The Center for Craft has announced its 2026 Craft Archive Fellows, four researchers who will each receive $5,000 to explore underrepresented craft histories in the United States. Their work will be published by Hyperallergic in September 2027 and presented in a virtual program hosted by the Center.
The fellowship is designed to push forward research into histories that have been left out of the official record, covering feminist, queer, Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian American and Pacific Islander, intersectional, and other communities and approaches. Among the four chosen fellows, one represents Indigenous artistry, another Black stonework, a third Middle Eastern embroidery and weaving, and the fourth craft practices developed by blind individuals.
The Fellows and Their Projects
DuBoise’s research focuses on Hands That Remember: Tlingit Octopus Bags and the Transmission of Knowledge, a project centered on Tigard, Oregon. The Tlingit octopus bags are found across museums, yet the knowledge behind their creation has dwindled. By visiting archives and conducting interviews, DuBoise seeks to bring that knowledge back and pass it on to younger Indigenous artists.
Shahini Fakhourie (Miami) has been working on Threaded Resistance: Mapping SWANA Identity Through the American Warp, a project that examines how Middle Eastern embroidery and weaving, particularly Lebanese and Palestinian traditions, developed as “portable homelands” within the United States. She was awarded the Sara Clugage Award for the Craft Archive Fellowship. The research treats these textiles as living archives of both resistance and celebration, carrying cultural identity across generations of the diaspora.
Margie Merritt (Washington, DC) is working on Unseen Hands, Enduring Stone: Black Masonry and Memorial Craft in Tennessee, a project that seeks to recover the names of Black stoneworkers and cement carvers whose labor is preserved in the tombstones that fill East Tennessee’s segregated cemeteries. Their work has endured in stone, but their identities have been erased from the craft historical record. Merritt was given the Ayumi Horie Award for her Craft Archive Fellowship.
The Craft Archive Fellowship went to Sarah Weston (St. Louis), who is now studying Knot, Prick, Press: Tactile Learning and Craft Networks in Schools for the Blind. Her work centers on the wide-ranging craft methods built up by blind students and their educators in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American schools for the blind. Her project covers tactile materials made to aid reading, writing, and learning, including embossed and raised books, knot-writing, sand maps, and three-dimensional paper models. These innovations came from disabled readers, writers, printmakers, and workers in the trades, according to her research.
The Selection Process
The fellows were chosen by a distinguished panel of experts:
- Lakshmi Rivera Amin, associate editor, Hyperallergic
- Carla-Mae Crookendale, Arts Research Librarian and Associate Professor, Virginia Commonwealth University
- Faythe Levine, Special Collections and Public Engagement Manager, Women’s Studio Workshop
What the Fellowship Includes
Each fellow gets an honorarium of $5,000, which funds both traditional and experimental ways of doing archival research. The program cuts down physical and financial obstacles to working with archives, raising how much people value craft scholarship across the country.
The findings will appear on Hyperallergic in September 2027, where they will reach national and international readership. A virtual presentation held by the Center for Craft will further extend the audience for the project.
About the Center for Craft
Based in Asheville, North Carolina, the Center for Craft was founded in 1996, and it has been running for 30 years. The organization has handed out more than $11 million in grants and fellowships to craft artists, researchers, and organizations throughout the nation.
The Center for Craft Community Library and Archives will launch in 2028, merging holdings from the American Craft Council with its own existing collections to produce the nation’s leading public resource on American craft.
The Scope of the Work
| Fellow | Topic | Award |
|---|---|---|
| Sadé DuBoise | Tlingit octopus bags | None |
| Shahini Fakhourie | Middle Eastern embroidery and weaving | Sara Clugage Award |
| Margie Merritt | Black masonry and memorial craft | Ayumi Horie Award |
| Sarah Weston | Craft practices for blind students | Gallaher Family Award |
Why This Matters
These four projects address gaps in the craft record that have persisted for decades. DuBoise’s work on Tlingit octopus bags connects museum objects to living tradition. Fakhourie’s mapping of Middle Eastern embroidery and weaving shows how textiles carry cultural memory across generations of the diaspora. Merritt’s recovery of Black stoneworkers restores makers whose labor was preserved in stone but erased from history. Weston’s examination of tactile learning in schools for the blind highlights the creativity of disabled readers, writers, printmakers, and artisans.
Over three decades, the Center for Craft has invested in artists and expanded craft scholarship. The fellowship carries on that legacy by funding serious research into overlooked histories.
The Bottom Line
A group of four scholars has committed to spending a year recovering histories that have been omitted from the craft record. Each of them will earn $5,000, with their findings set to appear in Hyperallergic, where they will reach a large digital readership. The arrangement — money, print outlet, and wide distribution — matches precisely what craft scholarship currently lacks.
The Center for Craft has spent 30 years engaged in this work, steadily building toward a full record of American craft history. This year’s group of fellows comes from a wide variety of communities and approaches, and their projects will bring to light histories that have gone unseen for far too long.
Source material: “Announcing the 2026 Center for Craft Archive Fellows,” Hyperallergic.
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