BROCKTON, MASS.- Fuller Craft Museum presents the only east coast exhibition of Craft in America–Expanding Traditions, a multi-faceted journey into the origin and continuation of American craft traditions. This traveling exhibition is associated with the three-part Peabody Award-winning and Emmy-nominated PBS television series of the same name, which first aired nationally in 2007. The exhibition opens on Feb. 26, 2009 and runs through May 25, 2009 (press opening TBA). This will be the final stop on the two-year national tour of Craft in America.

Well-known artists such as Sam Maloof, Warren MacKenzie, Judy Kensley McKie, Garry Knox Bennett and Dale Chihuly are just a few of the pioneers of craft represented in this comprehensive exhibition of close to 150 objects. Craft in America at Fuller Craft spans a period from pre-Civil War America to 2007, with an emphasis on 20th and 21st century craft. Objects and media include baskets, quilts, ceramics, furniture, fiber, glass, jewelry, metal and wood.

“We’re thrilled to be hosting this important and lively exhibit,” said Fuller Craft Museum Executive Director Gretchen Keyworth. “It is a slight departure for us, but it makes sense. We pride ourselves on being forward-looking. However, to understand the future of craft, it’s important to understand the traditions, and to see the innovation of every age. In that way, this show is a perfect fit for us.”

Artists who work in or have strong ties to New England are well represented in Craft in America. Among those included are Cambridge furniture maker Judy Kensley McKie, a graduate of RISD, whose table included in the Craft in America exhibit is part of the permanent collection of Fuller Craft; potters Mary and Edwin Scheier, who worked in the WPA and spent much of their careers in New Hampshire; Rhode Island School of Design graduate Dale Chihuly, pioneer of the Studio Glass Movement; New Hampshire furniture maker Jon Brooks; New Hampshire glass artist Dan Dailey, who also graduated from RISD; jewelry maker Bruce Metcalf, an Amherst, Mass. native and former MassArt teacher; furniture maker Wendy Maruyama, a graduate of Boston University’s Program in Artisanry; furniture maker Alphonse Mattia, who lives in Westport, Mass. and teaches at RISD; Connecticut furniture maker Tommy Simpson; and sculptor and wood turner Christian Burchard, who attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. The exhibition also features early 20th-century work by the Deerfield (Mass.) Society of Blue and White Needlework, whose founders revived American colonial embroidery in 1896; Shaker furniture from Enfield, New Hampshire.