By Jessica Fuentes

Design, like art, is shaped by the society from which it emerges. The look, feel, and functionality of our furniture, household objects, clothing, transportation, buildings, and more, reflect our values as well as our understanding of the world and our place within it. Art museum design collections are filled with beautiful tables, fabrics, vases, silverware, communication devices, and other relics of various times and places, but I don’t recall ever encountering a collection of speculums or breast pumps. While it is more seductive to investigate and be a steward of beloved cultural objects, the design of items like IUDs, menstrual products, and baby bottles should also be considered because they too tell a story about society. The places that preserve these objects are more likely to be science or history (rather than art) museums, which is why when institutions rooted in different disciplines collaborate, unexpected and relevant exhibitions materialize.

Such is the case with Designing Motherhood: Things that Make and Break Our Births, currently on view at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (HCCC). The inaugural iteration of the show debuted at The Mütter Museum and Historical Medical Library at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia in 2021. According to the museum’s website, the institution is a medical history museum that is dedicated to “sharing stories of medicine and public health.” The exhibition came about as a collaboration between the museum, the curatorial team (Juliana Rowen Barton, Michelle Millar Fisher, Zoë Greggs, Gabriella A. Nelson, and Amber Winick), and the Maternity Care Coalition, a local group of health and social justice activists supporting pregnant people and infants. Since 2021, Designing Motherhood has been hosted by the MassArt Art Museum in Boston (2022), The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Discovery Center in Seattle (2023), ArkDes in Stockholm (2024), and now HCCC.

While the original installation included five sections — Means of Reproduction, Midwives, Parturition, Exam, and Milk — later iterations have included sections titled Our Bodies Ourselves, Postpartum, Temporary Bodies, Spaces, and Monitoring. HCCC’s presentation begins with a Craft + Caregiving section, which features baby carriers, receiving blankets, and two wooden sculptures of figures. The introductory gallery sets the tone of the exhibition and roots it in the venue’s mission to showcase contemporary craft. Designing Motherhood thoughtfully considers the functionality and shifts in the design of objects used in various aspects of reproductive care, as well as the social ideas, political actions, and policies that have informed these objects. Works by contemporary artists are presented alongside tools and items, adding a further dimension of societal reflection on concepts of reproductive health and mothering.

Sarah Darro, Curator and Exhibitions Director at HCCC, who organized the institution’s iteration of the show, explained her thoughts behind the Craft + Caregiving section, which is unique to the venue. She told me, “For me, the section reveals the deep craft traditions that undergird our first experiences of the material world — baby swaddling and wearing — which were represented in the original [exhibition] by the Kuddle Up Receiving Blanket and Snugli. My aim with this section was also to posit the overarching thesis that forms of caregiving are craft practices in and of themselves.”

A line in the introductory wall text explains, “Like craft, parenthood shares [the] intertwined properties of care, labor, embodied history, and familial knowledge.” As a mother and artist, I feel this intrinsically — my creative practices and approaches blend into and both inform and are informed by my parenting and caregiving. Last fall, when I visited the now-controversial Diaries of Home exhibition at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, I felt seen, validated, and represented as a parent/artist in a museum for the first time. Walking into Designing Motherhood was validating in a different sense, the display of the sometimes mundane aspects of womanhood paired with historical and contemporary contexts highlighted the importance of the small and large physical, visceral experiences of menstruation, self-care, childbirth, and caregiving.

Walking through the space, the designed objects across history reaffirmed an unsurprising narrative — they spoke of the long cultural history of midwifery and how the medicalization of childbearing in the U.S. has been shaped by men with seemingly little concern for the comfort, and at times even safety, of female-identifying people. One example being the 2019 Yona Speculum Prototype Sketch, a drawing of a device designed by women to be used in pelvic examinations. This new design thoughtfully considers various aspects of the experience by covering the traditional steel object in silicone and using a design that provides nearly silent use as opposed to the unnerving clicking and ratcheting sounds of the cold, intrusive, metal object that is often inserted into the vagina to dilate it.

Woven throughout the exhibition alongside the history aspect of the show are works by artists, some of which speak directly to the objects on view and others that more broadly depict and reflect the lived experiences of women and nonbinary people. Aimee Koran’s Chromed Life (Machine Pulled), a chrome-plated breast pump, at once glorifies the object and calls into question the ongoing labor women endure as they recover from childbirth and return to the workforce. Nearby are objects related to breastfeeding and bottle feeding, including an 1879 breast pump, nipple shields from the 1700s and 1800s, and a short documentary of a design hackathon, hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab, called “Make the Breast Pump Not Suck.” While Koran and other artists included in the show like Alison Croney Moses, Deborah Willis, and Ani Liu, were part of other iterations of the exhibition, HCCC’s version brings in a slew of Texas artists — Jennifer Ling Datchuk, Liss LaFleur and Katherine Sobering, Francesca Fuchs, Madeline Donahue, Cynthia Mulcahy, Alicia Eggert, and others — into the conversation.

Datchuk’s One Tough Bitch, a photograph of a torso with porcelain shards partially covering a vertical abdomen scar, hangs in the Means of Reproduction section of the show. The piece alludes to kintsugi, the traditional Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer mixed with powdered gold. Though porcelain is often seen as fragile, it is a strong material and the gold edges of the broken pieces embrace the beauty of the fractures, rather than attempt to camouflage them. The photograph is a poignant reminder that a tear can be mended and that scars are visual representations of strength and endurance, not weakness.

Three works included in the show that speak directly to abortion rights are Cynthia Mulcahy’s Abortion Seed Library (War Garden series), Alicia Eggert’s OURs, and René Lee Henry’s CHOICE. Each of the pieces was created in 2022, the same year as the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and Texas’ implementation of a law that prohibits abortions in most cases. Eggert’s neon work oscillates between three phrases, “OUR BODIES,” “OUR FUTURES,” and “OUR ABORTIONS.” Similarly, Henry’s copper, resin, and steel work simply states the word “CHOICE.” These works are defiant and unyielding. They are not seeking to discuss nuance or specific aspects of abortion rights, they simply state that people should have a choice regarding their bodies.

Mulcahy’s work draws on knowledge from cultures around the world and across history related to plants used to terminate pregnancies. “War garden,” another name for Victory gardens, refers to the vegetable, fruit, and herb gardens grown on residential and public land during World War I and World War II as a means to be self-sufficient during strenuous times. Women in states like Texas that have mandated near-total abortion bans find themselves in dire situations. A recent study has shown that maternal mortality rates in Texas increased 56% between 2019 and 2022. Mulcahy’s piece recognizes that we have the knowledge and ability to take control in a situation in which agency has been removed, on a political level and in a medical realm.

Designing Motherhood is multifaceted. It covers a lot of ground and highlights a myriad of lived experiences related to menstruation and reproduction. These topics, which are natural and essential parts of life, have historically been considered taboo, resulting in silence and misinformation across generations. The exhibition serves as an educational moment, emphasizing the necessity of inclusive design shaped by the people who will encounter these objects. It is a testament to the power of women’s and nonbinary people’s voices in a society where too often these voices fall on deaf ears.

By May Howard

There is something to be said about exhibitions that miraculously emerge at the right place and time. Designing Motherhood: Things That Make and Break Our Births at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (HCCC) presents an expansive material history of human reproduction. With over sixty objects of craft and design with additions by more than twenty contemporary artists, Designing Motherhood interrogates the politics behind who designed what, how, why, and for whom. By re-indexing the objects, practices, and infrastructures of the reproductive arc, this exhibition allows for a multidimensional definition of motherhood, recognizing how “mother” operates as a verb, noun, identity, and political category.

Designing Motherhood is conceived by a team of design curators and scholars including Juliana Rowan Barton, Michelle Millar Fisher, and Amber Winick; artist and arts administrator Zoë Greggs; and advisors from the Maternity Care Coalition in Philadelphia. It was first exhibited at the Mütter Museum and the Center for Architecture and Design in 2021 before traveling to venues in Boston, Seattle, and Stockholm. Now in its fifth iteration, the HCCC’s adaptation is unique in its focus on the relationship between caregiving and craftwork. The exhibition opens with a textile-rich installation that explores vessels of life and care: from baby carriers and blankets to the body itself. Curtains of varying pink shades encircle the walls, visually conjuring a womb or hospital room. One may recognize a suspended and neatly folded white cotton textile with alternating blue and pink stripes as the ubiquitous Kuddle-Up Blanket. Created during the mid-century in concert with the developing medical garments industry, it is the hallmark receiving blanket in hospitals today. Included, too, is the Snugli (the first mass-produced baby carrier in the US), which exploded in popularity in the 1960s due to its convenience, comfort, and hands-free design.

Emerson Croft’s Earth Baby Blanket (2021) shows how the handmade can intervene in the social apparatus of industrial design. The complexity of weave and nuances of green and gray in Croft’s textile represent a deeper intricacy of our social and cultural fabric that challenge conventions of gender encoded in the rigid colored striping of the Kuddle-Up Blanket. Indigenous baby carriers feature as well, including Sue Rigdon’s Cradleboard (1995), Tanya White’s photograph of a wahakura (2022), and Ger Xiong/Ntxawg Xyooj’s daim nyias (2021). Each demonstrates the diversity and ingenuity of Indigenous design histories while highlighting traditional craft technologies. In My Belly (2021) from the series My Black Body by Alison Croney Moses, the exposed disjointed seams, contrasting grains and progressive tones of wood express the physical and spiritual shape-shifting that occurs through pregnancy. Poetically rendered in cedarwood and milk paint, motherhood is made metamorphic like the wood she wields.

Among the many contemporary artists, the breast pump emerges as a typology of interest. The design trajectory of the device is visually charted with early mechanical models like Einar Egnell’s Egnell SMB Breast Pump, (c. 1956)—the result of a collaborative relationship with Sister Maja Kindberg to improve breast pumps in Stockholm hospitals—to the tube-and-cordless Willow Wireless Breast Pump (2021) that offers an accompanying mobile app. In Chromed Life (Machine Pulled) (2020), Aimee Koran uses alluringly bright red chrome-plated breast pumps to call attention to the hidden labor behind their use and the economic value of milk production. Works included by artists Ani Liu, Sara Hubbs, and Aimee Gilmore utilize milk as an artistic medium to drive their formal and ideological investigations.

Designing Motherhood attends to the systems of discrimination and domination that constitute this maternal material world as it is understood today.¹ The exhibition sheds light on the inhumane processes behind the technological advancements of tools like the speculum, and the distressing consequences of failed designs like the Dalkon Shield IUD. Dr. J. Marion Sims perfected his speculum design while seeking a treatment for vesicovaginal fistula by performing experimental surgical procedures on at least twelve unconsenting enslaved Black women between 1845 and 1849 without anesthetics. The Dalkon Shield, invented in 1968 by Dr. Hugh Davis and Irwin Lerner, led to over 300,000 filed claims and eighteen reported deaths due to severe uterine perforations and pelvic infections caused by the multifilament wick.² This incident led to widespread mistrust of IUDs as a form of birth control in the US and prompted the FDA to regulate their safety and efficacy.

With the political suppression of reproductive sovereignty, exhibitions such as this one are vital, especially in Texas, which is among the lowest-ranking states in reproductive health coverage, access and affordability as well as healthcare quality and prevention.³ These are matters of life and death. Designing Motherhood at the HCCC is admirable in its traversal of educational and activist registers. Even so, a more articulated presentation of maternal mortality and postpartum depression as they intersect with race and class would further contribute to the breadth of experiences of motherhood.⁴ A concentrated history of midwifery would engender much interest, for there are rich stories to elucidate of Indigenous and Black midwives who, for generations, cultivated infrastructures of home-based healthcare to serve women across the US South.

Toward the exhibition’s conclusion is a charming and intimate portrait of a mother breastfeeding her child captured in swaths of gestural paint. Mother and Child (1996) by Patti Lou Richardson is an ode to the artist’s daughter, Regá Richardson Waggett who was integral in drafting and passing the first breastfeeding law in Texas after witnessing a nursing mother forced to leave a Houston museum. This portrait is a reminder of how everyday refusals and acts of resistance, like Regá’s, can lead to critical change.

1]  See Hill Collins, Patricia. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. 30th anniversary edition. New York: Routledge, 2022.

[2]  Rainey Horwitz, “The Dalkon Shield,” Embryo Project Encyclopedia, January 10, 2018. Accessed November 25, 2024. https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/dalkon-shield

[3]  “New Scorecard Offers State-by-State Ranking of Women’s Health and Reproductive Care,” The Commonwealth Fund, July 18, 2024. Accessed November 26, 2024. https://www.commonwealthfund.org/press-release/2024/new-scorecard-offers-state-state-ranking-womens-health-and-reproductive-care

[4]  “Insights into the U.S. Maternal Mortality Crisis: An International Comparison,” The Commonwealth Fund, June 4, 2024. Accessed November 26, 2024. ttps://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2024/jun/insights-us-maternal-mortality-crisis-international-comparison

by Chris Becker

On view at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft through March 15, 2025, and organized by HCCC Curator and Exhibitions Director Sarah Darro, Designing Motherhood presents the science and strangeness of conception, birth, and childcare, as viewed through the prism of craft, design, and fine art. With over 60 objects spanning the past 50 years on display, including 10 works by Texas-based artists, there’s a lot to look at and some of it ain’t for the squeamish. But art, when it’s connecting you to what it means to be alive, isn’t always comfortable. “I consider all of these objects in the show art objects,” says Darro. “These objects hold a lot of power, and visitors are having very visceral reactions.”

Arriving for the first time in the Southern United States after a contentious, post-Dobbs presidential election, where polarizing notions of motherhood and so-called “family values” were weaponized for political gain, Designing Motherhood is a timely show about timeless experiences. Having originated in Philadelphia at the Mütter Museum at The College of Physicians of Philadelphia and the Center for Architecture and Design and curated by no less than five design and childhood researchers, historians, and writers, the exhibit’s title is a bit of a misnomer, as parenting is presented and explored in an expansive way. Upcoming exhibit-related, public programming includes a discussion about queer parenthood and a talk on the unseen and underappreciated infrastructures of care that support families.

The HCCC iteration is also the first to focus on craft, a discipline defined by its materials, process, and how technique is passed down to succeeding generations. “For me, care feels synonymous with craft,” says Darro. Indeed, the hand of the craftsperson is imbued in a caregiving object as straightforward as the Kuddle-Up Blanket, a baby blanket first produced in the 1950s. Meanwhile, the art in the show is installed in direct proximity to these functional objects to support the idea of caretaking and reproductive experiences as analogous to craft and other creative disciplines. “They require so much time, labor, and practice,” says Darro of art making. “It’s not inherent knowledge. It’s passed between generations.”

Illuminating this relationship are two large-scale, horizontal acrylic paintings by Houston artist Francesca Fuchs of a breastfeeding baby hovering behind three small ceramic sculptures by another artist-mom, Madeline Donahue. Donahue’s two-piece sculpture Sphynx depicts the artist splayed out like a lioness atop one child, who suckles a pendulous breast, while the other holds herself a mid-backflip over mom’s butt. The three bodies are intertwined like a family circus act, though Donahue’s Zen-like countenance is inscrutable.

Throughout the exhibit, objects representing past eras of design, including a 70s-era Fisher-Price nursery monitor, a vintage glass Stork nursing bottle, and antiquated products created to aid with menstruation, fertility, and pregnancy, engage in an unspoken dialogue with such dramatic standalone works as Aimee Koran’s blood-red chrome-plated breast pump and Kim Harty’s blown and cut glass uterine sculptures. Other thoughtfully curated combinations of craft, design, and art objects address miscarriage, abortion access, and disaster preparedness for parents.

One of the many admirable things about Designing Motherhood is its commitment to promoting a deeper knowledge of the arc of human reproduction through the power of art. “Parenthood and motherhood is like any other skilled discipline,” says Darro. “It’s a mistake to think it’s an inherent knowledge we all carry inside.” In the last gallery of the exhibit, Liss LaFleur and Katherine Sobering’s neon and fringe installation, Queer Birth Project, glows like an empty disco, illuminating a space for visitors to sit with what they’ve seen, and consider the role caregiving plays in our existence as a communal species.

by Terumi Saito

To take a virtual tour of the author’s studio, check out this YouTube video.

I live with my partner in a studio apartment in Brooklyn, New York, nestled within a building that was constructed in 1930 as a toy factory. Our apartment is more than just a living space—it’s a sanctuary for creativity. The high ceilings and ample natural light provide the perfect backdrop for my textile art. The space seamlessly integrates living, working, and resting areas into a single cohesive environment. Over time, I have imbued it with my personal touches through a series of DIY projects, including painting walls and kitchen cabinets and refurbishing shelves to optimize functionality.

I have devised a routine to wake up early and weave before work and again after I come back from work until late at night, in addition to my other studio days. I especially like to weave with the natural light in the morning so that I can see the beautiful colors of naturally dyed yarns. I feel this is the unique and special part of having a home studio corner space—I can start working right after I wake up or I can work until very late, right before going to bed.

Navigating the balance of daily life between a full-time job and the pursuit of an artistic practice and maintaining momentum in my creative endeavors has been a journey with challenges, particularly after completing my master’s program without a dedicated studio space or a nurturing artistic community. In the face of adversity, I’ve found solace in the act of creation itself—a source of joy and rejuvenation that transcends the challenges of my circumstances. Whether weaving, experimenting with natural dyes, or molding clay into new forms, each creative endeavor has served as a lifeline, giving me a sense of purpose and vitality.

At the heart of my practice lies the ancient art of backstrap weaving, a technique that has a rich history in Asia and in Central and South America. Unlike traditional floor looms, backstrap weaving requires minimal space. Whether nestled amidst the verdant landscapes of Peru and Guatemala or within the confines of my New York apartment, the backstrap loom emerges as a versatile tool, capable of transcending geographical boundaries and cultural divides.

Backstrap weaving uses a simple loom made of thread and rods, but it involves complex operations. Unlike advanced looms, it does not have wooden frameworks and metal heddles. Warp threads are manipulated with string heddles, attached individually each time. Tension is maintained by anchoring threads to the weaver’s waist and a post or foot, requiring full-body engagement.

My backstrap weaving loom is secured to a substantial custom-built desk with a DeWalt clamp, which has emerged as a steadfast ally in the pursuit of precision and stability. Crafted in collaboration with my partner from durable wooden boards and reinforced with sturdy table legs, this workstation is central to my studio’s functionality.

While alternative setups, such as attaching the loom to a steel rack shelf, have proven viable in other environments, nothing quite compares to the immersive experience of weaving amid the scenic views of Peru and Guatemala during my residency and research trip, where the loom was attached to trees or wooden poles.

I use tools from Peru and Guatemala as well as some that I’ve made. One of the essential tools is a beater, which is a flat wooden strip with a sharpened edge that helps to separate the warps and create enough space to insert the weft, and to tighten the weft and the entire woven structure. I have been using backstrap loom beaters from both Peru and Guatemala, treasures that I cannot imagine weaving without.

My home studio serves not only as a workspace but also as a personal gallery where creativity knows no bounds. The flexibility inherent in this multifunctional environment allows me to integrate my artwork into the living space. I am grateful for my supportive partner who enables the expansion of my workspace in our shared apartment. In this unique setting, I have the liberty to display my pieces on the walls or suspended from the ceiling. Though challenged by occasional constraints in storage space, I transform limitation into opportunity. Whether showcased in the area of workspace, living room, or bedroom, each placement serves to enrich the environment while underscoring the symbiotic relationship between art and everyday life.

My studio’s dual role as both a workspace and a gallery also gives me the opportunity to share my passion with others, inviting visitors for studio visits and meetings to experience firsthand the evolution of my projects and the inspiration behind them. I prepare tea and snacks, welcoming guests with the hospitality ingrained in my Japanese cultural heritage. My home town, Shizuoka, is renowned for green tea, and my family also grows their own green tea.

In tandem with weaving, ceramics plays a pivotal role in my mixed-media creations. I recently introduced a supplementary desk adjacent to my primary workstation, a dedicated space tailored to the creation of ceramics and natural dyes. While a scarcity of kilns and studio spaces has posed challenges for me in New York City, recent residencies at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft and the Vermont Studio Center gave me access to kilns and communal studio spaces, enabling me to bring my ceramics to life. I am excited for my residency this fall at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, where I’ll have the opportunity to access equipment such as kilns and an environment conducive to creative exploration.

As I continue to explore the intersection of fiber and ceramics, my studio remains a beacon of creativity—a space where artistic vision flourishes and boundaries dissolve. Inside its walls, the past converges with the present and tradition melds with innovation. With each creation, I am reminded of the transformative power of art to connect, inspire, and elevate the human experience.

In the timeless art of backstrap weaving, I find not only a source of artistic expression but also a profound connection to the shared heritage of humanity—a thread that binds us together in our cultural diversity and creative ingenuity. As I weave the threads of tradition and innovation, my practice embraces the spirit of exploration and discovery.

Terumi Saito is an artist and designer based in New York. Her sculptures explore an unconventional approach to backstrap weaving, incorporating natural dyes and hand-built ceramics. Her practice is centered on preserving and reviving traditional techniques from a contemporary perspective.

 

By Brittanie Shey

Artist Georgina Treviño has made custom jewelry for celebrities including Lady Gaga, Doja Cat and Beyoncé, and her work has graced the pages of Rolling Stone and W Magazine. But she’s never had a solo exhibition—that is until May 25, when her show La Fuente del Deseo (The Fountain of Desire) opens at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft.

Jewelry can be personal — small items worn by individuals as a means of self-expression. But Treviño is also interested in the ways ornamental metal contributes to communities, from playground slides to fine serving silver used to entertain guests. Her work incorporates elements seen as lowbrow until they get co-opted by white cultures and given more cache; think costume jewelry, nameplate necklaces and doorknocker earrings.

“Everything I do has a jewelry language, but I’m interested in recontextualizing things,” Treviño said.

Treviño splits her time between California and Mexico, and much of her work takes inspiration from the specific culture of the border, where street vendors hawk everything from souvenir T-shirts to beaded jewelry to cold refreshments to travelers waiting in their cars. About 135,000 people pass through the San Ysidro checkpoint, which links California to Mexico, each day, making it the busiest land border crossing in the world.

For the HCCC show, Treviño has created three mini-worlds, each adorned with her specific vision and aesthetic. The first is reminiscent of a placita like the one in Old Town San Diego, complete with a bubbling fountain. Instead of tile mosaics, the fountain is embedded with hundreds of pieces of thrifted costume jewelry. Nearby, Treviño has commissioned a custom souvenir penny machine with images and sayings similar to those on prayer candles, which wish for good health, wealth, and success in love and romance. Visitors are invited to squash a penny and throw it into the fountain while making a wish. An engraving station will be set up nearby for visitors to write custom messages on their wishing pennies.

Next is a playground area complete with a 15-foot swingset, the seats of which are modeled after nameplate necklaces. Nearby is a wall hanging made of metal license plate frames with sayings including “k onda perdida” and “maldita envidia” engraved on them. The frames are inspired by cars she’s seen on her many border crossings, as well as Norteño music. Other inspirations include ’90s pop culture. Characters like the Pikachu, Tweety Bird, the Playboy bunny logo and the mask from Scream are present in many aspects of her work.

The third section of the installation looks like a pawn shop, with a “We buy gold” sign outside and burglar bars on the door. Inside, lit glass cases showcase conceptual jewelry items, including a tiny goblet meant to be worn as a ring and a series of sterling brooches literally embossed with a tortilla press (reminiscent of the pressed pennies in the first section). It’s also here that some of Treviño’s most recognizable work is on display: a ski mask covered in body jewelry that Bad Bunny wore for a Rolling Stone photoshoot and a pair of earrings made for Beyoncé.

 

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Treviño said she wants to challenge people’s perceptions of contemporary jewelry-making, that it’s an art form just like any other. She compares it ceramics, an art form that now holds its own in museums next to paintings and sculpture. And she’s getting there. A few years ago, she designed a custom brooch that was auctioned off to support the Black Lives Matter movement. That piece now resides in the permanent collection of New York’s Museum of Arts and Design.

For her HCCC show, she hasn’t just created a new collection of pieces. She’s created a whole immersive experience around the idea of culture, community and self-expression.

It’s not just a jewelry show, HCCC curator Sarah Darro said. “It’s a jewelry world.”

La Fuente del Deseo opens May 24 with a reception at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft.

THIS SIDE UP, curated by Sarah Darro at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, illuminates the often invisible practice of art handling. The exhibition features 16 art handler-artists, with work by core artists Vivian Chiu, Willem De Haan, Clynton Lowry and Adam Manley. Uniquely skilled craftspeople, art handlers (or preparators) pack, ship, handle, move, prep, and install art, consistently meeting demands for precision, efficiency, adaptability, and safety. This rare combination of attributes and skills, though celebrated in many artists, is expected of preparators without recognition. Most major exhibitions are only possible because of the ingenuity of these creative individuals, yet their names are rarely included on the wall next to the artists, curators, and donors. THIS SIDE UP struck a chord with me in part because I’ve worked as an art handler since 2016. I know the care, craft, and rigor required, and I have experienced the ways in which our work can feel unseen.

During a walkthrough of THIS SIDE UP, Sarah Darro shared some insight into her vision for the exhibition and how it came to be. Over the past 10 years, various curatorial roles have necessitated that Darro learn aspects of art handling. Working in this capacity, Darro came to fully appreciate the artistry required of preparators, and her idea for this show has been percolating ever since. It was important to Darro that she mirror the relational networks of art handling communities in organizing this show, where participating artists would recommend others for consideration.

One of the strongest advocates for the art handling community is Clynton Lowry. The conceptual artist is best known for founding and running Art Handler Magazine, a highly visible publication with a large online presence that celebrates and supports preparators globally, calling for better pay and working conditions. Reprinted copies of the magazine’s first two editions are on view in the gallery. In addition, Lowry presents two suspended jackets and a sleeping bag, all fabricated with moving blankets, which are vital to almost every aspect of art handling. The materiality and form of these objects evoke a human presence and serve as haunting reminders of lost labor by skilled workers. With both the magazine and his art practice, Lowry undermines systems of power and exclusion, questioning what and who we choose to value in the art world.

Multidisciplinary artist Vivian Chiu acquired and repurposed dozens of 45 to 80-year-old crates for this exhibition. The crates were a gift from Mei Lum, the fifth generation owner of Wing on Wo. & Co, the oldest continuously operating store in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Chiu deconstructed the crates and reconfigured them into vessels that match the forms of porcelain objects they were originally designed to transport. To facilitate this, Chiu developed a system of making that involves elaborate math (done by hand on graph paper), precisely cut angled units of wood, and careful labeling to ensure the units fit together seamlessly. Chiu’s works are in conversation with several chairs and a coffee table that John Powers and William Powhida fabricated using upscaled art crates. Problem solving, system design, and transformation are essential aspects of art handling, highlighted with works by these artists.

Adam Manley creates reliquaries, which are containers designed to safely support art objects. Where most reliquaries are fabricated for rare and valuable items, Manley creates them for ordinary objects that he thinks should be collector’s items — a dolly, a step ladder, customized hammers, tape measures, or the 20-year-old mop and bucket from the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. His work makes me consider what we value in the art world now, and what will be considered valuable 1,000 years from now, when our current artifacts of industry and culture exist in anthropological museums of the future. I especially enjoyed the moment where John Riepenhoff’s fabricated art handler holds the lid of Manley’s reliquary. This direct interaction between two art objects raises questions about the value of skilled labor in the art world.

In the business of transportation and exhibition design, Willem De Haan created a three-piece luggage set, fabricated in plywood to an airline’s exact size restrictions. It is striking to consider how these art objects would function in different settings — at the airport, they are likely to be thrown around by baggage handlers, whereas in the gallery they are venerated. Perfectly paired with this work is a small Walead Beshty sculpture consisting of a FedEx box supporting a glass cube. The cube fits perfectly into the box and travels from place to place. With no supporting foam or protection, the glass cube becomes increasingly damaged as it travels. This work is poetic, dark, and playful. Any art handler would see the humor in this, as we have all received poorly designed packages with damaged art inside. Both De Haan’s luggage set and Beshty’s glass cube are shaped in part by systems of moving and shipping.

Also illuminated within this exhibition are mounts, carefully crafted objects designed to support artworks and simultaneously disappear. Viewers are not trained to look for or appreciate mounts. Instead, we admire the artwork, which floats, as if by magic. Yet it takes specialized skill and training to create custom mounts such as the ones on display by Jessica Andersen, Galen Boone, Motoko Furuhashi, René Lee Henry, Jessica Jacobi, Seth Papac, Demitra Thomloudis, and Bohyun Yoon. In this exhibition, mounts are celebrated as strange and fantastical works of art in their own right.

THIS SIDE UP weaves together conceptual art practices, masterful fabrication, creative reuse, problem solving, and specialized skill sets, highlighting the passion, craft, and ingenuity of art handling. Sarah Darro and these 16 artists reveal the magic happening backstage that most people are not permitted to see. Importantly, every skilled worker involved with the exhibition was acknowledged in a comprehensive credit wall, which I believe should become the norm for all art institutions. THIS SIDE UP brings much-needed visibility to art handling communities, and hopefully will be a catalyst for a more equitable art world.

THIS SIDE UP is on view at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft through May 4, 2024.

The Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (HCCC) has announced that it will host the first-ever Texas Art Handling Olympics on March 7, 2024.

HCCC will host a modified version of the original Art Handling Olympics held in New York City in 2010. The New York Times called the event “a combination roast, ‘Jackass’-style stunt extravaganza.” Learn more about the challenges below, via descriptions provided by HCCC.

HCCC notes that following the art handling challenges, a panel of judges will award gold, silver, and bronze medals during a closing ceremony. The judges are Bradley Brown, Gallery Curator at San Jacinto College; Jeremy Johnson, Operations & Exhibitions Manager at Lawndale Art Center; Hesse McGraw, Executive Director at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston; Iva Kinnaird, HCCC Facilities Manager; and Sarah Darro, HCCC Curator + Exhibitions Director.

Ms. Darro told Glasstire, “The inaugural Texas Art Handling Olympics, like the exhibition it is being held in conjunction with, THIS SIDE UP, is centered on celebrating and bringing visibility to the masterful craftsmanship, technical acuity, and material intelligence involved in art handling. Though art handlers are often unseen, and their labor and creative production anonymized, they represent a fiercely talented and vital group of makers who allow the art world as we know it to function.”

She continued, “This event pays homage to the namesake 2010 competition, which was organized by Shane Caffrey in New York City and has since risen to mythological status, and is dedicated to making (riotous) space for art handlers in one of the most vibrant arts ecosystems in the country.”

Currently 20 participants have registered for the event, including art handlers who contract with local organizations such as Art League Houston, Asia Society Texas, the Blaffer Art Museum, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, FotoFest, the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art, Project Row Houses, rootlab, and San Jacinto College Gallery. HCCC also mentioned that a few competitors will be coming from outside of Texas.

Interested participants can register for the event here, though they must do so no later than Thursday, February 29. The Art Handling Olympics will take place at HCCC (4848 Main Street) on Thursday, March 7 from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. While there are not currently plans for this to be an annual event, an HCCC spokesperson said “that could change” in the future.

Art Handling Challenge Descriptions

PORCELAIN PACKING CHALLENGE: Competitors will create boxes for ceramic objects from a pile of packing material scraps: cardboard, bubble and pearl wrap, foam, packing paper, etc. These boxes will then be launched from HCCC’s roof and scored based on packing aesthetics and breakage upon landing.

GALLON CHALLENGE: Competitors will be asked to lift a bucket of paint and guess how many gallons are inside and the square footage it could cover with two coats of paint. Scoring based on accuracy and closeness of the estimates.

CENTER ON 60”: Competitors will receive a 2-D work and must hang it as close to centered on 60 inches as possible WITHOUT a level or measuring tape. Scoring based on accuracy.

SPEED WEEDING: Competitors will receive a section of vinyl lettering, transfer tape, an X-acto, and a squeegee. They will weed the vinyl and place it on the wall. Scoring based on speed, accuracy, and letter loss.

If you’ve ever visited an exhibition and wondered how an artist pulled something off, chances are good a preparator had something to do with it. The behind-the-scenes part of the art world often goes unnoticed or unremarked upon due to the nature of the job, but legions of handlers, fabricators, preparators, and conservators as well as artists themselves toil to make exhibitions possible.

On view at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft through May 4, 2024, THIS SIDE UP centers the specialized knowledge and problem-solving skills involved in art handling and care within the field of craft—“an exhibition about the making of an exhibition.”

“I am in the unique position of being a curator who has also worked behind the scenes as an art handler, exhibition fabricator/preparator, and textile conservation assistant,” said Sarah Darro, Curator and Exhibitions Director at HCCC. “For the past almost decade, I cobbled together contract art handling gigs in collectors’ homes or in arts institutions and my last role before returning to Houston Center for Contemporary Craft as Exhibitions Director and Curator, I worked as the in-house prep, art handler, and gallery manager at the Center for Craft in Asheville, NC.”

Through these experiences, Darro witnessed the amount of knowledge and craftsmanship that supports the infrastructure of the art world while often hidden from the public eye.

“I wanted to stage an exhibition that was almost inside out, where the masterful creative production conducted in service of art—from crate building and mount making to preparation, art handling, and exhibition fabrication—were visually prioritized and celebrated,” she explained.

In execution, the exhibition exudes a dry humor about the art world. The galleries appear stripped bare of their white sheetrock, studs on full display; the tools of the trade are presented with the same level of care with which an art handler might crate a piece.

“I was intentional about working in close collaboration with the exhibiting artists to hone in on a presentation style that did justice to the self-reflexive nature of the concept,” Darro explained with artist Vivian Chiu as a core example.

Chiu’s practice involves a methodical dismantling of crates from Wing on Wo & Co., the oldest continually-operating storefront in Manhattan’s Chinatown. She reforms the materials in Passages (those that carried us), a series of vessels adorned in Chinese and English script that share the travels of the porcelain imports they once housed. For the exhibition, Darro and Chiu installed the vessels atop and within the crates from which the materials were gathered.

Other bodies of work within the exhibition similarly highlight the creative reimagining of art crates.

“William Powhida and John Powers continue the long tradition of upcycling the primary byproduct of the art fair or exhibition—the crate—into a living room set of chairs and a coffee table,” Darro shared. “Adam John Manley, on the other hand, is a fine woodworker and furniture maker who specializes in and teaches reliquary-making. He thinks of artwork crates as ‘utilitarian reliquaries’ and in his Quotidian Relics series in the exhibition, he applies the extraordinary level of care usually reserved for works of art to the mundane objects that form the invisible infrastructure of art spaces.”

The exhibition features several of these finely crafted containers for a range of materials, including a framing kit from preparators at the Racine Art Museum and painted tape measures from the 40-year lead preparator of the Cooper Hewitt.

Through these works, he “asserts that the material culture and creative production of unseen art workers are as valuable as the works of art they care for,” Darro explained. “But he also articulates that part of the impetus for making them and crafting perfect voids for each object to fit into was to do a service for the art handlers who might have to receive the works.”

“William Powhida and John Powers continue the long tradition of upcycling the primary byproduct of the art fair or exhibition—the crate—into a living room set of chairs and a coffee table,” Darro shared. “Adam John Manley, on the other hand, is a fine woodworker and furniture maker who specializes in and teaches reliquary-making. He thinks of artwork crates as ‘utilitarian reliquaries’ and in his Quotidian Relics series in the exhibition, he applies the extraordinary level of care usually reserved for works of art to the mundane objects that form the invisible infrastructure of art spaces.”

The exhibition features several of these finely crafted containers for a range of materials, including a framing kit from preparators at the Racine Art Museum and painted tape measures from the 40-year lead preparator of the Cooper Hewitt.

Through these works, he “asserts that the material culture and creative production of unseen art workers are as valuable as the works of art they care for,” Darro explained. “But he also articulates that part of the impetus for making them and crafting perfect voids for each object to fit into was to do a service for the art handlers who might have to receive the works.”

The repurposing of handling materials extends to the series Sleeper by Clynton Lowry—founding editor of Art Handler magazine. Each piece is a wearable editorial made from moving blankets, and the series netted Lowry relationships with prominent fashion designers.

Walead Beshty also sheds light on hidden systems of labor, with the FedEx® Kraft Box series. For these works, “laminated glass cubes fabricated to fit FedEx’s proprietary dimensions are shipped to galleries around the world in their corresponding cardboard carriers,” Darro shared. “They accrue meaning—as well as impact fractures and collaged shipping labels—through transnational movement.”

The result is sculptures displayed as cracked vitrines placed upon cardboard pedestals coated in airway bills. In a show dedicated to the investigation of labor’s visibility within the art world, Darro provides visitors an opportunity to appreciate the craftsmanship and care that make these experiences possible.

I recently sat down with New York-based artists Qiqing Lin and Terumi Saito to talk about all things textiles. We met at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (HCCC), where they were resident artists this past fall.

Saito’s signature backstrap weaving sculptures are graphic, punchy, and serpentine-like in form. Interwoven jute rope disrupts the meticulously ordered patterning, resulting in bursts of sculptural dimension. Lin specializes in large-scale tapestries composed of hand-spun paper yarn. Intricate and airy, with an incredible sense of movement, Lin’s tapestry serve as storytelling vessels to narrate topics ranging from gender to immigration and language.

We met in Saito’s sunny studio on a busy Friday afternoon at HCCC. Surrounded by wall-suspended weavings, drying clay vessels, and the faint scent of natural dye baths, we all felt right at home. Our conversation traversed themes of memory, labor, craft, and tradition. We discussed at-length their shared love of weaving, how politics, feminism, and cultural preservation figure into their practices, and the work that resulted from their residencies in Houston. Additionally, Saito and Lin provided thoughtful reflections on the realities of navigating life and artmaking in the United States as international artists.

May Howard (MH):You both came to textiles from different industries. Terumi, you have a background in graphic design, and Qiqing, you were working as a journalist in politics. What initially attracted you both to textiles?

Terumi Saito (TS): Long story short, I initially came to the U.S. for grad school for graphic design.

MH: Oh, at Parsons?

TS: Actually, Cranbrook. I got into the 2D department there. I was so excited, but I had a problem with my English test score, so I couldn’t start the program that year in September. I decided to work and prepare to apply for the next year. I had more time to think about what I really wanted to do. I was questioning if I wanted to be a graphic designer and work in a more commercial industry. I started to discover fiber art at the Museum of Art and Design. I also went to see RISD’s textile program. Because I didn’t have a background in fibers and textiles, I decided to apply for a post-bacc program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I actually didn’t get into the post-bacc, but I got into the Parsons MFA Textiles program. I thought, “Oh lucky! Why not go straight for the Master’s?” So that’s how I changed fields. But I actually did my very first weaving in New York.

Qiqing Lin (QL): Where?

TS: At the Textile Art Center. I took Weaving 101 there.

QL: I think this is worth mentioning. Terumi got into the Parsons MFA Textiles Program during its first year.

MH: Right, so you were the guinea pigs! But it had to have been exciting? 

TS: There was excitement. We were the inaugural cohort. But because of Covid we didn’t have a commencement. Yeah, that was a disappointment…

MH: What about you, Qiqing?

QL: I did an undergrad degree in journalism from 2010-2014. I worked as a journalist until 2021. When I was working, I always thought about doing something else. It was getting harder and harder to be a journalist in China. The last straw was, I think, in the spring of 2020, the relationship between China and the United States was really bad. There was a visa issue for foreign journalists in both countries. For example, at the time, there were new policies saying that if you were a Chinese journalist based in the U.S., you needed to renew your visa every three months. And that caused a lot of anxiety. To retaliate, the Chinese government, suddenly, late at night, published on China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs website, affecting five American media outlets. American journalists working for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post were expelled. Some reporters working in the Chinese office who had been there for many years had to leave the country within two weeks. At the time, I was working in the Shanghai office. And if a correspondent left, as a Chinese national, I couldn’t go on reporting trips by myself. We thought, how was the office going to operate? There was a huge question mark.

At the time, I was doing lots of research trying to figure out what else to do. I wanted to do something to use my hands. I had liked making things since I was a kid, but I didn’t really have the time to do it. In China, there was a lot of pressure to study, and I went to boarding school, so I had class in the morning and evening. In doing research, I found these textile programs existed not in the fashion world, but more in the craft world like metals, jewelry, and woodworking. I had a reporting trip in 2019, and it was a big project. I stayed in New York for two months. I didn’t know anybody there. I was trying to look for something to do and I saw a program for weaving. I found one called Loop of the Loom. It’s a Japanese weaving studio in New York. I think a lot of people start there.

MH: Could you both speak to your experiences of learning weaving techniques and processes, both within the academic studio environment and through intensive master-student training?

TS: When I started my MFA, I was excited to try this new medium as a tool to convey my message. But initially, I was doing more knotting, more sculpture…I wasn’t weaving in my first semester. I was discovering what I could do as a textile maker, but I didn’t have the skills. I was feeling left behind from the people that already had an undergraduate degree and four years of knowledge. That feeling of discovery…or…not sadness, but wondering…

MH: Uncertainty?

TS: Yes, uncertainty pushed me a lot. After the first semester, I was doing more installation and performance pieces. Some of the professors were pushing me to do more performance. I enjoyed it, but I don’t think I could sustain as a performer.

QL: Were you the person doing the performance?

TS: Yeah, I was doing the performance. I enjoyed pushing my boundaries or comfort zone. After my first year I applied for a residency in Peru. I was so lucky to go there during summer break. I fell in love with the technique during the trip. It is labor intensive and difficult, but it gave me energy and excitement. It pushed me to want to learn more. The special thing I’ve been telling people about the backstrap is that my body becomes a part of the loom. This is the aspect of my performance. The full-body engagement part could be a performance.

MH: What was the residency like?

TS: I studied with the Master-Weaver in Peru during the residency. Her name is Maria. She taught us a lot. The Arquetopia Foundation didn’t let us take pictures of her.

There was one supporting staffer during that residency. It was just one house in a place called Urubamba, Peru. It’s close to Machu Picchu. You stay, work, live, and sleep there. The weaving teacher comes two days a week. The other days we would just keep weaving. I brought back two pieces with me. That was around the time that I started weaving with rope.

QL: Did you finish the pieces on site?

TS: No, no. It was only one month. There was another artist in the residency from Canada. We worked hard but it was impossible to finish. It takes a long time. You reform the beaters. Just putting the one weft takes a long time. The Masters, they have the chart in their head. There’s no weaving instruction. We had to take notes. I was following my hand-written chart when I came back. But the Master Weavers have the charts in their heads. They are so fast.

Also, in Guatemala, I felt a closer connection to the weavers. I spent more time actually with them. In Peru, it was two days a week where the Master Weaver was coming in. But in Guatemala I was going almost every day. I went to their house, but the class also took place at a community park area in a city called Antigua.

QL: Do you know how they feel about other local people learning, or do you think they have anxieties that no one is learning these techniques?

TS: Oh, yeah. In Guatemala, they are trying to pass down weaving, but because of modernization the young people want to do something else. They used to weave from a very young age. But it’s a struggle to pass down and keep traditions. It’s the same in Japan. Weaving companies are closing down because there’s no next generation keeping the weaving there.

There really is a world-wide level of this issue. We don’t have people to preserve it. It’s also a difficult topic…to make people interested in. That’s what I’m also trying to approach. That you can make this kind of work with a backstrap. Some people know of the backstrap, but a lot of people don’t know about the weaving. I always start showing the book. Like, “Hi, do you know about backstrap weaving?” “No, what is it?”

QL: It is very different from the loom weaving, for example. It’s like another craft.

TS: Especially in the U.S. And also in Japan, too. When you think about handweaving, people think of the floor loom.

QL: I feel like I’m still pretty new to weaving. I learned weaving within the last two years in school. When I was in China, even though weaving has a long tradition, I never saw anyone weaving in actual life. People in certain parts of China, especially those in the ethnic minority groups, still do the traditional weaving. I think the problem is similar in South America. The older generation still knows how, but the younger generation goes to the city for work. There are very few resources to record their techniques. There are a few books, but not that many. I think there is only one weaving studio that’s open to the public, which was set up a few years ago. That’s why I think it’s special in New York, because they have places that if you are interested in weaving, then you can try a class to see.

Before I came to New York, I did a five-day workshop in the Southern part of China with the Bouyei ethnic minority group; this group still does indigo dyeing and weaving on their big looms. It’s a project, I think, partly sponsored by the local government to preserve the techniques and culture. There are two aunties in their fifties teaching the technique…the tie-dyeing, sewing, indigo dyeing. So, I think it’s on the rise, there is more attention. I learned how to weave at Parsons. It’s a program that is open to people from different backgrounds. I actually learned a lot from another textile artist, Samantha Bittman. She’s a very technical weaver. She doesn’t talk a lot about concept. It’s all about technique. She showed me how to work and live as a professional artist. That was a completely new thing to me.

MH: When did you start developing your own vocabulary? Your own way of weaving with paper?

QL: It was the result of trying so many things. It was good to have the time to try. For a whole semester I was trying different weird materials.

MH: And that just came from you wanting to find something different?

QL: Yeah, I came from a non-textile background and the MFA program encouraged us to be more experimental. The idea was to give structure to weaving. I was looking into ways to build a weave structure that could go with the shape that I wanted. I tried everything! I researched spinning paper, which was a whole different craft. It’s a very versatile material. I can play with the structure and source paper from different places. There’s a lot of possibilities and a cultural meaning that come from what kind of paper I am using. If there’s content on it, then I can make it more meaningful. This is a material I want to work with for a while. There are still lots of new things to try during the residency here.

MH: I wanted to ask you both about your relationship to tradition. And that can be traditions of weaving and textiles, or other sorts of cultural traditions. Do you have any thoughts about tradition within a broad sense? How does tradition figure into your practice? 

QL: I feel like for weaving, that’s always a question and you just have to think about it all the time.

MH: I see even in your studio, Terumi, you have traditional source material. So, you are inspired by… 

TS: Yes…I grew up in a suburb with my family. When I was a child I really didn’t pay attention to cultural traditions. I didn’t grow up in a big city like Tokyo. I grew up with my grandparents. I was living with precious sculptures and traditions. I didn’t realize as a child that I had a precious experience. I feel like I also want to preserve these in the future. Maybe those feelings are connected to my textile practice. I was naturally interested in traditional techniques. Because I’m interested in backstrap, a very old technique in Japan, I’m also interested in ceramic history in Japan, from the Jōmon period. Jōmon literally means rope pattern. This period was named after these ceramics. People were using rope to make the pattern.

QL: I have a complicated feeling toward tradition, especially in China. There are of course thousands of years of history; it is very rich. But when you think of tradition, it’s often associated with some not so very good things. For example, like when I work with paper, it’s usually related to calligraphy and scroll painting. Usually people who do that are older, middle-aged men. Now, it’s not so common to see calligraphy work anymore. But you see it is in the bosses or higher rank officials’ offices. It’s very male; all about power. Usually these people don’t have a deep understanding of art and culture. It’s because of these associations that I used to avoid reading things about traditional culture. Because it’s so much about power and men and oppression. I didn’t know if I wanted to go into that.

I grew up in Southern China in a very boring city. It’s not like in a big city where you have an urban life, and it’s not in a village where you still have scenery. It’s sort of stuck in the middle. My education, and especially working as a journalist, trained me to go outside to see more of the world, to meet more people. It was never there for me, the tradition. It’s not something, like a mountain, I look up to. It was just far away.

MH: And, not that interesting to you?

QL: I would say that now I’m getting more interested in tradition because of weaving. Because of weaving, indeed, I read about the history of the craft, the knowledge that passes down from generation to generation. Weaving pushed me to go into the tradition part more.

MH: Was there a particular innovation or breakthrough that you both had during your residencies here? 

TS: I’m happy I had the time and access to the kiln here, because I really wanted to work on this new project of a three-dimensional piece with my textiles and creating a body with ceramics. I’m currently making my woven pieces; I’m dying some.

MH: Ah, so those will be woven through the hoops on your ceramic vessels? 

TS: Yeah. Hopefully. If all goes according to plan.

MH: What about you, Qiqing?

QL: My goal coming here was to have a collection of paper yarn samples. I tried different thicknesses and types of mulberry paper to make it into yarn. I did some natural dyeing on them. I later discovered two things that were new to me. One is the spinning technique. Usually paper is spun into a continuous thread, which is what I did in the past in my tapestries. For example, I spun book pages into a continuous thread and then wove it as a tapestry. And you have to look close to see the text. I like the texture even though you can tell from far away it’s not cotton; it has a stiffness. I tried a different spinning technique to add things into it. Even though the spinning wheel is not designed for that purpose.

MH: What’s next for you both? You’re both based in New York, right? Are you going back there?

TS: I am going back to work [laughing].

MH: You work in a gallery in the city, right? What is it called?

TS: Ippodo Gallery. But this experience really pushed me and inspired me to keep making every day. I feel so good. I feel this power and energy for me to live. My resolution for next year is to try to sell more of my pieces. This journey of fiber and ceramic, I’ve been really enjoying it. So next year I’d love to keep developing my new journey.

QL: I’m still figuring out my plan. I graduated from school in May. So, the next thing for me is to get my visa done, to get a lawyer and prepare the materials. It’s the big question for international artists. I’ll apply for the visa in the spring, and hopefully get it in the summer to stay in the U.S. for the next three years. It’s a good experience to do this residency right after graduation. To walk to the studio every day and work and go back home. I think I like it, I want to keep doing it; I want to make it work. The question now is to figure out how to make it work.

TS: I think also, the U.S. has more grants for funding fellowships and residencies. It’s not supported like this in Japan. It’s good, I’m fortunate that I have the opportunity to try to work.

QL: It’s hard, but it’s still doable.

MH: It’s good to have peers who have gone through similar things. I hope they can be supportive, but I know it’s a very tedious and difficult process. I wish you both luck!

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.