“How long does it take for something to become American?” Sarita Westrup mused one spring afternoon in Brooklyn, on the set of this photo shoot. The artist, who grew up in the border town of McAllen, Texas, was talking about the material she weaves with—reeds grown in Indonesia and other parts of Asia that have been sold to hobbyist crafters across the U.S. for more than 100 years. “It’s a question I think about a lot as the child of immigrants.” Rather than using those reeds to reenact some historic act of basketmaking, the Mexican-American artist, who is of European and indigenous ancestry, chooses the universal technique of twining, found in cultures across the globe.
As the nation celebrates its 250th year, Westrup’s question is at the center of what “American craft” looks like today. For her, and the group of young practitioners featured in this story, it’s not explicitly about preserving singular, handed-down, site-specific methods, but rather an insistence on putting humans first, and working with one’s hands in new ways. In their varied practices, they’re braiding their identities and their ideas into materials we know—wood, ceramic, paper, fabric, metal—but, in many cases, they’re doing it with new, proprietary techniques. In our highly digital world where rich narratives are commonly reduced to scrollable soundbites, this work becomes an act of resistance and placemaking.
“When I think about craft traditions, they’re almost like food,” says the New York-based ceramic artist Isabel Rower, who likens her practice of working with clay to cooking. “The identity of the chef—or the identity of the maker—is in the object forever.”
This group of talents is coming into their own amid a tectonic shift. As AI looms large, threatening to change making and thinking as we know it, craft has emerged as a potential savior. Following a string of recent casualties—the nearly 120-year-old California College of the Arts (it dropped “and Crafts” in 2003) will shutter after this school year; the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, closed its doors in 2024—we’ve seen a surge of interest from brands and private individuals in supporting American craft. This month, Etsy will announce a game-changing partnership with national nonprofit the Center for Craft, investing $10 million over three years into vital U.S. hubs—the first five are Asheville, North Carolina, Eastern Kentucky, Philadelphia, Northern New Mexico, and California’s Bay Area. In November, American craftheads will gather to celebrate the inaugural Spector Craft Prize, which will award five emerging American artists $10,000 and one mid-career winner with a museum acquisition, funded by the Spector Family Foundation. By partnering with a different institution each year—for 2026, it’s the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas—they aim to repair institutional gaps around collecting craft while also activating regional pockets of craftmaking. It all builds on the momentum of initiatives like the Loewe craft prize (though notably, the Madrid-based fashion house has never chosen a winner from the U.S.), the savoir-faire celebration Homo Faber in Venice, and the Met’s recent partnership with Swiss watch manufacturer Vacheron Constantin in support of traditional techniques.
Glenn Adamson, curator, author, and jury chairman of the Spector Craft Prize for Emerging Artists, says the U.S. was ready for such an infusion of financial support—as well as a commitment from institutions which he argues “haven’t really been keeping up with the profusion of activity in the field.” When asked to sum up what makes craft quintessentially “American,” he says he sees it as an extension of the classic American dichotomy: the individual and the community. “Craft has a unique way of getting those two values together—it’s a way of expressing the value of community through the individual.”