{"id":366622,"date":"2025-11-09T10:12:54","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T10:12:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/366622\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T10:12:54","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T10:12:54","slug":"the-philadelphia-museum-of-art-contemporary-craft-show-is-back-for-its-49th-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/366622\/","title":{"rendered":"The Philadelphia Museum of Art Contemporary Craft Show is back for its 49th year"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hold on to your yarn! The Philadelphia Museum of Art Contemporary Craft Show<\/a> is back for its 49th year. (And yes, it\u2019s still The PMA Contemporary Craft Show and not The PhAM<\/a> Contemporary Craft Show.)<\/p>\n

Right now, the Pennsylvania Convention Center is filled with seemingly endless aisles of artists\u2019 booths adorned with glass sculptures, woodworked furniture, bright ceramics, colorful textiles, metal designs, jewelry and more from nearly 200 artists. The show begins today and closes Sunday at 5 p.m.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe support we\u2019ve had at the show so far has been incredible,\u201d said show manager Nancy O\u2019Meara in a statement. \u201cThis year\u2019s artists bring truly exceptional talent and innovative work. We hope all who attend the show this weekend leave feeling inspired and more appreciative of craft.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"A sculpture from So Young Park, who won the show\u2019s \u201cEric Berg Memorial Prize for Excellence in Metal.\u201d (Courtesy of the PMA Contemporary Craft Show)<\/p>\n

For artists, the craft show is a way to connect with others, build community and show off their original designs.<\/p>\n

Georgette Sanders<\/a>, a potter and basket weaver from South Carolina, incorporates sweetgrass basketry \u2014 a weaving tradition that derives from West Africa \u2014 into her ceramic-making. As a descendant of the Gullah Geechee people of the U.S. Coastal Lowcountry, her history plays an important role in her art.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe grass is harvested this year from that region, cleaned as well as the bulrush, which is the biblical grass in our baskets,\u201d she explained. \u201cAnd that\u2019s incorporated as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is Sanders\u2019 second year participating in the show.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a learning curve for me to tell individuals what\u2019s going on in South Carolina,\u201d she said. \u201cBut Philadelphia, I find that they were more aware of the connectivity to the sweetgrass, unlike most places.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"195 artists are participating in this year\u2019s show. (Courtesy of the PMA Contemporary Craft Show)<\/p>\n

Visitors can check out all 195 artist shops, and the artists keep 100% of their sales. Sanders\u2019 work starts at $125 and goes up to a few thousand dollars. In addition to the booths, Saturday will include a special fashion event at 1 p.m. The \u201cFind Your Style\u201d showcase will display a collection of wearable art.<\/p>\n

Husband-and-wife pair Lisa and Scott Cylinder<\/a> create handcrafted jewelry and fun, nature-inspired tchotchkes.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the pieces that you see in the booth are made with a repurposed musical instrument that has been hidden inside a lot of the pieces,\u201d Lisa said. \u201cBut we\u2019re very eclectic, and we use a lot of different materials to achieve the kind of whimsy that we\u2019re looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Artist Amy Gillespie won the show\u2019s \u201cPrize For Excellence in Fiber Art\u201d (Julia Binswanger\/Billy Penn)<\/p>\n

The two said they work collaboratively together, and that everything is even, 50-50.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are also parents of two children,\u201d Lisa said. \u201cSo, it\u2019s sort of like this idea where we split the responsibilities, we check our egos at the door, and we do the best we can to collaborate, to come up with the best thing possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related: Philadelphia Art Museum fires CEO Sasha Suda<\/a><\/p>\n

While artists from across the country have traveled to Philadelphia to show off their work, a few are local. Stacey Lee Webber<\/a>, an artist trained in metalsmithing, takes coins and dollar bills and manipulates them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI work a lot with coins and money \u2014 paper money, but I\u2019m usually manipulating currency to change the value of the money, putting labor into it to make it more valuable,\u201d Lee Webber said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Work from Philadelphia-based artist, Stacey Lee Webber. (Courtesy of the PMA Contemporary Craft Show)<\/p>\n

Lee Webber works out of the Globe Dye Works building in Northeast Philly. Coins are cut and altered to resemble a vase with fresh flowers, or made into tiny boxes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have so many ideas, but not enough time,\u201d she said. \u201cA penny could be so many different things.\u201d<\/p>\n

A select handful of makers at the show won awards at a special preview party Thursday night. They were given large purple ribbons, which you can find adorned on their booths.<\/p>\n

Xinia Guan<\/a>, an artist born in Inner Mongolia, won the prize for \u201cexcellence in jewelry.\u201d She hand-cuts all of her metalwork, and takes inspiration from geometrical, repeating patterns.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can see a lot of mathematics behind it \u2014 geometric forms,\u201d she said. \u201cThey are sharing one single technique, it\u2019s all piercing. So all the lines on the surface here is a repeating process \u2026\u00a0 It\u2019s constantly repeating, time-consuming work. And for me, I consider it as a meditation.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Guan\u2019s fifth year participating in the PMA Contemporary Craft Show. For her, the event is all\u00a0 about connection.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Metalwork from artist, Xinia Guan, winner of the show\u2019s \u201cPrize For Excellence in Jewelry.\u201d (Julia Binswanger\/Billy Penn)<\/p>\n

\u201cI really appreciate the in-person show,\u201d she said. \u201cI know a lot of people start talking online about the traditional craft show starting to fade away little by little, but I still really appreciate that opportunity \u2014 being able to talk to each person.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAll those long hours of the studio time making sense,\u201d she added. \u201cWe [meet people] that understand what we\u2019re trying to do through the process of different materials and mediums. And that\u2019s the most amazing time. So in person, having the conversation, that\u2019s the most valuable thing about the show.\u201d<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s note: Louise K. Binswanger, the author\u2019s late grandmother, was a founding figure and longtime treasurer of the Philadelphia Craft Show.<\/p>\n

The craft show runs Friday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. One-day tickets are $20, two-day tickets are $25, and tickets for children younger than 12 are $5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hold on to your yarn! The Philadelphia Museum of Art Contemporary Craft Show is back for its 49th…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":366623,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,648,39107,1322,1448,2830,1311,149245,122441,177305,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-366622","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-crafts","11":"tag-featured","12":"tag-pa","13":"tag-pennsylvania","14":"tag-philadelphia","15":"tag-philadelphia-art-museum","16":"tag-philadelphia-museum-of-art","17":"tag-philadelphia-museum-of-art-contemporary-craft-show","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115519214637729129","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}