Call for Artists
All artists working in clay, fiber, glass, metal, wood, and found/recycled materials are encouraged to apply to CraftTexas 2025. The online application is open February 1 – April 30, 2025. Learn more.

Designing Motherhood invites audiences to consider why and how designs have been developed to facilitate reproductive health, and to ponder the political, economic, and social implications of medicalizing reproduction. The exhibition explores experiences of (in)fertility, pregnancy, postpartum, parenthood, and early childhood through blown-glass weaning vessels and hand-carved rocking chairs to art jewelry inspired by breast pump flanges, pacifiers, and nipple shields.

“Handcrafted objects are the intermediary space between the womb and the world. From handwoven swaddling cloths and knitted baby blankets to embroidered baby carriers and basket-woven bassinets, craft is often the first human experience of the material world,” notes HCCC Curator and Exhibitions Director Sarah Darro. “HCCC’s presentation of Designing Motherhood draws out the intertwined properties of labor, care, embedded history, material intelligence, and intergenerational knowledge shared by craft and parenthood, ultimately asserting such reproductive experiences as forms of craft themselves.”

With the aim of spotlighting contemporary experiences around human reproduction, this multivalent project consists of a traveling exhibition, a book published by MIT Press, an Instagram account, a design curriculum, a Narrative Portraiture project, and ongoing public programs with community partners across the globe. “Our aim was to have this exhibition speak to all visitors in some way,” states the Designing Motherhood curatorial team. “We wanted to showcase the beauty, elegance, and ingenuity of so many quotidian objects related to the arc of human reproduction, and for our visitors to stop and contemplate the social and cultural context surrounding these designs.”

Designing Motherhood is curated and organized by design historians and writers Juliana Rowen Barton, Director of the Center for the Arts and Curator of Gallery360 at Northeastern University; Michelle Millar Fisher, Ronald C. and Anita L. Wornick Curator of Contemporary Decorative Arts within the Contemporary Art Department at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Zoë Greggs, Executive Assistant at BlackStar Film Projects; Gabriella Nelson, Associate Director of the Voices for Health Justice program at Community Catalyst; and Amber Winick, an independent early childhood and design researcher and curator. Since 2021, the exhibition has traveled to the MassArt Museum in Boston and the Bill and Melinda Gates Center in Seattle. Opening concurrently with HCCC’s exhibition is another iteration of Designing Motherhood at the Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design (ArkDes). Learn more about the exhibition here.

HCCC Curator & Exhibitions Director, Sarah Darro, is the organizing curator of Designing Motherhood at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. Developed in collaboration with local and regional community partners, a robust slate of public programming will accompany the exhibition.

Major support for Designing Motherhood has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage and the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.

Thanks to our program partner, Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast. The mission of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast is to ensure the right and ability of all individuals to manage their sexual and reproductive health by providing health services, education, and advocacy.

Home Affairs Collective’s ArtSit

Reservations Available on Saturdays
Currently on view in Designing Motherhood, Home Affairs Collective’s ArtSit is an adjustable chair that allows children up to five years old to view art at eye level. The chair is available for families to use with assistance on Saturdays for the duration of the exhibition. Sign up here to reserve the ArtSit, and enjoy a new way to explore the exhibition with your child!

Disclosure is traveling from The Corning Museum of Glass, who published Related Tactics’ initial dataset in their 2020 issue of New Glass Review. Much like a game of telephone, the collective invited a series of artists to creatively translate hard data about the demographics of those working in the glass field. The exhibition showcases three iterative stages of interpretation: data visualizations by Related Tactics; artist instruction responses by Einar & Jamex de la Torre, Cheryl Derricotte, Emily Leach, Corey Pemberton, Ché Rhodes, and Joyce J. Scott; and glass responses by Pearl Dick, Raya Friday, Vanessa German, Helen Lee, and Victoria Ahmadizadeh Melendez. The resulting work—over 100 drawings and objects—celebrates and reflects the invited artists’ diversity of practice.

“This exhibition is a documentation of a socially engaged, relational project designed to create community among BIPOC artists, using the glass community as a case study,” said Related Tactics. Using the demographic data the group collected for the New Glass Review article as their starting point, they united two groups of artists for a multi-phase collaborative glassmaking and community-building studio process. “The overarching process is a means of contending with the wounds of misrepresentation, tokenization, and marginalization, while creating a space for mutual support, creative exchange, and the development of a collective imaginary.”

This project was supported by a Center for Craft Research Fund Artist Fellowship, and the exhibition originated at the Center for Craft in 2022-2023. Disclosure was also made possible with support from Crafting the Future and in-kind support from the Glass Program of Tyler School of Art & Architecture at Temple University.

Hispanohablantes: los materiales de la exposición están traducidos al español en la galería.

About Related Tactics

Formed in 2015, Related Tactics is an artistic collaboration between artists and cultural workers Michele Carlson, Weston Teruya, and Nathan Watson. The group’s projects are made at the intersection of race and culture and explore the connections among art, movements for social justice, and the public through trans-disciplinary exchanges, collective making, and dialog. Related Tactics is also a conceptual space and platform that employs curatorial strategies as artistic gestures to create opportunities within communities and construct space for a collective voice. Through collaboration and critical thought, strategically implemented amongst and for communities of color and the diaspora, Related Tactics confronts systemic and institutional racism and inequities that influence their immediate, socio-cultural lived experience. Carlson, Teruya, and Watson work loosely between the San Francisco and Washington D.C. areas, engaging many community members that make their work possible. Their projects have been exhibited and supported by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus, OH), University of San Francisco Thacher Gallery, Berkeley Art Center, Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery at Parsons School of Design (New York, NY), Southern Exposure Gallery and an Alternative Exposure Grant (San Francisco, CA), Chinese Cultural Center (San Francisco, CA), the Center for Craft (Asheville, NC), and The Corning Museum of Glass (Corning, NY). More information on Related Tactics can be found here: https://relatedtactics.com/.

Opening Reception
Friday, February 9, 5:30 – 8:00 PM
The opening reception will feature neon performances in the Main Galleries by Lily Reeves and James Akers, as well as Treachery of Material: The Surrealist Impulse in Craft in the Artist Hall.  The evening will also feature open studios by the current resident artists.  Beer generously provided by Buffalo Bayou Brewing Co.

Light Charmer Interactive Tour
Saturday, February 10, 3:00 – 5:00 PM

NEON NEON: Lighting Up the Screen
Wednesday, April 18, 7:00 – 10:00 PM

Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (HCCC) is pleased to present Light Charmer: Neon and Plasma in Action, a group show featuring artists who create a spectacle of light, color, and movement through neon and plasma sculpture and performance. Viewers will be enchanted by the variety of glowing artworks on display.

While the advertising world has largely abandoned neon signage in favor of LEDs and fluorescent lighting, many contemporary artists have embraced the dynamic mediums of neon and plasma, challenging common misconceptions that these materials are only suitable for two-dimensional art.  “In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in the aesthetic of neon art and signage. However, few people realize the level of hand skill and scientific knowledge that it requires,” says HCCC Curator Kathryn Hall. “Through experimentation with blown-glass forms, unique gas compositions, and the interplay of light and sound, these artists demonstrate new and exciting potential for a material that has been in a state of commercial decline.”

As a throwback to the neon of a bygone era, Brooklyn artist Kate Hush puts a new spin on animated signs by addressing feminist issues through the flashy aesthetic of the material. Her femme fatales reference the dangerous and tragic women that once dazzled the silver screens of film noir. Her recent body of work responds to the absurd female stereotype of the crazy, unstable woman and plays into the fantasy of the dangerous vixen. For instance, in I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair (2015), the artist straddles the line between the mundane and psychotic, leaving it ambiguous as to whether the large red drops originating from the young woman’s head are hair dye or blood. The blinking lights generated by the animation of the piece only increase its dramatic effect.

Other artists in the show are enthralled by the science of these luminous materials. In their purest form, noble gases produce different colors and, when combined, create a wide spectrum of possible light effects, as exemplified by the works on view. Plasma is a perfect medium for artists who want to incorporate performance into their works, as the electrons in the material collide into one another, creating a series of explosive effects. The plasma works of Eric Franklin, Mundy Hepburn, and Aaron Ristau, for instance, come alive when the gases respond to human touch through glass. Demonstrating a highly specialized knowledge of the medium, these artists engineer custom gas mixtures to create vibrantly colored filaments of light inside blown- and found-glass forms.

Artists James Akers and Lily Reeves work with neon gas, the namesake of the art form, which produces a red glow when combined with high-voltage electricity in an airtight chamber. The two artists activate their sculptures, which they make by bending commercial tubes, in live performances. In Neon Sword Fight (2015), Akers and Reeves wield “Star Wars”-like light sabers in a battle between opposing forces of good (cool-blue argon) and evil (orange-red neon). Like many of the works in the exhibition, Akers’ and Reeve’s sculptures are not just meant to be seen, they are meant to be experienced.

Light Charmer: Neon and Plasma in Action is curated by HCCC Curator Kathryn Hall.  The exhibition is supported in part by the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass and Barbara and Mark Paull.

Featured Artists
James Akers (Arlington, TX)
Sarah Blood (Alfred, NY)
Michael Flechtner (Los Angeles, CA)
Eric Franklin (Portland, OR)
Mundy Hepburn (Old Saybrook, CT)
Kate Hush (Brooklyn, NY)
Hannah Kirkpatrick (Norfolk, VA)
Lily Reeves (Phoenix, AZ)
Aaron Ristau (Loveland, CO)
Ashlin Williamson (Austin, TX)

Please Note
This exhibition contains low light levels, flashing light, and sounds that may be disruptive to some visitors. Some of the plasma sculptures produce electromagnetic radiation that may interfere with medical devices, such as pacemakers and hearing devices. It is recommended that individuals with medical devices keep a safe distance away from the artwork.

Image credits: (1) Michael Flechtner, “Sea Goat,” 1991. Neon, radio, audio controller. Photo by Scott Cartwright. (2) Sarah Blood, “Untitled (Enough),” 2018. Phosphor-coated glass, argon, mercury vapor, sequins, fabric, blackout, power supply. Photo by Scott Cartwright. (3) Exhibition view of “Light Charmer: Neon and Plasma in Action.” Photo by Scott Cartwright. (4) James Akers and Lily Reeves, “Neon Swords,” 2018. Neon, 3D-printed plastic, power supply. Photo by Scott Cartwright. (5) From left to right: Michael Flechtner, “Flash Cameras (Red and Blue),” 1988. Neon, plexiglass, strap. Michael Flechtner, “Clifford the Little Neon Dog,” 2015. Neon, MDO, D-rings. 9 x 16 x 20 inches. Photo by Scott Cartwright. (6 – 7) Kate Hush, “A Bad Man Is Hard to Blind,” 2016. 8mm and 12mm glass tubing, argon, neon, 120v animated power supplies. Photo by Scott Cartwright. (8) James Akers, “The Wild One (B),” 2018. Circuit bent toys, wires, custom circuitry, neon. Photo by Scott Cartwright. (9) The exhibition is supported in part by the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass and Barbara and Mark Paull. (10) James Akers and Lily Reeves, “Neon Sword Fight,” 2015. Neon, argon, wood. Photo by Charlie Golonkiewicz. (11) Eric Franklin, “Skull 1,” 2013. Borosilicate glass, neon, mercury, acrylic, electronics. 12 x 12 x 12 inches. Photo by artist. (12) Kate Hush, “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair,” 2015. 8mm Italian glass tubing filled with argon and neon gas, animated 120v power supplies. 50 x 40 x 2.5 inches. Photo by Shahryar Kashani. (13) Hannah Kirkpatrick, “Camera Obscura Crate,” 2015. Wood, surveying tripod, glass, metal, surrounding light. 5 x 2 x 2 feet. Photo by artist. (14) Hannah Kirkpatrick, “Camera Obscura Crate,” 2015. Wood, surveying tripod, glass, metal, surrounding light. 5 x 2 x 2 feet. Photo by artist.