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.