State of Craft – A Year Long Celebration

State of Craft celebrates the artistic, social and economic history of the studio crafts movement in Vermont over the last 50 years.

Bennington Museum's State of Craft Exhibition – May 22nd – October 31st

Over the last five decades, Vermont has emerged as one of the epicenters of the crafts revival in America.  However, the artistic, social, and economic history of the contemporary crafts movement in the Green Mountain State has previously not been comprehensively researched and presented in a major museum exhibition... until now.

State of Craft, the major exhibition of the Bennington Museum's 2010 season, will feature more than 125 objects by 86 Vermont craftspeople, including master artists, emerging artists, and key individuals throughout the more than fifty year time frame of the studio craft movement, c. 1960-2010. This history will be told in a series of vignettes spread throughout the museum's temporary exhibition galleries based on the themes that have emerged from curatorial research and oral history interviews conducted by the Vermont Folklife Center. In addition, the exhibition will include audio tours, historical photographs and documents, and text describing each artist's role in the larger cultural and social history of the studio craft movement.

Vermont Crafts Council's State of Craft Showcase Events

As part of the celebration of its 20th anniversary, the Vermont Crafts Council selected 24 Vermont craft galleries, schools, organizations and businesses, museums and historical societies as satellite sites for State of Craft Events Showcase. A diverse roster of activities provides a rich view of the historic traditions of craft production in the state, the story of the modern studio craft movement, and their interconnections.

The complete list of Showcase Events is here.