with textile arts and community collaboration centered on diverse Native American themes.
The Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) is an art school of Willamette University and is located in Portland, Oregon. Established in 1909, the art school grants Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees and graduate degrees including the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) and Master of Arts (MA) degrees. It has an enrollment of about 500 students. The college merged with Willamette University in 2021.
Jessica Jackson Hutchins is an American artist from Chicago, Illinois who is based in Portland, Oregon. Her practice consists of large scale ceramics, multi-media installations, assemblage, and paintings all of which utilize found objects such as old furniture, ceramics, worn out clothes, and newspaper clippings. She is most recognizable for her sloppy craft assemblages of furniture and ceramics. Her work was selected for the 2010: Whitney Biennial, featured in major art collections, and has been exhibited throughout the United States and internationally, in Iceland, the UK, and Germany.
Jens Hoffmann Mesén is a writer, editor, educator, and exhibition maker. His work has attempted to expand the definition and context of exhibition making. From 2003 to 2007 Hoffmann was director of exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts London. He is the former director of the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art from 2007 to 2016 and deputy director for exhibitions and programs at The Jewish Museum from 2012 to 2017, a role from which he was terminated following an investigation into sexual harassment allegations brought forth by staff members. Hoffmann has held several teaching positions including California College of the Arts, the Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti and Goldsmiths, University of London, as well as others.
Stephanie Syjuco, is a Filipino-born American conceptual artist and educator. She works in photography, sculpture, and installation art. Born in the Philippines, she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1977. She lives in Oakland, California, and teaches art at the University of California, Berkeley.
Brad Cloepfil is an American architect, educator and principal of Allied Works Architecture of Portland, Oregon and New York City. His first major project was an adaptive reuse of a Portland warehouse for the advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy. Since 2000, Cloepfil and Allied Works have completed cultural, commercial and residential projects including the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, the University of Michigan Museum of Art, the Dutchess County Residence Guest House and the Museum of Arts and Design. Recent and notable works include the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver, Colorado, completed in November 2011; the National Music Centre of Canada in Calgary, Alberta, which opened in July 2016; and the Providence Park expansion in Portland, Oregon, completed in 2019.
The Museum of Contemporary Craft based in Portland, Oregon was the oldest continuously-running craft institution on the west coast of the United States until its closing in 2016. At the time of its closure, it was located in downtown Portland's Pearl District, the museum's mission was "to enliven and expand the understanding of craft and the museum experience."
Arline Fisch is an American artist and educator. She is known for her work as a metalsmith and jeweler, pioneering the use of textile processes from crochet, knitting, plaiting, and weaving in her work in metal. She developed groundbreaking techniques for incorporating metal wire and other materials into her jewelry.
Arlene Schnitzer was an American arts patron and philanthropist. She was the founder and director of the Fountain Gallery, established in Portland to showcase artists in the Pacific Northwest. She is the namesake of the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, a performing arts center in Portland, Oregon.
Betty Feves (1918–1985) was an Oregon artist who helped shape the development of clay as an expressive medium in the years following World War II.
Kristan Kennedy is an American artist, curator, educator and arts administrator. Kennedy is co-artistic director and curator of visual art at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA). She is based in Portland, Oregon, and has exhibited internationally, working with various media including sculpture and painting.
Mary Catherine Lamb was an American textile artist, whose quilts reframed traditional Roman Catholic iconography. Recycling vintage textiles popular during the mid-20th Century, she both honored and affectionately skewered her Catholic upbringing.
Art Jewelry Forum (AJF) is a nonprofit international organization founded in 1997 that advocates for the field of contemporary art jewelry through education, discourse, publications, grants, and awards.
Lauren Fensterstock is an American artist, writer, curator, critic, and educator living and working in Portland, Maine. Fensterstock’s work has been widely shown nationally at venues such as the John Michael Kohler Art Center (WI), the Bowdoin College Museum of Art (ME), the Portland Museum of Art (ME), and is held in public and private collections throughout the U.S, Europe, and Asia.
Cynthia Lahti is an American contemporary artist from Portland, Oregon, who works in many mediums: "from collage to ceramics, altered books, and painting".
Glenn Adamson is an American curator, author, and historian whose research and work focuses on the intersections of design, craft, and contemporary art. Adamson is currently editor-at-large of The Magazine Antiques, editor of Journal of Modern Craft, a freelance writer and a curator. Adamson has held previous notable appointments as the Director of the Museum of Arts and Design, Head of Research at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and as Curator at the Chipstone Foundation.
Jan Yager is an American artist who makes mixed media jewelry. She draws inspiration from both the natural world and the lived-in human environment of her neighborhood in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, emphasizing that art is a reflection of both time and place. She has incorporated rocks, bullet casings, and crack cocaine vials into her works, and finds beauty in the resilience of urban plants that some would consider weeds.
Joan Livingstone is an American contemporary artist, educator, curator, and author based in Chicago. She creates sculptural objects, installations, prints, and collages that reference the human body and bodily experience.
Glenda Arentzen is an American jeweler, goldsmith, and educator. In 2008, Arentzen was elected a Fellow of the American Craft Council (ACC).
Sharon Church was an American studio jeweler, metalsmith, and educator. She is a professor emerita of the University of the Arts (Philadelphia) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 2012, Church was elected a Fellow of the American Craft Council (ACC). In 2018, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of North American Goldsmiths.