From weathervanes and trade signs to quilts, carvings, and painted portraiture, American folk art encompasses a wide range of handicraft practices dating back to the 17th century that symbolize ingenuity, independence, and pride, key values of American identity. The term, which emerged in the early twentieth century, has evolved over time, reflecting changes in the nation’s idealized sense of self and its aspirations for the future.
The program “Can Craft Save America?” looks closely at the intersections between the handmade and nation-building. It takes its name from Namita Gupta Wiggers’ 2021 review for the journal Metropolis, in which she noted a lack of historical and political depth in recent museum exhibitions connecting craft to national identity. At a time of institutional reckoning, when museums are increasingly called upon to advance diversity, equity, and justice, Wiggers invited us to expand our questioning of the handmade and think more critically about which objects are included, the stories they tell, and the people they represent.
On the occasion of the United States’ semiquincentennial (250th anniversary) and the exhibition Folk Nation: Crafting Patriotism in the United States at the American Folk Art Museum, Wiggers will revisit this pressing question with Americanist and art historian Angela Miller and artist Sunny A. Smith. Together, they will trace the emergence of American folk art as both a heritage-collecting movement and an artistic category, highlighting the field’s ability to both reflect and complicate our historical understanding of the American nation.
About the speakers
Dr. Angela Miller writes on the cultural histories of the arts in the U.S., with a focus on the 20th century. In 2008, she launched a team of five leading scholars in the field to produce American Encounters, a downloadable survey of the arts in the United States and its antecedents. Her essay “’The People Looks Upon Its Own Life’: Self-Taught Art between the Wars” (2022)—looks at the role of self-taught art in building democracy during a decade that witnessed the rise of fascism in Europe and the U.S. She also contributed to public programming for the American Folk Art Museum’s 2022-23 exhibition on Morris Hirshfield. Miller has just completed a book on the queer circle of artists and writers around Lincoln Kirstein–best known as the founder of the New York City Ballet–in the years around World War II. She is Professor Emerita (Fall 2025) at Washington University in St. Louis.
Sunny A. Smith is a queer, trans* nonbinary artist, educator, and institutional leader whose work investigates how history is constructed, remembered, and contested. Based in Yelamu and Huchiun (San Francisco Bay Area) on unceded Ohlone territory, Smith engages with craft, material culture, and collective storytelling to explore the power of objects in shaping historical narratives. Smith’s work has been widely exhibited, including at P.S.1/MoMA, SFMOMA, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, MASS MoCA, and Palais de Tokyo, and is included in the permanent collections of institutions such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, UCLA Hammer Museum, and LACMA.
As an educator and institutional leader, Smith has spent over 25 years shaping arts education to ensure that curricula, museums, and archives reflect a more expansive and inclusive vision of history. For seventeen years, they served as Professor and more recently as Dean of Fine Arts (2018 – 2025) at California College of the Arts. Smith recently transitioned from higher education to become the next Executive Director and CEO of Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland, California.
Namita Gupta Wiggers is a writer, educator, curator, and artist based in Portland, OR. She currently teaches in the MFA in Social Practice, Portland State University. Wiggers founded, directed and taught in the MA in Critical Craft Studies, Warren Wilson College, the first and only low residency program focused on critical craft histories and theory from 2017 – 2023. She was awarded a Senior Fellow, Smithsonian Institution in 2024, and a Paul J. Smith Fields of the Future Fellow at Bard Graduate Center, NYC in 2023 to support her research on contemporary craft museums in the 21st Century. Recent publications include a special issue of the Journal of Modern Craft focused on the MA in Critical Craft Studies (Vol. 17, Issue 1, 2024) with Tom Martin, and This is not a Retreat, co-edited with Ben Lignel for The MACR Papers. In 2026, Wiggers was voted into the College of Fellows, American Craft Council. Wiggers served on the Board of Trustees, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts (2016-2025) and is currently on the Advisory Board, The Journal of Modern Craft. Wiggers directs and co-founded Critical Craft Forum (since 2008), and served as the Director and Chief Curator, Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland OR from 2004 – 2014. American-born of South Asian heritage, her work combines platform building roles with prior experiences as a museum educator, design researcher, and studio jeweler to understand craft and culture.
This program is organized by Mathilde Walker-Billaud, AFAM Curator of Programs and Engagement.
Images
Left: Uncle Sam Riding a Bicycle Whirligig, Probably New York State, 1880–1920. Paint on wood with metal, 37 x 55 1/2 x 11 in.. American Folk Art Museum Collection, Gift of Dorothea and Leo Rabkin
Center: Figured Doublecloth Coverlet, Possibly Dover, New York, 1829. Cotton and wool, 98 3/4 x 73 in. American Folk Art Museum Collection, Gift of Birgit Lorentzen
Right: Exhibition view of Sunny A. Smith: The Compass Rose at the Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture (13 January – 12 March 2023). Photo credit Josef Jacques.
Registration
Space is limited; advance registration is required. Please consider making a donation when you register to support ongoing virtual programming.
Instructions for joining with a Zoom link and password will be provided by email upon registration confirmation under “Additional Information.”
Closed captioning will be provided in English.
For questions or to request accessibility accommodations, please email publicprograms@folkartmuseum.org.