Portland’s progress Issue #33

The new Museum of Contemporary Craft kicks off with Craft in America

By Sarah Coffey
Published: September 1st, 2007 | 12:00am

Portland loves its crafts — and we’re not just talking about knitted caps. The city is home to the Oregon College of Art and Craft, weekly Portland Saturday Market bazaars, and the DIY collective PDX Super Crafty.

In July, Portland upped the ante with the grand reopening of the new, multimillion-dollar Museum of Contemporary Craft (MCC). For 70 years, the former Contemporary Crafts Gallery was a small but respected institution that exhibited textiles, glass, and furniture from heavy-hitters in the craft world including Jack Lenor Larsen and Peter Voulkos.

Once housed in a WPA-era building, the gallery was a hub for socially conscious crafters from the 1930s through the turn of the 21st century. With the opening of the new museum in the Pearl District, space has doubled, making room for large-scale installations and increased programming, including lectures, artist demonstrations, tours, and hands-on classes for children and adults.

MCC inaugurated the new space with the multimedia traveling exhibition, Craft in America, (through September 23). Accompanied by a PBS documentary and an illustrated book, the exhibition is proof of MCC’s drive to bring in the big guns (such as October’s installation, The Living Room, featuring artwork by Voulkos, Larsen, and Sam Maloof) while continuing their mission to “support Portland’s growing reputation as an energetic and culturally vital destination.” Unlike other institutions that bill themselves as “fine art” or “design” museums, MCC embraces the term “craft” and its egalitarian connotations. Free admission keeps the museum accessible to everyone — a well-crafted plan indeed. Visit contemporarycrafts.org for more information.