Artist Nicholas Galanin chasing a copper mask
STORYTELLERS premieres on PBS Friday, December 11, 2020 (check local listings)
[Los Angeles] – Craft in America, the Peabody Award-winning documentary series discovering the beauty, significance and relevance of handmade objects and the artists who make them, announces STORYTELLERS premiering on PBS Friday, December 11, 2020 at 9:00PM (check local listings).
For more than a decade, Craft in America has taken viewers on cultural journeys across this nation, honoring the multiplicity of traditions that have come to define our country.
Craft in America: STORYTELLERS highlights artists who use narrative to communicate personal and universal truths, creating a uniquely powerful expression of our human experience.
We begin in Alaska, where we meet one of our nation’s most important multidisciplinary artists, Nicholas Galanin. Galanin creates works layered in meaning and visual language. Descended from a family of Native Alaskan Tlingit & Unangax̂ artists, he challenges the displacement of indigenous art and cultural disruption, offering perspective rooted in connection to land while investigating and expanding intersections of culture and concept in form, image, and sound.
Then we explore the Art to Wear movement with gallerist and craft historian Julie Schafler Dale. Dale walks us through the Philadelphia Museum of Art exhibition Off the Wall: American Art to Wear and introduces textile artist Linda J. Mendelson, who draws inspiration from poetry and pushes the boundaries of wearable art.
The episode also features Seattle-based sculptor George Rodriguez. He makes oversized ceramic figures that are both personal to Rodriguez and universally resonant. The sculptures are human expressions, influenced by mythology, global civilizations, a spirit of play, and his Chicano heritage.
Lastly, STORYTELLERS highlights artist Christina Bothwell. Through her unique approach to glass, Bothwell explores her interest in birth, death, and renewal, while imbuing her work with a sense of wonder and hope. Bothwell’s glass figures, rooted in the physical realm, are also imbued with layers of spirituality. We record her technique – a process never before documented by Craft in America – and tour the natural landscapes of her home in rural Pennsylvania that influence her work.
The stories these artists tell us through their creations bring us together in ways that defy cultural boundaries and offer new ways of understanding even the most complex mysteries of our existence.
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CRAFT IN AMERICA is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to advancing original handcrafted work through the Peabody Award-winning documentary series on PBS nationwide and the free-to-the-public Craft in America Center in Los Angeles. With 25 episodes produced since 2007, CRAFT INAMERICA takes viewers on a journey to the artists, origins and techniques of American craft. Each episode contains stories from diverse regions and cultures, blending history with living practice and exploring issues of identity, ritual, philosophy and creative expression. Our websites craftinamerica.org and pbs.org/craftinamerica provide all episodes, hundreds of online videos and interactive learning materials, as well as object exhibitions, artist information, and the Random House book Craft in America: Celebrating Two Centuries of Artists and Objects and other Craft in America publications.
The Craft in America Center is an exhibition and learning space in Los Angeles. We give voice to traditional and contemporary craft through artist talks, workshops, exhibits and concerts. Our reference library contains over one thousand books and videos and is free to the public. We invite you to stop in and to join us for upcoming events and exhibitions – 8415 W. Third St., Los Angeles, CA 90048.