Peters Valley is excited to facilitate this gathering of professionals, mid-career, and emerging artists May 28-May 31, 2026.
Peter’s Valley is excited to bring The Great Craft Gathering for Black Artists & Makers: Crafting into the Future back for its final year. Taking place May 28th – 31st, 2026 this year’s convening will underscore the urgency felt among artist communities to use their creative practices as a call to action. Artists have long been the backbone of social movements, and the ways they shape change continue to evolve. Reflecting on our past and present, Peters Valley recognizes the critical importance of supporting today’s artists in order to help shape a more vibrant and equitable future. Consisting of artist-led panel discussions, craft-based workshops, lectures and professional development workshops, this convening will not only enable artists to consider their present but will aid in priming them for a sustainable future within the arts.
Expect an action-packed schedule tailored for working artists, offering a comprehensive Craft School experience in just three days.
What's in store:
All programing, lodging & meals, and materials are included
Participants receive a Travel Stipend of $500 to be paid through Bill.com one week after attending & completing the event.
Participants should arrive at the Peters Valley Campus Thursday, May 28th by 2:00 PM for Orientation, Gallery Reception, Keynote & Dinner from 6:30 PM-8:00 PM
Friday and Saturday will include studio sessions and activities from 9 AM to 5 PM, followed by dinner and presentations in the evening.
Sunday will include a closing session and brunch; Participants will depart after 1:30 PM
Pre-event & Post-event virtual meet-ups on Zoom will be offered
I'm Interested in The Great Craft Gathering!
The Great Craft Gathering will be held at
an immersive craft school in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area (Layton, NJ)
2026 Presenters & Planners
Planners
Planning Team Member
Roger C. Tucker, III
Roger C. Tucker III is an artist, curator and art advisor. Founder of Tucker Contemporary Art, he works with collectors and institutions interested in acquiring, exhibiting and promoting the work of emerging contemporary artists. He received his BFA from The Cooper Union and MS from Pratt Institute. Leveraging extensive experience in fine art, marketing and education, Roger advances the careers of African American and other underrepresented artists – academically trained or outside the mainstream.
Roger formerly served as board president of GlassRoots.org, a Newark Glass Art Center. A Newark, NJ native, he is also the host of the “What’s Newark Got To Do With It?” Podcast, where he interviews artists, historians, authors, curators and other cultural thought leaders from/of Newark, NJ about the cultural impact and life-long influences the Brick City has, and continues to have, on their lives and careers. The interviews and photographs relative to the conversations are posted on the podcast’s website: https://www.whatsnewarkgottodowithit.com
Planning Team Member
Monna Morton
Monna Morton is an award winning graphic designer and artist who has won and been recognized for more than 50 design and communication awards during her four decade career. She has designed graphics and advertising for major transit agencies, airports and airlines, hospitals and public and private agencies. She has done extensive work for non profits including community groups, and various arts and employment agencies.
Monna is the Creative Visionary at Social Impact Studios, a creative hub for engaging people in culture to act on important social issues.
Monna is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where she has developed advertising courses that focus on messaging, visual design and how to engage diverse audiences. Monna is a graduate of Pratt Institute. She most recently wrote a case study for the textbook, Advertising Creative: Strategy, Copy, Design by Tom Altstiel and Jean Grow. And the case study Race in Advertising: Aunt Jemima What would you do? discussing the name change of the Aunt Jemima brand to Pearl Milling.
Planning Team Member
Taisha Carrington
Taisha Carrington is a Barbadian multidisciplinary artist working in painting, performance, installation and body adornment. Her work focuses on placemaking, human and environment adaptation and the factors that drive immigration in the context of the Caribbean.
Taisha has exhibited works in the United states, Aruba, Canada, Germany, Switzerland and Barbados. She graduated from Pratt Institute NY in 2018 with a BFA in Jewelry Design. Her awards include the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s CFDA+ Design Graduate, NYC Jewelry Week’s One For The Future award and Art Jewelry Forum’s Young Artist Award Finalist 2022. She has participated in residencies including Pratt>Forward and Caribbean Linked x BIAC Reseaux as part of the Bienal in Martinique. Her work can be found in the collections of The Dallas Museum of Art and Montreal’s Stewart Program for Modern Design in Montreal.
Planning Team Member
Ashley Page
Ashley Page is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Portland, ME. She holds a BFA in Sculpture and a minor in Public Engagement from Maine College of Art & Design, where she was a Warren Public Engagement Fellow and received the Heart and Soul Student Award from Maine Campus Compact. More recently, she was awarded the 2022 Amelia Peabody Award for Sculpture by St. Botolph Club Foundation. In 2021, she participated in a Maine Craft Association Apprenticeship under the mentorship of Lissa Hunter. Page is presently the Studio and Programs Manager at Indigo Arts Alliance, where she works within the intersection of art and activism. Her curatorial and studio practice has been seen in the Center for Afrofuturist Studies, The Abyssinian Meeting House, The Portland Museum of Art, Congress Square Park, Able Baker Contemporary, New Systems Exhibitions, and more.
Planning Team Member and Presenter
Ghislaine Sabiti
Ghislaine Sabiti is a French/American Congolese-born multidisciplinary artist, painter, glass artist, ceramist sculptor, and costume designer. She grew up on the outskirts of Paris, France, and is now based in New York. Ghislaine studied fine art at Atelier Chantier du Coq and L’académie de la Grande Chaumière and graduated with honors in fashion design from Atelier Chardon Savard in Paris, France. She further developed her skills by studying glass lamp-work, glass blowing, and photo decals at Urban Glass and ceramics at the ceramic Artshack. Ghislaine’s work highlights the technical form used in both African and European arts, focusing on form and color. Ghislaine has completed several prestigious fellowships, including the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute Cycle VIII of the Spring ICA, and Digital Evolution Artists Retention DEAR Cohort III, New York Foundation of the Arts Immigrant Artist Program. She has also been a resident artist at Peter Valley School of Craft, ArtYard with CoLabart, Pilchuck Better Together, Urban Glass, Glass Roots, Calabar Gallery and coLABArts, Jamaica Center, and Jamaica Center for Art and Learning. Chashama has nominated Ghislaine for an artist residency at the Marcel Breuer House at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund’s The Pocantico Center and Commission for the Lexington Hotel, New York, Salon du Prêt-à-Porter. Additionally, Ghislaine was an award winner for the Dupont De Nemours hosiery design competition for DIM Company. Ghislaine’s work has been exhibited and commissioned nationally and internationally in France and the U.S. at numerous group exhibitions and solo shows, including Calabar Gallery, Hamptons Art Fair, Zimmerly Art Museum, El Teatro del Museo Del Barrio with Boys and Girls Harbor, Galabar Gallery, Artshack, Occupy Museum Debt Fair at the Whitney Biennial, MNN El Barrio Firehouse Community Media Center, Atelier Rosal, Westfield State University Arno Maris Gallery, Rio Gallery, Harlem School of the Arts, Brooklyn Film and Art Festival, Small Space Fest, and Poe Park Visitor Center.
Planning Team Member
Kristin Müller
Kristin Müller is a Latinx multi-cultural artist who specializes in wood fired ceramics and maintains a studio with an Anagama hybrid kiln in Dingmans Ferry, Pennsylvania. While ceramics is her primary medium she also loves photography and printmaking.
Kristin is the Executive Director of Peters Valley School of Craft, holds a Bachelor of Science in Studio Arts from Southern Connecticut State University, a Masters of Fine Arts in Ceramic Arts from Hood College, and is member of Phi Kappa Phi honor society. Kristin is the author of “The Potter’s Studio Handbook: A Guide to Hand Built and Wheel-Thrown Ceramics” published November 2007 by Quarry books and co-author of “Making Good: An Inspirational Guide to Being and Artist Craftsman” published April 2017 by Schiffer Publishing. Kristin exhibits her work internationally and is an Adjunct Professor at Hood College and contributes to art journals.
For more information visit www.kristinmuller.com and www.petersvalley.org
Presenters
Presenter
Atiba Edwards
Atiba Edwards is President & CEO of Brooklyn Children’s Museum. He was born on the island of St. Vincent & The Grenadines, & grew up in Brownsville, Brooklyn. He graduated from the
University of Michigan w/ degrees in Industrial Operations & Engineering and Liberal Arts, with a focus on poetry & musicology.
Presenter
Daphne Arthur
Daphne Arthur is a Venezuelan-born interdisciplinary artist exploring nature, memory, and identity through participatory installations and symbolic imagery. Rooted in migration and collective care, her work reimagines belonging. She holds a BFA from SAIC, an MFA from Yale,
and lives in NYC.
Presenter
Karen Hampton
Karen Hampton is a Black fiber artist who, for three decades, has created artwork addressing underrepresented stories from American History with fiber. She is the recipient of many awards, including the American Craft Council 2022 Fellowship and the 2025 Black Artist & Designers Guild Makers Award.
Presenter and Planning Team Member
Ghislaine Sabiti
Ghislaine Sabiti is a French/American Congolese-born multidisciplinary artist, painter, glass artist, ceramist sculptor, and costume designer. She grew up on the outskirts of Paris, France, and is now based in New York. Ghislaine studied fine art at Atelier Chantier du Coq and L’académie de la Grande Chaumière and graduated with honors in fashion design from Atelier Chardon Savard in Paris, France. She further developed her skills by studying glass lamp-work, glass blowing, and photo decals at Urban Glass and ceramics at the ceramic Artshack. Ghislaine’s work highlights the technical form used in both African and European arts, focusing on form and color. Ghislaine has completed several prestigious fellowships, including the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute Cycle VIII of the Spring ICA, and Digital Evolution Artists Retention DEAR Cohort III, New York Foundation of the Arts Immigrant Artist Program. She has also been a resident artist at Peter Valley School of Craft, ArtYard with CoLabart, Pilchuck Better Together, Urban Glass, Glass Roots, Calabar Gallery and coLABArts, Jamaica Center, and Jamaica Center for Art and Learning. Chashama has nominated Ghislaine for an artist residency at the Marcel Breuer House at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund’s The Pocantico Center and Commission for the Lexington Hotel, New York, Salon du Prêt-à-Porter. Additionally, Ghislaine was an award winner for the Dupont De Nemours hosiery design competition for DIM Company. Ghislaine’s work has been exhibited and commissioned nationally and internationally in France and the U.S. at numerous group exhibitions and solo shows, including Calabar Gallery, Hamptons Art Fair, Zimmerly Art Museum, El Teatro del Museo Del Barrio with Boys and Girls Harbor, Galabar Gallery, Artshack, Occupy Museum Debt Fair at the Whitney Biennial, MNN El Barrio Firehouse Community Media Center, Atelier Rosal, Westfield State University Arno Maris Gallery, Rio Gallery, Harlem School of the Arts, Brooklyn Film and Art Festival, Small Space Fest, and Poe Park Visitor Center.
Presenter
Folayemi Wilson
Folayemi Wilson’s work celebrates the Black imagination as a technology of resistance and self-determination. Using original sculpture, found objects, archival media, sound and video, her process utilizes training in art history and critical theory employing the archive and other research methodologies to mine history for use as material in her creative practice.
She has been a grant recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts, a two-time recipient of an individual artist grant from the Graham Foundation and received 3Arts awards in 2015 and 2020. Recent exhibits include group shows at the Elmhurst Art Museum in Illinois and Bridge Projects in Los Angeles, and solo exhibitions in NYCxDesign, at The Museum of Contemporary Art and The Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago. She is a co-founder and principal of blkHaUS studios, a socially-focused design studio founded in Chicago, now based in Philadelphia. Earlier in her career she worked as a graphic designer and art director in New York founding Studio W, for clients such as Condé Nast Publications, Time Warner, The New York Times, Black Entertainment Television (BET), and Williams Sonoma. Her writing and reviews have appeared in NKA, Journal of Contemporary African Art, and Expansions, a publication of the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale among others. Wilson has been awarded residencies or fellowships at ACRE, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Djerassi Artist Residency, Kohler Arts/Industry program, Haystack, MacDowell, Mass MOCA, and Purchase College, New York. Her work is in the collection of the National Museum of African American Art & Culture. An oral history of her work was featured in Bomb Magazine in 2023.
Presenter
Gail Lloyd
I revel in the process of creating art from dirt. I have dabbled in pottery throughout the years, but began focusing on ceramic art full time around 2015, making functional pottery, both wheel thrown and hand-built. I was introduced to figurative sculpture in 2019, and realized that figurative sculpture offers a dynamic way to explore ideas such as queer identity, race and gender; and interrogate cultural norms such as religion, class and beauty. Getting grit under my nails sustains me.
I have work in the permanent collection of The Colored Girls Museum, as well as in private collections around the US, and a commissioned piece at Scribe Video Center. I sell pottery at Trunc in Northern Liberties.
Presenter
Colette Gaiter
Colette Gaiter’s work started in graphic design then expanded into digital and interdisciplinary art. Her visual work, which has been exhibited internationally, includes artist books, photographic digital prints, multimedia collage, assemblage, artist websites (from the early days of digital art), and interactive computer-based installations. Now, she primarily writes about Black artists, designers, and visual culture in general. Since 2005, her essays and articles on the activist and former artist for the Black Panther Party, Emory Douglas, have appeared in a range of publications, including Black Panther: The Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas and The Black Experience in Design. Three other Black Panther artists were included in the exhibition she recently curated, “Carrying On” Black Panther Artists Continue the Legacy.” She is working on a book about Emory Douglas’s continuing post-Black Panther Party work as an activist artist. She retired as Professor Emerita in the Departments of Africana Studies and Art & Design from the University of Delaware in 2024. Her work as an educator and other creative pursuits always include creative activism.
Presenter
Silas Munro
Presenter
Lynne Toye
Lynne Toye is Executive Director of the New Jersey Arts and Culture Renewal Fund, a nonprofit organization that supports smaller arts, arts education and history organizations. She is a dedicated thought leader and champion of the arts, committed to cultural equity and social justice. Prior to joining the Renewal Fund, she served as Chief Administrative Officer at the Harlem School of the Arts in New York City. Ms. Toye serves on the Board of Sphinx Music, ArtPride NJ, and the New Jersey Council for the Humanities. She also participates on the Education & Community Engagement Committee (ECE) of the New Jersey Symphony. Ms. Toye holds an MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and a B.S. in Systems Engineering from University of Virginia.
Presenter
Corey Pemberton
Corey (American b. Reston, VA 1990) received his BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2012. He has completed residencies at Pilchuck Glass School (WA), The Pittsburgh Glass Center (PA), Bruket (Bodø, NO), Alfred University (NY), as well as a Core Fellowship at the Penland School of Crafts (NC). He has exhibited work at the Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art (CA), The Contemporary Museum of Art in Raleigh (NC), and has work in the permanent collections of The Museum of Art and Design (NY), The Boston Museum of Fine Art (MA), and The Chrysler Museum of Art (VA).
Presenter
Kibibi Ajanku
Kibibi Ajanku makes and presents ethnically charged art. Her passion embodies the thrust of the African Diaspora. Kibibi’s creativity is the ongoing and ever evolving effort of her life journey. Her work is eclectic and innovative. It is ancient while at the same time new-world and always changing. Ajanku’s muscle as a visual artist spans from contemporary fine art to village inspired craft, and the performance. Her artistry is layered with… and entrenched in… indigenous folkways. Her work embodies research, identity, and the gathering of elements of African retention, in hopes of evoking intuitive memories that reach back into ancestral histories and stories that impact the here and the now.
More Presenters to Be Announced Soon!
Get an Inside Look at (2024)
The Great Craft Gathering Presenters
Kiyomi Quinn Taylor
Kiyomi Quinn Taylor is a multimedia artist from New Jersey. Taylor received her BFA from New York University in 2017 and her MFA from Columbia University in 2020. Her work examines iconographies of her mixed-race heritage (Black and Japanese), identity, migration, and power. Taylor uses collage and mixed media (painting, collage, drawing, textiles and, stop-motion animation) to examine genealogical memory and mixed-race interiority through allegory. Her work leverages magical realism against the sociopolitical landscape of today as a foil, a mirror, and an escape. She has exhibited in galleries in New York, Boston, Martha’s Vineyard, Chicago, and Los Angeles (including, but not limited to Steve Turner Gallery) – and, internationally. Her work is included in several major domestic and international collections.Taylor’s work was included in an exhibition at Christie’s New York showroom and exhibited at the Armory Show with a collective of artists shown by For Freedoms. Taylor is the recipient of the Helen Frankenthaler painting award in 2019 and an artist grant from the New Jersey State Council of the Arts in 2022. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn.
Elaine Robnett Moore
I am a jewelry designer of more than 35 years. Combining the magic of beads, the energy of nature, the influence of my travels and personal cultural heritage I create jewelry that captures the elegance of natural beauty surrounding us – wind in the trees, cascading vines, the colors of sunset, glitter of starlight, — the style, grace and resilience of today’s contemporary woman.
Each design, made from beads that come from around the world, evolves from a personal response to those beads as they arrive with a story of their own.
I teach to empower women and share the gifts I have received.
My poetry and writing comes from a need to capture the moments in my life to visit later and to share these moments to enlighten, lift, or council those I love.
“Do what you love and there will be those
who love what you do”
Tanya Crane
Tanya Crane received her MFA in Metalsmithing + Jewelry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her BFA in Metal from the State University of New York at New Paltz. Crane is a Professor of the Practice in Metals at the School Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts. Tanya was just named a 2024 United States Artist Fellow in Craft, and in 2023 she was selected to be an inaugural recipient of the Center for Crafts Teaching Artist Cohort. Crane was also a recipient of The Doris Prouty Foundation Artist Grant which is offered to BIPOC/AAPI women artists in Massachusetts and North Carolina to further their artistic activity and practice, the 2018 Society of North American Goldsmiths Emerging Artist selected to present at SOFA Chicago, and the 2017 winner of the Society of Arts and Crafts-Boston Artist Award. She exhibited her work in a solo exhibition, Tributaries: Polarity, Exposing the Tensity, at the National Ornamental Metal Museum in Memphis, Tennessee.
Crane’s work is in the collections of the Springfield Museum of Art, Racine Art Museum, Yale University Art Gallery, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, Crocker Art Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, The Stewart Foundation for Modern Design, Enamel Arts Foundation, and the National Ornamental Metal Museum in Memphis, TN.
Ope Omojola
For Ope Omojola, Octave Jewelry was the natural outcome of a lifelong creative practice prioritizing materiality, color, and movement. A student of Anthropology, Ope first picked up a soldering torch at a weeknight class at the 92nd Street Y. Years of independent experimentation and exploration led to Octave’s signature style, creating wearable sculptures that speak to personal style, history, and sentimentality. Born in Nigeria, Ope lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
Tenjin Ikeda
Tenjin Ikeda. Born 1968 is an Afro-Puerto Rican artist born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He attended the School of Visual Arts in New York first focusing on graphic design and ultimately Fine Arts where he felt more freedom to express himself. It was at the Art Students League that he discovered printmaking, which has been his focus for the past 25 years working in linoleum relief. He has various works in private collections as well as acquisitions by The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The Print Club of Albany, and the Art Student’s League. Tenjin’s work has been featured as cover art and illustrations for various books. He has been included in “Modern Printmaking” a book of 30 contemporary printmakers by Sylvie Covey.
Diana Baird N’Diaye, PhD
artist/folklorist/curator
I create art in the form of jewelry, quilts, sculptures, installation, and performance, that engages viewers in conversations about peacemaking, identity, heritage, healing and transformation.
I am a maker and a mender. As a maker, I seek to create work that that stimulates conversations and reflections regarding issues of identity, heritage, peacemaking, healing, and social justice. My art is shaped by my identities, as a citizen of global Africa and 2nd generation transnational. My research and travels in Africa, Europe, and Asia as a curator, anthropologist and needle worker have also informed my practice. My first and primary medium has been textiles—quilted, felted, and otherwise shaped and embellished, but site-specific performance and interactive artmaking is increasingly a part of my work. As a mender, I patch, darn, reassemble, and embellish textiles and clothing to refashion new things out of clothing with a history. My mending work is also related to concepts of healing and self-healing on the part of individuals, relationships, society. I find inspiration for the material aspects and the social context of my art practice in traditions of piecing, including African American patchwork quilting, Surinamese Maroon men’s wrappers, the clothing of Senegalese sufis, Japanese boro and European household needlework.
Ashley Page
Ashley Page is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Portland, ME. She holds a BFA in Sculpture and a minor in Public Engagement from Maine College of Art & Design, where she was a Warren Public Engagement Fellow and received the Heart and Soul Student Award from Maine Campus Compact. More recently, she was awarded the 2022 Amelia Peabody Award for Sculpture by St. Botolph Club Foundation. In 2021, she participated in a Maine Craft Association Apprenticeship under the mentorship of Lissa Hunter. Page is presently the Studio and Programs Manager at Indigo Arts Alliance, where she works within the intersection of art and activism. Her curatorial and studio practice has been seen in the Center for Afrofuturist Studies, The Abyssinian Meeting House, The Portland Museum of Art, Congress Square Park, Able Baker Contemporary, New Systems Exhibitions, and more.
Chotsani Elaine Dean
Chotsani Elaine Dean, b. Hartford, CT, is an artist and Assistant Professor of Ceramics at the University of Minnesota. She received her BFA in ceramics from Hartford Art School and her Master of Fine Arts degree from Sam Fox School of Art at Washington University in St. Louis. Dean is coauthor of the book, Contemporary Black American Ceramic Artists, Schiffer Publishing. She was awarded the McKnight Artist Fellowship award for ceramics, has been in residence at the John Michael Kohler Artist Residency, and recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Teaching and Research grant. Dean was the inaugural MJ DO Good resident at Red Lodge Clay Center in Montana, held the position of studio manager at Wesleyan Potters in Middletown, Connecticut, and is the recipient of a Connecticut Arts Grant. She has lectured and exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions and has taught at institutions including Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi, India, University of Connecticut, Connecticut College, and Hartford Art School.
Ghislaine Sabiti
Ghislaine Sabiti is a French/American Congolese-born multidisciplinary artist, painter, glass artist, ceramist sculptor, and costume designer. She grew up on the outskirts of Paris, France, and is now based in New York. Ghislaine studied fine art at Atelier Chantier du Coq and L’académie de la Grande Chaumière and graduated with honors in fashion design from Atelier Chardon Savard in Paris, France. She further developed her skills by studying glass lamp-work, glass blowing, and photo decals at Urban Glass and ceramics at the ceramic Artshack. Ghislaine’s work highlights the technical form used in both African and European arts, focusing on form and color. Ghislaine has completed several prestigious fellowships, including the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute Cycle VIII of the Spring ICA, and Digital Evolution Artists Retention DEAR Cohort III, New York Foundation of the Arts Immigrant Artist Program. She has also been a resident artist at Peter Valley School of Craft, ArtYard with CoLabart, Pilchuck Better Together, Urban Glass, Glass Roots, Calabar Gallery and coLABArts, Jamaica Center, and Jamaica Center for Art and Learning. Chashama has nominated Ghislaine for an artist residency at the Marcel Breuer House at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund’s The Pocantico Center and Commission for the Lexington Hotel, New York, Salon du Prêt-à-Porter. Additionally, Ghislaine was an award winner for the Dupont De Nemours hosiery design competition for DIM Company. Ghislaine’s work has been exhibited and commissioned nationally and internationally in France and the U.S. at numerous group exhibitions and solo shows, including Calabar Gallery, Hamptons Art Fair, Zimmerly Art Museum, El Teatro del Museo Del Barrio with Boys and Girls Harbor, Galabar Gallery, Artshack, Occupy Museum Debt Fair at the Whitney Biennial, MNN El Barrio Firehouse Community Media Center, Atelier Rosal, Westfield State University Arno Maris Gallery, Rio Gallery, Harlem School of the Arts, Brooklyn Film and Art Festival, Small Space Fest, and Poe Park Visitor Center.
Willie Cole
Willie Cole is a contemporary American sculptor, printer, and conceptual and visual artist. The internationally celebrated artist is best known for assembling and transforming ordinary domestic and used objects such as irons, ironing boards, high-heeled shoes, hair dryers, bicycle parts, and discarded appliances into imaginative and powerful works of art. Fashion brands Comme de Garçons and Tods have collaborated with Cole to create unique collections and leather-based sculptures.
Cole’s art and installations are generally discussed in the context of postmodern eclecticism, combining references and appropriation ranging from African and African American imagery to Dada’s readymades and icons of American pop culture. His work is found in prestigious private and public collections and museums worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
A lifelong New Jersey resident, Cole grew up in Newark and currently works and resides in New Jersey. He attended the Boston University School of Fine Arts, received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the School of Visual Arts in New York and continued his studies at the Art Students League of New York. Cole has received numerous awards and honors including the coveted David C. Driskell Prize.
Planning Team Member and Presenter
Roger C. Tucker, III
Roger C. Tucker III is an artist, curator and art advisor. Founder of Tucker Contemporary Art, he works with collectors and institutions interested in acquiring, exhibiting and promoting the work of emerging contemporary artists. He received his BFA from The Cooper Union and MS from Pratt Institute. Leveraging extensive experience in fine art, marketing and education, Roger advances the careers of African American and other underrepresented artists – academically trained or outside the mainstream.
Roger serves as board president of GlassRoots.org, a Newark Glass Art Center. A Newark, NJ native, he is also the host of the “What’s Newark Got To Do With It?” Podcast, where he interviews artists, historians, authors, curators and other cultural thought leaders from/of Newark, NJ about the cultural impact and life-long influences the Brick City has, and continues to have, on their lives and careers. The interviews and photographs relative to the conversations are posted on the podcast’s website: https://www.whatsnewarkgottodowithit.com
Planning Team Member
Kristin Müller
Kristin Müller is a Latinx multi-cultural artist who specializes in wood fired ceramics and maintains a studio with an Anagama hybrid kiln in Dingmans Ferry, Pennsylvania. While ceramics is her primary medium she also loves photography and printmaking.
Kristin is the Executive Director of Peters Valley School of Craft, holds a Bachelor of Science in Studio Arts from Southern Connecticut State University, a Masters of Fine Arts in Ceramic Arts from Hood College, and is member of Phi Kappa Phi honor society. Kristin is the author of “The Potter’s Studio Handbook: A Guide to Hand Built and Wheel-Thrown Ceramics” published November 2007 by Quarry books and co-author of “Making Good: An Inspirational Guide to Being and Artist Craftsman” published April 2017 by Schiffer Publishing. Kristin exhibits her work internationally and is an Adjunct Professor at Hood College and contributes to art journals.
For more information visit www.kristinmuller.com and www.petersvalley.org
Planning Team Member and Presenter
Taisha Carrington
Taisha Carrington is a Barbadian multidisciplinary artist working in painting, performance, installation and body adornment. Her work focuses on placemaking, human and environment adaptation and the factors that drive immigration in the context of the Caribbean.
Taisha has exhibited works in the United states, Aruba, Canada, Germany, Switzerland and Barbados. She graduated from Pratt Institute NY in 2018 with a BFA in Jewelry Design. Her awards include the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s CFDA+ Design Graduate, NYC Jewelry Week’s One For The Future award and Art Jewelry Forum’s Young Artist Award Finalist 2022. She has participated in residencies including Pratt>Forward and Caribbean Linked x BIAC Reseaux as part of the Bienal in Martinique. Her work can be found in the collections of The Dallas Museum of Art and Montreal’s Stewart Program for Modern Design in Montreal.
Planning Team Member and Presenter
Monna Morton
Monna Morton is an award winning graphic designer and artist who has won and been recognized for more than 50 design and communication awards during her four decade career. She has designed graphics and advertising for major transit agencies, airports and airlines, hospitals and public and private agencies. She has done extensive work for non profits including community groups, and various arts and employment agencies.
Monna is the Creative Visionary at Social Impact Studios, a creative hub for engaging people in culture to act on important social issues.
Monna is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where she has developed advertising courses that focus on messaging, visual design and how to engage diverse audiences. Monna is a graduate of Pratt Institute. She most recently wrote a case study for the textbook, Advertising Creative: Strategy, Copy, Design by Tom Altstiel and Jean Grow. And the case study Race in Advertising: Aunt Jemima What would you do? discussing the name change of the Aunt Jemima brand to Pearl Milling.
Planning Team Member
Ennis Carter
Ennis Carter is the founding director of Social Impact Studios, based in Philadelphia, PA.
Carter began her career as a community organizer in New Jersey in the late 1980s, after studying Philosophy at New York University. After a decade in the non-profit field, she started Social Impact Studios in Philadelphia in 1996 as a social enterprise to promote culture and activism through the creative combination of communication and grassroots organizing. Carter specializes in movement-building through creative design & messaging, and campaign management. Carter was named one of the “50 Best Women in Business” as the director of SIS by Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell.
Carter is also the curator & author of the online archive, book, and exhibit Posters for the People: Art of the WPA and is a visual artist. Website
GET AN INSIDE LOOK AT LAST YEAR 2024
The Great Craft Gathering Presenters
Kiyomi Quinn Taylor
Kiyomi Quinn Taylor is a multimedia artist from New Jersey. Taylor received her BFA from New York University in 2017 and her MFA from Columbia University in 2020. Her work examines iconographies of her mixed-race heritage (Black and Japanese), identity, migration, and power. Taylor uses collage and mixed media (painting, collage, drawing, textiles and, stop-motion animation) to examine genealogical memory and mixed-race interiority through allegory. Her work leverages magical realism against the sociopolitical landscape of today as a foil, a mirror, and an escape. She has exhibited in galleries in New York, Boston, Martha’s Vineyard, Chicago, and Los Angeles (including, but not limited to Steve Turner Gallery) – and, internationally. Her work is included in several major domestic and international collections.Taylor’s work was included in an exhibition at Christie’s New York showroom and exhibited at the Armory Show with a collective of artists shown by For Freedoms. Taylor is the recipient of the Helen Frankenthaler painting award in 2019 and an artist grant from the New Jersey State Council of the Arts in 2022. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn.
Elaine Robnett Moore
I am a jewelry designer of more than 35 years. Combining the magic of beads, the energy of nature, the influence of my travels and personal cultural heritage I create jewelry that captures the elegance of natural beauty surrounding us – wind in the trees, cascading vines, the colors of sunset, glitter of starlight, — the style, grace and resilience of today’s contemporary woman.
Each design, made from beads that come from around the world, evolves from a personal response to those beads as they arrive with a story of their own.
I teach to empower women and share the gifts I have received.
My poetry and writing comes from a need to capture the moments in my life to visit later and to share these moments to enlighten, lift, or council those I love.
“Do what you love and there will be those
who love what you do”
Tanya Crane
Tanya Crane received her MFA in Metalsmithing + Jewelry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her BFA in Metal from the State University of New York at New Paltz. Crane is a Professor of the Practice in Metals at the School Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts. Tanya was just named a 2024 United States Artist Fellow in Craft, and in 2023 she was selected to be an inaugural recipient of the Center for Crafts Teaching Artist Cohort. Crane was also a recipient of The Doris Prouty Foundation Artist Grant which is offered to BIPOC/AAPI women artists in Massachusetts and North Carolina to further their artistic activity and practice, the 2018 Society of North American Goldsmiths Emerging Artist selected to present at SOFA Chicago, and the 2017 winner of the Society of Arts and Crafts-Boston Artist Award. She exhibited her work in a solo exhibition, Tributaries: Polarity, Exposing the Tensity, at the National Ornamental Metal Museum in Memphis, Tennessee.
Crane’s work is in the collections of the Springfield Museum of Art, Racine Art Museum, Yale University Art Gallery, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, Crocker Art Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, The Stewart Foundation for Modern Design, Enamel Arts Foundation, and the National Ornamental Metal Museum in Memphis, TN.
Ope Omojola
For Ope Omojola, Octave Jewelry was the natural outcome of a lifelong creative practice prioritizing materiality, color, and movement. A student of Anthropology, Ope first picked up a soldering torch at a weeknight class at the 92nd Street Y. Years of independent experimentation and exploration led to Octave’s signature style, creating wearable sculptures that speak to personal style, history, and sentimentality. Born in Nigeria, Ope lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
Tenjin Ikeda
Tenjin Ikeda. Born 1968 is an Afro-Puerto Rican artist born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He attended the School of Visual Arts in New York first focusing on graphic design and ultimately Fine Arts where he felt more freedom to express himself. It was at the Art Students League that he discovered printmaking, which has been his focus for the past 25 years working in linoleum relief. He has various works in private collections as well as acquisitions by The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The Print Club of Albany, and the Art Student’s League. Tenjin’s work has been featured as cover art and illustrations for various books. He has been included in “Modern Printmaking” a book of 30 contemporary printmakers by Sylvie Covey.
Diana Baird N’Diaye, PhD
artist/folklorist/curator
I create art in the form of jewelry, quilts, sculptures, installation, and performance, that engages viewers in conversations about peacemaking, identity, heritage, healing and transformation.
I am a maker and a mender. As a maker, I seek to create work that that stimulates conversations and reflections regarding issues of identity, heritage, peacemaking, healing, and social justice. My art is shaped by my identities, as a citizen of global Africa and 2nd generation transnational. My research and travels in Africa, Europe, and Asia as a curator, anthropologist and needle worker have also informed my practice. My first and primary medium has been textiles—quilted, felted, and otherwise shaped and embellished, but site-specific performance and interactive artmaking is increasingly a part of my work. As a mender, I patch, darn, reassemble, and embellish textiles and clothing to refashion new things out of clothing with a history. My mending work is also related to concepts of healing and self-healing on the part of individuals, relationships, society. I find inspiration for the material aspects and the social context of my art practice in traditions of piecing, including African American patchwork quilting, Surinamese Maroon men’s wrappers, the clothing of Senegalese sufis, Japanese boro and European household needlework.
Ashley Page
Ashley Page is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Portland, ME. She holds a BFA in Sculpture and a minor in Public Engagement from Maine College of Art & Design, where she was a Warren Public Engagement Fellow and received the Heart and Soul Student Award from Maine Campus Compact. More recently, she was awarded the 2022 Amelia Peabody Award for Sculpture by St. Botolph Club Foundation. In 2021, she participated in a Maine Craft Association Apprenticeship under the mentorship of Lissa Hunter. Page is presently the Studio and Programs Manager at Indigo Arts Alliance, where she works within the intersection of art and activism. Her curatorial and studio practice has been seen in the Center for Afrofuturist Studies, The Abyssinian Meeting House, The Portland Museum of Art, Congress Square Park, Able Baker Contemporary, New Systems Exhibitions, and more.
Chotsani Elaine Dean
Chotsani Elaine Dean, b. Hartford, CT, is an artist and Assistant Professor of Ceramics at the University of Minnesota. She received her BFA in ceramics from Hartford Art School and her Master of Fine Arts degree from Sam Fox School of Art at Washington University in St. Louis. Dean is coauthor of the book, Contemporary Black American Ceramic Artists, Schiffer Publishing. She was awarded the McKnight Artist Fellowship award for ceramics, has been in residence at the John Michael Kohler Artist Residency, and recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Teaching and Research grant. Dean was the inaugural MJ DO Good resident at Red Lodge Clay Center in Montana, held the position of studio manager at Wesleyan Potters in Middletown, Connecticut, and is the recipient of a Connecticut Arts Grant. She has lectured and exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions and has taught at institutions including Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi, India, University of Connecticut, Connecticut College, and Hartford Art School.
Ghislaine Sabiti
Ghislaine Sabiti is a French/American Congolese-born multidisciplinary artist, painter, glass artist, ceramist sculptor, and costume designer. She grew up on the outskirts of Paris, France, and is now based in New York. Ghislaine studied fine art at Atelier Chantier du Coq and L’académie de la Grande Chaumière and graduated with honors in fashion design from Atelier Chardon Savard in Paris, France. She further developed her skills by studying glass lamp-work, glass blowing, and photo decals at Urban Glass and ceramics at the ceramic Artshack. Ghislaine’s work highlights the technical form used in both African and European arts, focusing on form and color. Ghislaine has completed several prestigious fellowships, including the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute Cycle VIII of the Spring ICA, and Digital Evolution Artists Retention DEAR Cohort III, New York Foundation of the Arts Immigrant Artist Program. She has also been a resident artist at Peter Valley School of Craft, ArtYard with CoLabart, Pilchuck Better Together, Urban Glass, Glass Roots, Calabar Gallery and coLABArts, Jamaica Center, and Jamaica Center for Art and Learning. Chashama has nominated Ghislaine for an artist residency at the Marcel Breuer House at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund’s The Pocantico Center and Commission for the Lexington Hotel, New York, Salon du Prêt-à-Porter. Additionally, Ghislaine was an award winner for the Dupont De Nemours hosiery design competition for DIM Company. Ghislaine’s work has been exhibited and commissioned nationally and internationally in France and the U.S. at numerous group exhibitions and solo shows, including Calabar Gallery, Hamptons Art Fair, Zimmerly Art Museum, El Teatro del Museo Del Barrio with Boys and Girls Harbor, Galabar Gallery, Artshack, Occupy Museum Debt Fair at the Whitney Biennial, MNN El Barrio Firehouse Community Media Center, Atelier Rosal, Westfield State University Arno Maris Gallery, Rio Gallery, Harlem School of the Arts, Brooklyn Film and Art Festival, Small Space Fest, and Poe Park Visitor Center.
Willie Cole
Willie Cole is a contemporary American sculptor, printer, and conceptual and visual artist. The internationally celebrated artist is best known for assembling and transforming ordinary domestic and used objects such as irons, ironing boards, high-heeled shoes, hair dryers, bicycle parts, and discarded appliances into imaginative and powerful works of art. Fashion brands Comme de Garçons and Tods have collaborated with Cole to create unique collections and leather-based sculptures.
Cole’s art and installations are generally discussed in the context of postmodern eclecticism, combining references and appropriation ranging from African and African American imagery to Dada’s readymades and icons of American pop culture. His work is found in prestigious private and public collections and museums worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
A lifelong New Jersey resident, Cole grew up in Newark and currently works and resides in New Jersey. He attended the Boston University School of Fine Arts, received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the School of Visual Arts in New York and continued his studies at the Art Students League of New York. Cole has received numerous awards and honors including the coveted David C. Driskell Prize.
Planning Team Member and Presenter
Roger C. Tucker, III
Roger C. Tucker III is an artist, curator and art advisor. Founder of Tucker Contemporary Art, he works with collectors and institutions interested in acquiring, exhibiting and promoting the work of emerging contemporary artists. He received his BFA from The Cooper Union and MS from Pratt Institute. Leveraging extensive experience in fine art, marketing and education, Roger advances the careers of African American and other underrepresented artists – academically trained or outside the mainstream.
Roger serves as board president of GlassRoots.org, a Newark Glass Art Center. A Newark, NJ native, he is also the host of the “What’s Newark Got To Do With It?” Podcast, where he interviews artists, historians, authors, curators and other cultural thought leaders from/of Newark, NJ about the cultural impact and life-long influences the Brick City has, and continues to have, on their lives and careers. The interviews and photographs relative to the conversations are posted on the podcast’s website: https://www.whatsnewarkgottodowithit.com
Planning Team Member
Kristin Müller
Kristin Müller is a Latinx multi-cultural artist who specializes in wood fired ceramics and maintains a studio with an Anagama hybrid kiln in Dingmans Ferry, Pennsylvania. While ceramics is her primary medium she also loves photography and printmaking.
Kristin is the Executive Director of Peters Valley School of Craft, holds a Bachelor of Science in Studio Arts from Southern Connecticut State University, a Masters of Fine Arts in Ceramic Arts from Hood College, and is member of Phi Kappa Phi honor society. Kristin is the author of “The Potter’s Studio Handbook: A Guide to Hand Built and Wheel-Thrown Ceramics” published November 2007 by Quarry books and co-author of “Making Good: An Inspirational Guide to Being and Artist Craftsman” published April 2017 by Schiffer Publishing. Kristin exhibits her work internationally and is an Adjunct Professor at Hood College and contributes to art journals.
For more information visit www.kristinmuller.com and www.petersvalley.org
Planning Team Member and Presenter
Taisha Carrington
Taisha Carrington is a Barbadian multidisciplinary artist working in painting, performance, installation and body adornment. Her work focuses on placemaking, human and environment adaptation and the factors that drive immigration in the context of the Caribbean.
Taisha has exhibited works in the United states, Aruba, Canada, Germany, Switzerland and Barbados. She graduated from Pratt Institute NY in 2018 with a BFA in Jewelry Design. Her awards include the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s CFDA+ Design Graduate, NYC Jewelry Week’s One For The Future award and Art Jewelry Forum’s Young Artist Award Finalist 2022. She has participated in residencies including Pratt>Forward and Caribbean Linked x BIAC Reseaux as part of the Bienal in Martinique. Her work can be found in the collections of The Dallas Museum of Art and Montreal’s Stewart Program for Modern Design in Montreal.
Planning Team Member and Presenter
Monna Morton
Monna Morton is an award winning graphic designer and artist who has won and been recognized for more than 50 design and communication awards during her four decade career. She has designed graphics and advertising for major transit agencies, airports and airlines, hospitals and public and private agencies. She has done extensive work for non profits including community groups, and various arts and employment agencies.
Monna is the Creative Visionary at Social Impact Studios, a creative hub for engaging people in culture to act on important social issues.
Monna is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where she has developed advertising courses that focus on messaging, visual design and how to engage diverse audiences. Monna is a graduate of Pratt Institute. She most recently wrote a case study for the textbook, Advertising Creative: Strategy, Copy, Design by Tom Altstiel and Jean Grow. And the case study Race in Advertising: Aunt Jemima What would you do? discussing the name change of the Aunt Jemima brand to Pearl Milling.
Planning Team Member
Ennis Carter
Ennis Carter is the founding director of Social Impact Studios, based in Philadelphia, PA.
Carter began her career as a community organizer in New Jersey in the late 1980s, after studying Philosophy at New York University. After a decade in the non-profit field, she started Social Impact Studios in Philadelphia in 1996 as a social enterprise to promote culture and activism through the creative combination of communication and grassroots organizing. Carter specializes in movement-building through creative design & messaging, and campaign management. Carter was named one of the “50 Best Women in Business” as the director of SIS by Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell.
Carter is also the curator & author of the online archive, book, and exhibit Posters for the People: Art of the WPA and is a visual artist. Website
Planning Team Member
Abby Mechanic
Abby Mechanic received her BFA from the Maine College of Art with a concentration in Woodworking and Furniture Design. After graduating, she worked in various design studios, such as Luur Design, Nate Berkus, and Matter Practice. Mechanic then spent seven years working at Parsons School of Design, where she began as a Part-Time Technician and later became the Associate Director of the Making Center. She now works at Peters Valley School of Craft as the Education Director overseeing their programs and studios. Mechanic also serves on The Furniture Society’s Board of Directors acting as the Secretary.
In her downtime, she travels around the country teaching spoon carving and expanding the field of woodworking.
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