This Spotlight contains a collection of works that Graham Boyd had been working on over the last year. The work focuses on the formal and sculptural side of hand made glass objects, highlighting their form, colour, surface, and silhouettes.

Our SPOTLIGHT exhibit highlights work by new Alberta Craft Council members and members producing experimental work.

Gardening is a passion for many people, a way to create a sanctuary, grow food, or simply to make their living space a little greener. It is also a hobby that has gained popularity over the events of the past few years. This series by Stephanie Elderfield is a celebration of the pastime, with each miniature tool crafted in precious metals and fine woods to replicate their larger counterparts. Every piece in the collection is made using similar techniques to those used during construction of the full-size versions. The miniaturization of these tools allow them to become portable tokens of an enjoyed activity, and a fun conversation starter. 

Our SPOTLIGHT exhibit highlights work by new Alberta Craft Council members and members producing experimental work.

Craft and Science explores the interesting ways that science and craft intersect. Both fields rely on creative problem-solving skills, research, specialized training, traditional and innovative techniques and methodologies, imagination, and curiosity to fuel the search for answers. Science not only serves as a source of inspiration - scientific methods and principals are used every day by craft artists in the processes and creation of their work. Likewise, artists are called upon to find creative solutions and alternative perspectives in laboratory and research settings.

Participating artists: Anna Heywood-Jones, Amanda McKenzie, Crys Harse, Charles Lewton-Brain, Cora Woolsey, Jane Kidd, Karen Wall, Leah Kudel, Mackenzie Roth, Mireille Perron, Nancy Oakley, Sarah Ritchie, Tanya Doody, Teresa Johnston, Tricia Wasney.

Has the pandemic left you with the need for some comic relief? We invited Fine Craft artists working in all traditional and contemporary craft media to join in the fun and to create their interpretations of kitsch craft.

Kitsch: Craft So Bad That It’s Good is a group exhibition of works from Alberta Craft Council members. Creators responded from across the province to kitsch it up with humorous works that and will make you laugh and cringe all at once - crossing lines and breaking rules.

Craft artists working in all traditional and contemporary craft media were invited to create their interpretations of kitsch craft; Craft that shares a knowing wink with the viewer, craft that wears kitsch on its velour sleeve as a rhinestone badge of honor, craft that’s appeal is found in its bad taste and ironic value.

Stuck indoors during the covid winter, artists turned to their resourceful natures to design and create objects responding to our strange covid times and using materials that were readily at hand in their covid hideouts! Many of the participating artist created new one of kind objects unlike anything you have seen in the Alberta Craft Council before.

Kitsch: Craft So Bad That It’s Good subverts the rules around good taste, and crosses the line, making you laugh and cringe all at once! The resulting exhibition is exciting, curious, challenging, eccentric and hilarious!

Participating artists: Abby Light, Ananda Holdsworth, Breanna Barrington, Hellen Beamish, Annette Ten Cate, Carly Hines, Ciara Jayne, Corinne Cowell, Dale Learner, Donna Brunner, Ellie Shuster, Emily Nash, Erik Lee, Erika Dueck, Jennea Frischke, Jennifer Hartley-Illanes, JoAnna Lange, Kaleb Romano, Karla Mather-Cocks, Susan Kristoferson, Laura O'Connor, Lauren Chipeur, Margaret Hall, Matt Gould, Matthew O'Reilly, Meghan Wagg, Mireille Perron, Pour Celine Frit, Puck Janes, Rochelle Hammond, Ruth-Anne French, Sandra Lamouche, Sara Norquay, Sara Young, Sarabeth Carnat, Shona Rae, Siri McCormick, P. Susannah Windrum, William Miles.

View the online exhibition.

Watch Craft and Kitsch – So Good That It’s BAD**, a virtual talk about Kitsch organized by the Alberta Craft Council featuring Historian Dr. Jennifer Salahub.

Read the review of Kitsch: Craft So Bad That It’s Good published by Galleries West.

Listen to On Art: ‘Kitsch: Craft So Bad That It’s Good’, an interview with ACC Executive Director Jenna Stanton published by CKUA on September 10, 2021.

Celebrating the creativity, innovation and skill of emerging, Canadian craft artists. Coming Up Next is an exhibition of works selected from a diverse variety of approaches, mediums, and regions. With recent graduates from post-secondary programs, and artists that have practiced and studied their craft through mentorship, Coming Up Next is an exciting collection of works in Wood, Ceramics, Glass, Fibre, and Metal, made by artists form Nova Scotia, Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.

Participating artists: Adriane Vant Erve, Chen Si, Dalayce Smith, Daniel Labutes, Esther Imm, Gillian Tolliver, Graham Boyd, Jared Last, Leia Guo, Luke Winterhalt, Marcy Friesen, Meng Qiu, Sophia Lengle, Lael Chmelyk.

The Alberta Craft Awards are awarded biannually and designed to acknowledge individuals and groups who make significant contributions to Alberta’s Fine Craft culture. This exhibition celebrates the six recipients of the 2021 Alberta Craft Awards:

Early Achievement Award: Pamma FitzGerald

Excellence Award: Sharon Rose Kootenay Cherweniuk

Linda Stanier & Family Memorial Award for Excellence in Ceramics: Kaleb Romano

Tom McFall Honour Award: Natali Rodrigues and Kari Woo

Fibre Arts Award - Hand Weavers, Spinners and Dyers of Alberta Endowment: Fern Facette

Jewellery is one of humankinds earliest known expressions of creative endeavour beyond mere survival. How does the ready availability of DIY jewellery kits, and other such products that create widespread accessibility to jewellery making, affect the artists who participate in and advocate for the handmade economy as skilled and trained makers?   

 What happens to the independent maker; to craft and the status of the handmade when a niche skill set such as jewellery making is subject to the generalization and globalisation of the marketplace? Alternately what happens to notions of jewellery when they can be influenced by a surplus of generic materials and processes beyond the traditional ones?  

 This exhibition is a compelling cross-section of interdisciplinary art jewellery practices in the region. These artists each navigate and activate different intersections between artist, educator, entrepreneur, studio jeweller, academic and parent amongst other roles and influences.   

Curated by Kari Woo 

Participating artists:  Sarah Alford, Devon Clark, Jamie Kroeger, Louise Perrone, Lyndsay Rice, and Kari Woo.   

A.C.E.: Alberta Craft Excellence features a diverse selection of exceptional Fine Craft artists in our province today. Marking the Alberta Craft Council’s 40th anniversary (2020), the exhibition serves both to celebrate and to commemorate excellence in Alberta contemporary and traditional fine craft recognizing quality, authenticity, innovation, and craftsmanship.  

The invited jury - two professional makers Natali Rodrigues and Sharon Rose Kootenay and craft historian Jennifer Salahub had the arduous task of selecting from many high-quality submissions, those most representative of craft excellence in 2020. 

Participating Artists:  Jim Etzkorn, Pamma FitzGerald, Brian McArthur, Mackenzie Kelly-Frère, Susan Kristoferson, Liv Pedersen, Bonita Datta, Bonny Houston, Marty Kaufman, Brenda Malkinson, Jackie Anderson, Karen Cantine, Sarabeth Carnat, Albertine Crow Shoe, Charles Lewton-Brain, Shona Rae, John Smith-Jones, Simon Wroot, Kenton Jeske, Talar & Jean-Claude Préfontaine, Erin Schwab.  

Curated by Shiemara Hogarth

Audre Lorde once said that “if I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.”

eva birhanu and Simone Elizabeth Saunders define for themselves, in this body of work, permanent manifestations through sculptural and textile practices that reckon with the necessary conversations surrounding race, gender, roots and identity.

Conceived as a visual narrative and social commentary, Sharon Rose Kootenay’s Manitohkewin series explored the artist’s relationship between cultural practices, spiritual beliefs and global concerns.
Manitohkewin was made possible in part with the support of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts: Indigenous Arts Individual Project Grant, the Royal Alberta Museum, and the Glenbow Museum.

In craft, careers are as varied as the objects created, and each artist has their own unique career story to tell. Marking the Alberta Craft Council’s 40th anniversary, Making: a career in craft shares the stories of 21 fine craft artists.

This series by master goldsmith Charles Lewton-Brain (Calgary) speaks to human attempts to control and possess nature.

Charles Lewton-Brain learned and worked in Germany, Canada and the United States. His work is concerned with nature, structure and drawing. His jewelry and research into compositional systems for metal working has been published internationally. He invented and disseminated fold forming, a system of working sheet metal new to the field. He received Canada’s highest honor for Craft, The Saidye Bronfman Governor General's Award. Charles also co-founded the Ganoksin Project with Dr. Hanuman Aspler in 1996, now the world’s largest educational website for jewelers. He has over 1000 pages of his writing there. 

The Spaces Between is a solo exhibition of works by Leah Kudel exploring the absent spaces that surround us in life. They are spaces that make us feel something. They bring us together, make us question our lives, fill us with curiosity, and help us grieve after loss. An intersection between handblown glass, photography, video, and interactive art, this exhibition blurs the lines between fine craft and contemporary art.

Kudel was a contestant on the Netflix series Blown Away: Season 1, a high-stakes glassblowing competition. Now based in Edmonton, Leah has returned to Canada after spending four years travelling the globe working as a professional glassblower. Leah has worked as an artist in studios across the USA, New Zealand, Italy, Czech Republic, Indonesia, Fiji, Denmark, United Arab Emirates, and Croatia.

Cultivate | Instigate is about the influential creatives at the forefront of post-secondary craft education in Alberta. The artists in this exhibition balance the dual roles of educator and professional practicing artist.

Participating Artists: Zimra Beiner, Reed Fagan, Marty Kaufman, Mackenzie Kelly-Frère, Martina Lantin, Bill Morton, Lyndsay Rice, Tyler Rock, Natali Rodrigues, Laura Vickerson, Trudie Allen, Ruby Sweetman, Trudy Golley.

Dawn Detarando (Red Deer) uses her ceramics expertise to curate a diverse selection of 20+ butter dishes. This exhibition will demonstrate the variety of processes and techniques that contemporary ceramics artists ‘churn’ out from their studios.