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The annual Philadelphia Contemporary Craft Show lands in the Pennsylvania Convention Center this weekend for its 50th time, with 195 artists and artisans displaying textiles, furniture, ceramics, jewelry and glasswork.
It has just about anything that can be handmade, show director and manager Nancy O’Meara said, but nothing that is ordinary.
“The definition of craft is very broad. It could be macrame, Afghans, that sort of thing. That was never the Philadelphia show,” O’Meara said. “It’s always been looking for the artist who is working in a field — whether it be clay, metal, wood, fiber — and taking it to the next level, being very innovative, using the right tools. This is their livelihood. This is not a weekend hobby.”
The show was launched in 1977 by the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Women’s Committee as a benefit for the museum. Since then, it has raised $15.3 million.
Ceramic artist Sandra Byers, of Rock Springs, Wisconsin, first started participating in 1990. At 77, she said she does not do a lot of shows anymore, usually just two or three a year including the Smithsonian Craft Show and an American Craft Council festival. She and her husband, fellow ceramicist Winthrop Byers, keep coming to Philadelphia because of its prestige.
“Everyone across the country recognizes the Philadelphia Craft Show as one of the premier shows in this country,” Byers said. “We love to show among that wonderful group of craftspeople.”
The Byers’ do not come every year, but not for lack of trying. The Philadelphia Contemporary Craft Show is juried, meaning a panel of artists, curators and teachers decide who gets in on any given year.
Some years the couple do not make the cut.
“We respect that,” she said. “It would be rather boring for the people who visit the show if each year the show was exactly the same.”
Sandra and Winthrop Byers are in this show this year, separately showing Sandra’s decorative porcelain sculptures of organic shapes and Winthrop’s more functional pottery.
O’Meara says changing up the show is one way it has kept its reputation for quality for 50 years. Audiences demand it.
“The artists tell me all the time, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t believe how knowledgeable people are in Philadelphia,’” she said. “The artists know that they need to bring their best work to Philadelphia, their newest work, so they’ll try things out in Philadelphia.”
