Until just the past few decades, textiles were generally created with only practical applications in mind. Fabrics were woven for either domestic or industrial use, and crafts were considered purely functional.
Craft is often defined as skill in making things by hand, but this interpretation is being challenged by AI. Craft transcends physical interaction; historical figures like Mozart and Beethoven exemplify mastery without traditional methods.
These episodes are part of Craft in America's celebration of the country's upcoming 250th anniversary and PBS's slate of programming for PBS America @ 250. They will be followed by "NORTH" and "SOUTH," premiering in 2026. This four-episode event is part of the Handwork 2026 initiative, a nationwide semiquincentennial collaboration showcasing the importance of the handmade and celebrating the diversity of craft that defines America.
It was the most fabulous rush hour ever: a Chanel-centric subway station, running the 5th Avenue express (of course) and peopled with an 80-odd strong, all-female cast of American archetypes and stock characters, in extraordinary fashion. They represented, simultaneously, a cross-section of New York past and present, contemporary style, and Chanel 's eye-socking mastery of the arts of creation, which is what its annual Métiers d'Art collections are all about.
Jonathan Adler has always treated glamour like oxygennecessary, intoxicating, and freely available to anyone bold enough to breathe deeply. His work doesn't sit politely on a coffee table; it shimmies. It sparkles with a bit of naughtiness, intelligence, and a delicious refusal to take the world too seriously. Clay in his hands becomes personality, attitude, a wink disguised as form.
'Sanctuary' is a reminder of just how singular an artist Puryear is. It's a serious work of contemporary art that seems to have fallen out of a fairy tale-not the monophonic Disney kind but the capricious, found-object kind collected by the Brothers Grimm, in which the moral is oblique, anything can come to life, and nobody leaves unscathed. Born in 1941, Puryear came of age at a time when sculpture was flexing its muscle through intimidating scale, conceptual rigor, and protractor-perfect geometries.
Lauren Groff: If you want to write something that's going to affect people emotionally, you have to do it emotionally. Nick White: And it has to cost you more than the time you're spending writing. It pushes me to my emotional and intellectual capabilities. I feel like when something is working it is because all cylinders are firing, and I am working at the very bleeding edge of what I am capable of.
In class, I shared a set of drafts of a poem that appeared in my most recent collection. One by one, I projected versions of the poem onto a screen. I drew attention to the red ink slashing through unwanted words. I pointed out how I added, struck, added, struck and then re-added a comma. I boasted about my careful use of my favorite punctuation mark-the delightfully overlong em dash.
Each product at Silly Nice is lab-tested and packaged using sustainable materials: hemp-based boxes, reclaimed ocean plastic lids, recycled glass jars, and hemp labels.
