Craft Research Fund—Project Grant

Craft Research Fund—Project Grant is sponsored by Center for Craft. Grants for research, writing, support documentation, images or rights to use images or text, as part of craft research yet to be completed.

Craft Research Fund Grant | Center for Craft for Researchers & Scholars Grants to support new and interdisciplinary research about craft in the United States Meet the 2026 Grantees Craft Research Fund 20th Anniversary Grant application is closed. Photo credit: Mike Belleme The Craft Research Fund is the Center for Craft’s first and longest-running grant program dedicated to supporting scholarly craft research in the United States.

With the recent acquisition of the American Craft Council Library & Archive, the Center is undertaking a strategic review of the Craft Research Fund to ensure the program and forthcoming Community Craft Library & Archive work together to serve the evolving needs of the craft research community. Supporting craft scholarship and research remains one of our core priorities.

As we look toward the next chapter of the program, we are focused on strengthening how we invest in the thinkers, artists, curators, and scholars who shape craft in the United States.

To encourage innovative research on critical issues in craft theory and history To investigate neglected questions on craft history and criticism To support new cross-disciplinary approaches to scholarship in craft Craft Research Fund Project Grant Recipients The Center for Craft is pleased to announce the recipients of 2020 Craft Research Fund Project Grants.

University of Iowa Center for the Book Support for Julie Leonard (Associate Professor of Book Arts, University of Iowa Center for the Book) for the Book Arts Digital Database, which will provide an in-depth digital finding aid for the study of substantial and historically-relevant book arts materials held in the University of Iowa Special Collections.

As part of a larger project to create a legacy tool for American ceramic artists working 1945 onward, The Marks Project received support to document the American Museum of Ceramic Art’s (AMOCA) American Ceramic Society collection (ACerS). While documenting the clay arts members of the Southern Highland Craft Guild assisted by a 2017 Center for Craft, Creativity and Design Project Grant, TMP discovered the ACerS collection.

Combined, these two grant projects will make 500 American potters searchable on www. themarksproject. org.

Support for the research of Allison Robinson, PhD candidate in History, University of Chicago (expected graduation June 2020) regarding her dissertation, “The Political Biography of Dolls: Pedagogy and Reform through WPA Programming," which investigates government intervention in labor and public education through the production of handicraft dolls.

The 2020 Craft Research Fund supports the book projects of Associate Professor of Art History at Purchase College Dr. Sarah Warren will receive $12,500 for research related to the publication Between Rival Utopias: Craft, Counterculture, and the Persistence of Modernism.

Support for Dr. Jennifer Way (Professor of Art History, University of North Texas) to travel for research related to Deploying Craft: Crafting Healing and Wellness in War Contexts, a monograph book project that examines why and how making craft afforded rehabilitation, restoration, and wellness to American troops, the home front, and veterans during the long twentieth century.

The Center for Craft is pleased to announce the recipients of its 2026 Craft Research Fund Grants. This year, five scholars, artists, and curators were selected by a distinguished panel to receive a total of $52,400 to support research for exhibitions, publications, and projects that explore new and innovative approaches to craft scholarship.

Photo courtesy of the recipient Weaving Sovereignty: Mary Mitchell Gabriel and the Cultural Significance of Passamaquoddy Black Ash and Sweetgrass Basketry This project examines Mary Mitchell Gabriel's role in revitalizing Passamaquoddy basket weaving, emphasizing cultural sovereignty, intergenerational knowledge, and U.S. craft history through archives, oral histories, and community collaboration, culminating in a journal article and online resource.

Photo credit: Berea College Special Collections and Archives The Lincoln Institute: The Forgotten Black Craft School in Jim Crow South This proposal will research the craft program of the Lincoln Institute, a historically black school in Simpsonville, Kentucky, that taught craft in the early 20th century.

The grant will allow further in-depth research for public talks and a book proposal in preparation for a full book on the Lincoln Institute. Photo credit: Mike Belleme Black Craft Uncovered: Revealing the History of Black Instrument Makers This research honors the untold stories of Black instrument makers in the United States, celebrating their artistry, resilience, and legacy.

Through archival research and storytelling, Amanda Ewing aims to lift the voices of Black instrument makers and reclaim their place in craft history. Ewing works to inspire new generations to see instrument making as cultural remembrance and as a living lineage of Black makers rooted in sound and craft.

Photo credit: Desiree Scarborough The Gospel in Glass: Beadwork, Theology, and Indigenous Alaskan Women's Voices This research studies the underexplored cultural history of Indigenous beadwork in Aleut/Alutiiq Russian Orthodox textiles (1794–1915) and documents how these contributions by Indigenous women played a pivotal role in the survival of both Russian and Indigenous cultures in Alaska. Photo credit: Nathan J. Shaulis/Porter Loves.

Transparent Thresholds: An Embodied History of Flat Glass Production Exploring the intersection of industrial and studio glassmaking, this research recovers early flat-glass production techniques through archival study and hands-on experimentation. The project bridges craft history, material science, and creative practice to generate insights for artists and scholars.

D Wood earned a PhD in Design Studies from the University of Otago, where her research concerned the contemporary craft movement and handmade furniture in New Zealand.

She has an MFA in furniture design from the Rhode Island School of Design, and her artist profiles and reviews of exhibitions and books have appeared in an international roster of publications, including American Woodturner , Ceramics Monthly , Craft Research , Design Issues , Garland , Metalsmith , and Surface Design .

She is the editor of and contributor to Craft is Political (Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2021) and The Politics of Global Craft (Bloomsbury, 2025). Hideo Mabuchi teaches and conducts research as a Professor of Applied Physics at Stanford University. In the studio, he focuses on thrown-and-altered vessel forms for atmospheric firings.

He is working on new teaching approaches that integrate ceramics with scientific and humanistic studies to bring craft into the core of liberal undergraduate education. Lisa Gail Collins is Professor of Art on the Sarah Gibson Blanding Chair at Vassar College. Committed to the interdisciplinary humanities, she holds a PhD in American Studies from the University of Minnesota.

Her latest book, Stitching Love and Loss: A Gee’s Bend Quilt , is a holistic study of a quilt made in mourning and the memory of its making. It received the Bard Graduate Center's Horowitz Prize and the James A. Porter and David C.

Driskell Award in African American Art History.