Intention Symposium
Super Natural Image Courtesy of Judith Schaechter
Friday, November 14th, 2025
Moore College of Art & Design
20th and the Parkway, Philadelphia
or Attend Virtually
Questions?
In 2025, the theme of Intention explores the conscious choices behind artistic creation, asking why we make art and how meaning is shaped through materials and processes. Every decision in art—whether in concept, medium, or execution—reflects the maker’s values, experiences, and desires. This theme invites artists, designers, and craftspeople to examine the motivations behind their work, encouraging a more purposeful and aware approach to creation. Intention also emphasizes care in the act of making, including the preservation of materials, traditions, and cultural heritage, and the role of craft in healing and restoration.
9:30am – Registration and Coffee
10:00am – Welcome – Emily Edelstein, Executive Director, CraftNOW Philadelphia
10:20am – Handwork introduction – Carol Sauvion, Executive Director, Craft in America
10:30am – Premiere (before PBS air date) of the Craft in America segment featuring Roberto Lugo
10:45am – Roberto Lugo interviewed by Elisabeth Agro, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Craft and Decorative Arts, Philadelphia Museum of Art
Introduction to Emerging Voices: Ruby Lopez Harper, Executive Director, CERF+
11:30am – Duwenavue Santé Johnson – “Embroidery: By Hand, By Art, By Eye.”
11:45am – Topher Gent – “Making is Thinking: Crafting Intention through Discovery”
12:00-1:00pm Networking Lunch
1:00-1:30pm Galleries at Moore tour
1:30pm – Premiere (before PBS air date) of Craft in America Segment featuring Bisa Butler
1:45pm – Bisa Butler interviewed by Dr. Matt Kenyatta, Director and Curator of Exhibitions and Public Programming at Temple Contemporary
2:30-2:45pm coffee break
Introduction to Emerging Voices: Deanna Emmons, Moore College of Art and Design
2:45pm – Kerianne Quick -“Becoming Heirlooms”
3:00pm – Angelique Scott- “Crafting Care in the Afrodiaspora: Testimony & Material Legacies”
3:15pm – Keynote Speaker: Judith Schaechter – “Intention, Invention and Innovation”
4:00-6:00pm – Cocktail Reception with Handwork 2026
Craft in America Featured Artist
Roberto Lugo
Roberto Lugo is a Philadelphia-based artist, ceramicist, social activist, poet, and educator. Lugo utilizes classical pottery forms in conjunction with portraiture and surface design reminiscent of his North Philadelphia upbringing and Hip Hop culture to highlight themes of poverty, inequality, and racial injustice. Lugo’s works utilize traditional European and Asian ceramic techniques reimagined with a 21st-century street sensibility. Their hand-painted surfaces feature classic decorative patterns and motifs combined with elements of modern urban graffiti and portraits of individuals whose faces are historically absent on this type of luxury item – people like Sojourner Truth, Dr. Cornel West, and The Notorious BIG, as well as Lugo’s family members and, very often, himself.
Lugo holds a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA from Penn State. His work has been featured in exhibitions at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, among others. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including a 2023 Heinz Award, a Philadelphia’s Cultural Treasures award, a 2019 Pew Fellowship, a Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon Polsky Rome Prize, and a US Artist Award. His work is found in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The High Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Brooklyn Museum, the Walters Art Museum, and more.
Craft in America Featured Artist
Bisa Butler
Through her dynamic, celebratory quilted portraits of people of African decent , Bisa Butler (b. 1973, Orange, NJ) investigates the purposes and potential of portraiture within the Black historical narrative. Butler’s influences range widely from personal family scrapbooks to American folk traditions and AfriCOBRA philosophies. Although her finished works are made entirely of textiles, Butler approaches the medium from a painterly perspective. Sourcing imagery mainly from photographs, she uses layered fabrics and quilting to create unique compositions , psychological depth and detailed textures that she found missing from her paintings. By returning to textiles, Butler has reconnected with her family’s history since it was her grandmother and mother who taught her to sew.
Bisa Butler lives in South Orange, New Jersey and has a studio in Jersey City. Butler earned her BFA in painting at Howard University, Washington, D.C. in 1995 and holds a MAT in teaching art from Montclair State University, New Jersey. Her work has been exhibited widely, both domestically and internationally. Bisa was named an honorary doctorate or letters from Bloomfield College and recently received the inaugural Faith in the Arts Award.
In 2020, Butler had her first institutional solo exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work can be found in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago; the Fine Art Museums of San Francisco; and the High Museum of Art, in Atlanta. The World Is Yours, Butler’s first solo exhibition with Jeffrey Deitch, in 2023 in New York, was enthusiastically received and attracted thousands of visitors. In 2024 Bisa received the Inaugural Faith in the Arts Award , which specifically recognizes artists who carry on the artistic legacy of Faith Ringgold from the Broadway Housing Community.
Keynote Speaker
Judith Schaechter: Intention, Invention and Intuition
Judith Schaechter lives and works in Philadelphia. Her work is collected internationally and is represented in the collections of the Smithsonian, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Victoria and Albert in London and the Hermitage, among others. She is the recipient of
numerous awards including the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2005 and her work was in the 2002 Whitney Biennial. 1n 2013, Judith was inducted to the College of Fellows of the American Craft Council. She received a lifetime achievement award from the Glass Art Society in 2022 and in 2023, she was named a Smithsonian Visionary Artist. In 2020-21, Judith’s work was the subject of a retrospective exhibition organized by the Memorial Art Gallery of Rochester, NY, which traveled to the Toledo Museum and the Des Moines Art Center.
Additional Bios
Elisabeth Agro is co-founder of the Craft Chronicle and Curator of Modern and Contemporary Craft and Decorative Arts at the Philadelphia Art Museum, where she works toward craft’s inclusion in the ever-changing global landscape of contemporary art. Her recent exhibitions with accompanying publications include The Shape of Time: Korean Art after 1989 (2023) and Boom: Art & Design in the 1940s (2025). She has advised and juried the Gyeonggi International Ceramic Biennale and Cheongju Craft Biennale in the Republic of Korea. Prior to joining the museum in 2006, Elisabeth held positions at Carnegie Museum of Art, J. Paul Getty Museum and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Topher Gent is a designer and educator based in Providence, Rhode Island. He holds a BFA in Furniture Design from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and a Master of Design from the Universitetet i Bergen, Norway, where his research examined the relationship between handcraft and emerging digital technologies. His studio practice employs craft as methodology for research, where making becomes a systematic investigation into human-object relationships and materiality. His work explores how objects express traces of their creation, navigating the intersection of traditional craft processes and digital fabrication. He is currently Assistant Professor of Spatial Dynamics at RISD.
Duwenavue Santé Johnson is a distinguished federal government senior hand embroiderer, artist, teacher, lecturer, and curator. She is co-director/founder of GrioxArts and an artist in residence at Cherry Street Pier and founder of the Mason Stitch Art Collective at the Masonic Temple and Grand Lodge in Philadelphia. Her professional practice is deeply rooted in textile arts, cultural preservation, and the power of narrative. As a three-time cancer survivor, her work is guided by principles of resilience and process-based practices. She holds a specialized Federal role with the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) where she meticulously executes the hand embroidery of the U.S. President’s and Vice President’s flags, and at the Institute of Heraldry in Philadelphia. In addition to her roles as lecturer, exhibitor, and docent for the Heraldics collection experience, she has been featured in interviews on NPR, ABC, CBS, and Fox News. In the visual arts, Johnson has had her work acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, as well as being considered a rising force in the contemporary art world, with recent solo exhibitions in Philadelphia, Brooklyn, and NYC. Accolades include the prestigious Rebeccah Milena Maia Blum Curatorial Fellowship (2026-2027) and Radical America! Research and Exhibition Grant (2026), multiple Black Music City Grant Awards, and the Mural Arts Black Fellow 2024 grant. Holding a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication Arts, she is currently pursuing a master’s degree in American history to further her artistic mission of engaging audiences and promoting dialogue, understanding, and sharing their stories through textile-inspired media, thereby fostering their appreciation of heritage and shared history. Johnson’s commitment to fostering a collective understanding through mended narratives artistic mission, thereby bridging divides and promoting social cohesion.
Dr. Matthew Jordan-Miller Kenyatta is an award-winning artist, author, and advocate whose work across urbanism and public art expands space for joy, justice, and genius. Currently, he serves as Director of Exhibitions and Public Programming at Temple Contemporary’s gallery. Dr. Matt curates public shows to help North Philadelphia and Tyler School of Art and Architecture be a beacon for art, architecture, and community imagination, most recently PYRAMID CLUB: 1937-2035 with Shawn Theodore and NAVIGATING NEW PLACES with Norman Akers. Prior, at the University of Pennsylvania’s Stuart Weitzman School of Design, he catalyzed the Justice and Belonging Fund, the Black Planners Society, and the Julian Abele Lecture. His advocacy work as a consultant writing the New Freedom District Cultural Plan for West Philadelphia. He advances cultural preservation and public art as the youngest Philadelphia Art Commissioner since 2021 and previously served as a 21st Century Historic Preservation Leaders Fellow with the U.S. Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. In October 2025, the City of Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations honored him with a Social Justice Award in Arts and Culture.
Kerianne Quick is a nationally recognized artist/craftsperson, Associate Professor of Jewelry and Metalwork at San Diego State University, and co-founder of Secret Identity Projects and Craft Desert. Highlights from their exhibition record include Craft in America Gallery (Los Angeles), the Museum of Art and Design (NYC), Museo Franz Mayer (CDMX), the National Museum for Women in the Arts (D.C.), and Salon del Mobile (Milan). Their work is included in the collections of the LACMA, MFA Houston, and the Netherlands Design Museum (Stedelijk). They are currently researching migration and the conveyance of objects as it relates to memory, belonging, and longing.
Angelique Scott is a Afro-Caribbean-American artist and educator whose artistic practice is rooted in intergenerational traditions of care and craftsmanship. Drawing from Afro-diasporic material culture, she works primarily with clay, glass, fiber, cowrie shells, and indigo to create both functional and decorative objects. Her work is grounded in Afrocentricity and Africana womanism as frameworks for embodied understanding. Angelique received her Bachelors of Fine Arts in Art Education and Craft & Material Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University and earned her Masters of Fine Arts in Ceramics from Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and Architecture. Her professional experience includes studio residencies at Haystack Mountain School of Craft, Vermont Studio Center, Penland School of Craft, Arrowmont, Hambidge, Ibura Arts at Blue Light Junction, and the Skopelos Foundation in Greece. She served on the Board of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts as the youngest onsite liaison, co-organizing the largest clay conference in the U.S. She currently hosts clay workshops along the East Coast and maintains a vibrant studio-based practice investigating spirituality, wellness, and communal healing through craft.
Recent Symposium History
2024: Connectivity
CraftNOW’s 2023 Connectivity which explored family, community, and how craft connects us in an increasingly divided world. Keynote Speaker Patricia Wilson Aden, President and CEO of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance spoke on Philadelphia’s creative ecosystem. Other presenters included Dr Tariem Burroughs presenting research on craft and public health, panel discussions on artificial intelligence and craft reality TV and presentations by four emerging scholars.
2023: Craft Works
CraftNOW’s 2023 symposium centered on the theme Craft Works. Through this theme, scholars, artists, and other speakers explored diverse and changing ideas around work that permeate every aspect of the craft landscape. Craft Works will also pay tribute to the important contributions of gallerists Ruth and Rick Snyderman to Philadelphia’s craft community through their gallery, Snyderman Works. Presenters included Asiyah Kurtz, executive director of Camden Fireworks, and Philadelphia craft scholar Helen Drutt. Panel discussions on creative placemaking and Korean/American curatorial partnerships and two emerging scholars completed the program.
2022: Public | Private
CraftNOW’s 2022 symposium and programming centered on the theme Public | Private and explored continually evolving concepts of shared versus personal space. The keynote speaker was be Michael Lewis, architectural critic for the Wall Street Journal and author of Philadelphia Builds: Essays on Architecture, Frank Furness: Architecture and the Violent Mind, and City of Refuge. Other presenting institutions included Craft in America, The Center for Art in Wood, Wharton Esherick Museum, varying divisions of the Philadelphia Mummers Parade, and four emerging scholars.
2021: Environmental Effects
CraftNOW’s 2021 symposium Environmental Effects examined how communities and interiors shape our experiences, when sustainability issues are expressed through craft, and the greater impact of our contemporary material culture. Longer presentations were complimented by shorter Pecha Kucha style talks. Dr. Kelli Morgan was keynote having contributed the chapter Crafting Diversity in our recent publication Craft Capital: Philadelphia’s Cultures of Making.
2020: Cultures of Making
CraftNOW’s 2020 symposium Cultures of Making examines the many ways community, activism, research, and connection develop out of collaborative craft practices in the neighborhoods of Philadelphia to the Santa Clara Pueblo and beyond. Keynote speakers Vashti DuBois, Executive Director of The Colored Girls Museum in Philadelphia, and Hinda Mandell, editor of Crafting Dissent: Handicraft as Protest from the American Revolution to the Pussyhats, are central to each day’s conversation as we talk and think about the role of craft as a tool for provocation and exchange, especially in this heightened time of social unrest.