WILMINGTON, DE.- The Delaware Art Museum is committed to acquiring works of art by women and historically underrepresented minorities. On Friday, October 19, 2018, at the Museum's Juried Craft Exhibition Members Preview, we will celebrate our most recent large-scale sculpture acquisition for the Copeland Sculpture Garden. Chakaia Booker's 2008 One Way, made of recycled tires and stainless steel, is the first artwork by an African American artist to be represented in the Museum's sculpture garden.

The artist explains that One Way conveys her concerns about diversity, mobility, and hope. The sculpture's interconnecting circles are meant to resemble movement and perceptual cycles. This significant addition further supports the Delaware Art Museum's ability to showcase the diversity in process, materials, and interests occupying contemporary art today.

Chakaia Booker is best known for sculptures made of discarded materials--most often recycled tires. Her art explores race, globalization, feminism, and ecology. The Delaware Art Museum is in excellent company as collectors of Chakaia Booker's work. A large-scale wall sculpture by the artist is featured in the Heritage Hall of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture. Booker's sculptures are also in the public collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Storm King Art Center, and the Studio Museum in Harlem.

The timing of this major acquisition perfectly aligns with the opening of the Delaware Art Museum's Juried Craft Exhibition which will showcase the best in contemporary craft by artists working locally and throughout the region. Open to the public October 20, 2018 - January 27, 2019, this year's Juried Craft Exhibition features a rich array of woodwork, ceramics, furniture, textiles, metalwork, glass, paper, and more.

This year's juror, Paul Sacaridiz, is the Director of the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. Says Sacaridiz, "...the field of craft has clearly undergone significant changes, opening up dramatically from the more narrow restrictions of skill and mastery that defined it in previous decades. Artists today are engaged with an incredibly broad set of concerns ranging from social practice and institutional critique to design and functionality. Their work now sits as comfortably in the cupboard of one's home as it does in the context of a gallery exhibition or public performance."

Visit the Delaware Art Museum to experience all 61 artworks and 39 artists included in the 2018 Juried Craft Exhibition. In addition to the main exhibition space on the first floor and the sculpture garden, related artworks can be found in our contemporary gallery on the second floor of the Museum.