All Out for “Craft Art”

Bainbridge Island Museum of Art

Is craft considered art? But what is the real difference between the two? Materials, intent, usefulness? Bainbridge Island Museum of Art joins Craft in America’s nationwide initiative to celebrate craft throughout 2026. (Craft in America is a Los Angeles-based nonprofit arts organization formed in 2024.) Currently there are four separate exhibitions with contrasting themes and feelings. If you go to the museum you will not find answers, but you will see exhibitions that provoke you to think about those questions.

The largest exhibit on view is “Crafting Futures: Emerging Artists Invitational.” The invitational includes only nine artists each with multiple pieces that created dramatic contrasts. The concept of “emerging” does not necessarily mean youthful; it can mean willingness to explore. And explore they do.

Jacki Moseley innovates in every work and changes medium as well. Her wet-felted merino wool pieces were filled with an array of patterns and different textures. Another work is a boat made of Joomchi (a traditional Korean paper-making technique), with layers of wet mulberry paper woven with yarn. Moseley then shifted to basketry, making a fish trap and a bell form.

Another artist who clearly qualifies as emerging is Peter Jacobsen. He works with furnace (hot) glass. His smaller works are single fish, but he expanded to create a shoal of squid each one hanging from the ceiling. Largest of all is his  life-size porpoise skeleton, each bone a separate piece of hot-sculpted glass. 

Jacob Foran has evolved from vessels to bizarre helmets of ceramic, to heads, most recently a glazed head using “terra sigillata,” a studio pottery technique to create a silky surface. Furniture designer and woodworker James Nelson, meanwhile, contributes a series of sleek furnishings he calls “Nareau” (a spider deity in the mythology of the Gilbert Islands.) The legs on his furnishings, carved from white ash, are slightly bowed and look like they could walk away. The polished white ash contrasts with the reddish granadillo wood Nelson uses for the body of these furnishings—a striking and elegant combination of wood species.

Two stained-glass works by Anna Nardelli boldly rise out of their flat surface. Also fascinating is Stephanie Tayengco. Each of her works are completely different. My favorite is “Regeneration,” small glass-legged vessels with plants inside. Another highlight are the three paddles created by Ian Lawrence (Suquamish) and decorated by Brenda Smith (S’Klallam). This work hints at what BIMA has in store this summer—an entire exhibition called “Indigenous Craft,” guest curated by Robin Little Wing Sigo (Suquamish Tribe) which is to focus on Native American and First Nations craft artists, working in traditional and contemporary forms in the Salish Sea region.

In the other half of the main gallery space are over twenty works from the permanent collection of the museum, including familiar names such as Claudia Fitch, Kathy Ross, and Patti Warashina. On the space beyond the doors is “Chris Maynard: Featherfolio Encore.” Maynard collects a wide variety of feathers from which he creates small birds that seem to swirl around. Maynard’s first exhibition at BIMA was wildly popular, so don’t miss this reprise.

On the ground floor of the museum is the exhibit by George and David Lewis, “Deeply Rooted.” These two artists combine their interests in archeology, gardens, and water, creating wildly original pieces that blend and embody those passions. My favorite pieces were the giant pomegranates made of painted concrete. I wish I still had a garden to put them in! 

And finally, “Aimee Lee: Tethered” is on view in the wood-paneled artists’ book room on the museum’s second floor. (BIMA’s collection of artists’ books is one of the most significant collections of its kind.) Lee has thoroughly studied ancient techniques of Korean paper making known as “hanji.” She creates books and other objects from hanji, but the real impetus of her work is conveyed in the word “tethered.” She sees herself connecting ancient techniques to the present by transforming them. Her texts are models of brevity, yet they are deeply moving. In “For those left behind,” we come to a short sentence that unfolds across three pages—“Life is both” on one page, followed by “fragile” and then “and tenacious” on successive pages. She reaches out to us with these words even as she honors her ancestors. It is important to spend time with the books. Lee explores depths of emotion, and her books take so many hours to create, it is difficult in our rushed age to fully absorb what they have to offer.

All of these artists are working innovatively with materials and ideas. It seems to me that the issue of whether craft is art is settled by these exhibitions full of creative expressions.

Susan Noyes Platt

Susan Noyes Platt writes for local, national, and international publications and her website www.artandpoliticsnow.com.

Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, located at 550 Winslow Way East on Bainbride Island, Washington, is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. “Crafting Futures: Emerging Artists Invitational” is on view through June 13. “George and David Lewis: Deeply Rooted” is on display through June 11. “Aimee Lee: Tethered” is showing through June 14. “Chris Maynard: Featherfolio Encore” is on view through June 11.For more information, visit biartmuseum.org.