Touchstone Center for Crafts

Pennsylvania’s Premier Craft School

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Exhibitions

2020 Season Update, In light of the uncertainty stemming from the novel Coronavirus pandemic, Touchstone Center for Crafts has made the difficult decision to cancel all scheduled programming for our 2020 season. We look forward to welcoming you back to campus again when it is safe to do so! For facts surrounding this decision and to read the announcement from our Executive Director and Board President, Click here.


Virtual Open House Exhibitions

Click on the videos below to tour Touchstone’s virtual exhibitions. Closed captioning is available by clicking on the CC icon at the bottom of the videos.

Bea Campbell Gallery Exhibition

Featuring Touchstone Interns and Summer Staff

All of the pieces featured in this exhibition were crafted during the summer of 2020 at Touchstone Center for Crafts.
 
Participating Artists: Meghan Burke, Julia Castor, Taylor Fentz, Makena Henriksen, Jessica Howerton, Stacy Larson, Taylor Mezo, and Daniel Tomcik.
 
Click to learn more about the artists

Touchstone’s Miniature Gallery

Miniature Group ‘Solo’ Exhibition: Together Alone

This exhibition features miniature artwork created by summer staff and interns at Touchstone Center for Crafts. The Miniature Group ‘Solo’ Exhibition: Together Alone reflects a small group of artists practicing socially distant art making within a craft community during the COVID-19 pandemic. Each mini Solo cup pedestal represents an artist at Touchstone and all are spaced 6 inches apart. Historically, these disposable cups were invented to prevent the spread of disease through sharing, hence the name ‘Solo’. As the current pandemic forces us to navigate new public health guidelines, we are reminded of their original purpose. Each miniature work of art reflects how the individual artist identifies with these uncertain times. So raise a glass with us (or Solo cup), as we come Together Alone to bring you this socially distant miniature exhibition!


Off-site Exhibitions

 

Touchstone’s 2020 Instructor Exhibition
at The Pittsburgh International Airport

March 1 – May 26, 2020

An exhibition showcasing 2020 Touchstone Instructors is now on display at the Pittsburgh International Airport as part of the Art in the Airport program. Rachel Rearick, Arts and Culture Manager for Allegheny County Airport Authority, says, “We’re thrilled to have Touchstone Center for Crafts exhibiting with us this spring. Having a residential craft school in our region is an incredible opportunity for local artists to foster their creativity, while also providing a premiere experience to the national craft community. The work that Touchstone brings to PIT continues to exemplify the caliber of their programs.”

Artwork included in the exhibition represents artists teaching blacksmithing, ceramics, drawing/painting, glass, metals/jewelry, and other special topics. Touchstone’s programs manager, Travis Winters, said, “it is an exciting opportunity to introduce neighboring communities to some of the great instructors we bring to the region each summer.” 

Participating artists: Nick Ireys, Glenn Horr, Melissa Weiss, Chuck Purviance, Anthony Derosa, Tim Sherman, Richard James, Kevin Rhode, Yoshi Fujii, Mark Arnold, Travis Townsend, Meredith Edmondson, Ashley Gilreath, Everett Hoffman, Harlan Butt


2020 Instructor Exhibition
at Allegany Arts Council in Cumberland, MD

February 1-29, 2020
This exhibition has ended


at Allegany Arts Council’s Saville Gallery
9 N. Centre St., Cumberland, MD, 21502

An exhibition showcasing the wide range of diversity and talent that Touchstone brings to campus each year! The exhibition featured nearly 30 artists whose work includes blacksmithing, ceramics, drawing/painting, glass, metals/jewelry, and other special topic areas. A public reception was held on Saturday, February 1st from 6-8pm. The Allegany Arts Council’s Saville Gallery is located at 9 N. Centre St., Cumberland, MD, 21502. The exhibition ran from February 1-29, 2020
 
Participating Artists: Nick Ireys, Glenn Horr, Melissa Weiss, Chuck Purviance, Anthony Derosa, Sigrid Zahner, Tim Sherman, Richard James, Kevin Rhode, Yoshi Fujii, Mark Arnold, Travis Townsend, Bill Pfahl, Lynda Ray, Meredith Edmondson, Melissa Davenport, Ashley Gilreath, Everett Hoffman, Harlan Butt, Elizabeth Tokoly, Katie Rearick, Sean Macmillan, Andrew Kuebeck, Paige Tibbe, Becka Rahn, Ed Parrish, and Travis Winters
 

2020 Gallery Exhibitions

Touchstone galleries are currently closed. When and if they will open is something that we are evaluating. We will be sure to let everyone know as decisions are made. We also plan to work on creating an online gallery and store during the shutdown. For the latest announcements about Touchstone workshops, events, and campus information, Click Here

Bea Campbell Gallery

2020 Instructor Exhibition

MAY 1 – June 28
Reception May 30 | 11-4pm (during Open House)

Touchstone invites professional artists from around the country to teach workshops each year. This exhibition will showcase a sampling of work by our incoming workshop instructors.​

‘Just Live With It!’

JULY 9- SEPT 27
Reception July 12 | 2-5pm

At Touchstone, we believe that using and living with handmade objects can enrich everyday experiences and help liven up one’s home. Just Live With It! is an exhibition highlighting beautiful one of a kind works designed for the home or daily use to be lived with and loved. 


Iron Gate Gallery

Touchstone is thrilled to be partnering again with the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh for two art exhibitions in 2020. Hosted in the Iron Gate Gallery, the exhibitions feature work by Associated Artists of Pittsburgh (AAP) members. AAP is an artist member organization featuring over 500-artist members from the greater Pittsburgh region. Founded in 1910, AAP organizes 5-10 exhibitions a year in various spaces throughout the region including the Carnegie Museum of Art, The Westmoreland Museum of American Art, The Andy Warhol Museum, and Touchstone! 

Exhibition I          

MAY 1 – June 28
Reception May 30 | 11-4pm (during Open House)

Please check back for additional information.

Exhibition II

JULY 9- SEPT 27
Reception July 12 | 2-5pm

Please check back for additional information.

 


Off-site Exhibition

Artist Intern Exhibition
at Clay Place @Standard
in Carnegie, PA

Postponed – DATES TBD
at Clay Place @Standard Ceramic Supply
24 Chestnut St, Carnegie, PA 15106

Each season Touchstone brings in emerging artists to work as studio assistants and technicians, help with daily operations and workshops, while providing them the time and space to explore their own work. This exhibition will highlight the work that these talented emerging artists have made during their time at Touchstone.

Please check back for additional information.


Previous Exhibitions…

2019

Touchstone’s 2019 Instructor Exhibition at Pittsburgh International Airport

March 1 – May 28, 2019
Sorry, this exhibition has closed

Touchstone Center for Crafts hosted an exhibition at the Pittsburgh International Airport showcasing the wide range of diversity and talent that Touchstone brings to campus each year. The exhibition occupied six cases at the entrance to the landside terminal of the airport. Exhibiting artists included Carol Milne, Rae Gold, Stephen Yusko, Bryan Hopkins, Tim Lazure, Ron Donoughe, Jo Campbell-Amsler, Lanny Bergner, Travis Winters, Daniel Tomcik, Glen Gardner, Aaron DeShields, & Troy Bungart.


2019 Bea Campbell Gallery Exhibitions @Touchstone

Touchstone’s 2019 Instructor Exhibition

June 2- July 27, 2019
Touchstone invites professional artists from around the country to teach workshops each year. This exhibition showcases a sampling of work by our 2019 workshop instructors. 

Exhibiting artists: Jo Campbell-Amsler, Lanny Bergner, Erika Broas, Meghan Burke, Aaron DeShields, Ron Donoughe, Glen Gardner, Lorraine Glessner, Rae Gold, Janna Gregonis, Martha Grover, Bryan Hopkins, Glenn Horr, Roger Hyndman, Joy Knepp, Anna Koplik, Dan Kuhn, Stacy Larson, Tim Lazure, Maia Leppo, Michael Mangiafico, Carol Milne, William Pfahl, Aaron Pickens, Hanna Pierce, Carolyn Pierotti, Nash Quinn, Elizabeth Tokoly, Daniel Tomcik, Julia Claire Weber, Nathanael Weiss, Travis Winters, Stephen Yusko.

Image pictured: “HUH?” Travis Winters, 29″x12″x12″ – earthenware, glaze
Image courtesy of Beth A. Hollerich, Allegheny County Airport


Touchstone’s 2019 Staff Exhibition

August 4- September 30, 2019
Opening Reception August 4, 2019 | 2-5pm
Each season Touchstone brings in emerging artists to intern as studio assistants and technicians, help with daily operations and workshops while providing them the time and space to explore their own work. This exhibition highlights the work of these talented emerging artists exhibiting alongside Touchstone staff.

Exhibiting artists: Erika Broas, Meghan Burke, Grant Downing, Ed Eberhardt, Lindsay K. Gates, Makena Henriksen, Stacy Larson, Myah Merhaut, Kristen Muscaro, Dean Simpson, Daniel Tomcik, Nathanael Weiss, Travis Winters


2019 Iron Gate Gallery Exhibitions @Touchstone – New!

Touchstone is thrilled to be partnering with the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh for two art exhibitions in 2019. Hosted in the Iron Gate Gallery, the exhibitions will be juried by Touchstone’s Lindsay Ketterer Gates and Travis Winters and feature work by Associated Artists of Pittsburgh (AAP) members. AAP is an artist member organization featuring over 500-artist members from the greater Pittsburgh region. Founded in 1910, AAP organizes 5-10 exhibitions a year in various spaces throughout the region including the Carnegie Museum of Art, The Westmoreland Museum of American Art, The Andy Warhol Museum, and now Touchstone!

‘Vessels in Five Dimensions’
featuring Kristen Letts Kovak and Silvija Singh

June 2- July 27, 2019

‘Vessels in Five Dimensions’ explores the fluidity between two-dimensional images and three-dimensional forms. Augmenting the static dimensions of height, width, and depth with time and individual perception, both Kovak and Singh create vessels that subvert function while alluding to meaning.  Both artists intentionally leave gaps in information. Using the fragments to construct new and more complex narratives, they reform instability into strength and surface into transparency.  Kovak’s paintings depict forms whose context has been removed or interrupted. Similarly, Singh’s ceramic forms are carefully pieced together, revealing cavities interrupting their function. The resulting physical and pictorial vessels are not empty bodies but bodies reformed by history, observation, and cognition.

Kristen Letts Kovak is an artist, professor, and curator based in Pittsburgh, PA. She earned her undergraduate art degrees from Mercyhurst University before completing her MFA in Studio Art from MICA. Since 2012, Kovak has taught drawing, painting, and applied aesthetics at Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to her current appointment, she taught at Seton Hill University, Indiana University’s Creative Learning Center, and the School for Visual and Performing Arts. Her artworks investigate connections between visual, perceptual and cognitive patterning and have been exhibited widely in museums and galleries.

Silvija Singh is also based in Pittsburgh, PA. She earned a Ph. D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Clinical Psychology and an undergraduate degree from Harvard University.  Silvija started working in ceramics in the mid-1980’s with a series of ceramic sculpture classes at UNC – Chapel Hill. She studied under Xavier Toubes, now Professor Emeritus at the Art Institute of Chicago. Since then, she has taken many art classes and workshops. Between the mid-90’s and 2012, she took a hiatus from sculpting to raise her family, while working as a clinical psychologist. In 2012, she discovered a cooperative studio at the Union Project in Pittsburgh, which allowed her to return to sculpting.

Images pictured: (L) “Eyewitness” Kristen Letts Kovak, 30″x40″ – (R) “Hurricane Maria” Silvija Singh, 16″x14″x16″


‘Mutual Understanding’
featuring Adrienne Heinrich and Judith Musser

August 2 – September 30, 2019
Opening Reception August 4, 2019 | 2-5pm

Curator’s Statement: When I first met Judith Musser and Adrienne Heinrich I knew I would be impressed by their talents and experience. However, meeting them and seeing what they have done sheds light on the creative needs and desires we all crave to express. Some may find their outlet in various other forms but here it is expressed in painting, collage, and sculpture. Mutual feelings between artists can be found even though expression may be very personal.
Their artworks and chosen mediums, while unique to them as individuals, are relatable in that their own creative evolutions shine forth. One method may seem calculated while the other random. However, I get the sense that each object holds a tangible and metaphorical personal memory or attachment.
When visiting Judith’s studio, she shared with me that her life and experiences have allowed her to evolve both personally and in her art. Feeling and memories are attached in her work titled Duet. The couple reminds Judith of her and her late husband together. Conversely, when I asked Adrienne why she had chosen a particular object to float inside the rubber, she replied “I don’t know, I just like them.” As our conversation continued, memories and attachments to the other objects arose, such as the skull given to her by a good friend in the work titled Woman in Pain. Vicky Clark was on point when she wrote about Adrienne in her 2002 Artist of the Year Catalog, “The process of looking at her work replicates her process of making sense of the world.” I agree as I look at the work of Judith Musser as well.
Judith and Adrienne guide us through layers of feeling, memory, and personal attachments, gravitating us further in thought and appreciation with their ingenious way of utilizing both grace and power in their execution.
I remain in awe of their talent and uniqueness. It has been a great honor to get to know them at their studios and through their artwork.
– Jennifer Panza

Judith Musser, Artist’s Statement: I start work very intuitively, even though I am always aware of the formal elements that are integral to the finished work. I just make some marks and “jump in.” The fact that I work standing at an easel affects how the work progresses. I step back and forth a lot to view the work from a distance. This becomes a little dance I do with the canvas. As the composition develops, I discover some intellectual or emotional connection. This connection dictates the direction then work will move in toward completion. At this point, the formal elements (color, value, texture, etc.) are considered more analytically. The purely sensual pleasure of painting is restrained a bit by careful thought and observation. The hope, always, is that the viewer will relate to the final image on some level of shared experience. 

Adrienne Heinrich, Artist Statement: My sculpture, paintings and installations spring from my experience as a woman and mother. I create in various media: reed with paper or fabric, carved wood, and cast silicone. I gravitate towards those materials which imply a sense of vulnerability and are difficult to control physically. Light is an important aspect in these pieces. My work comes from my subconscious, revealing itself to me slowly. Part of the excitement of art making is being open to new encounters with the work.

Click to Read More…


2018

‘A Maker’s Mark: Touchstone’s Innovative Expression’

Oct 7, 2018 – Feb 22, 2019

An exciting exhibition curated by Touchstone’s 2018 Summer Staff!
Visit Clay Place at Standard in Carnegie, PA for an exhibition highlighting the talents of the many artists that Touchstone would not be the same without, and representing the various crafts that Touchstone cultivates. Featuring Artwork In a Variety of Mediums By: Katie Adler, Erika Broas, Meg Burke, Aaron DeShields, Norb Duritsa, Ed Eberhardt, Glen Gardner, Lindsay Ketterer Gates, Maddi Graybill, Morgan Herman, Roger Hyndman, Katie Konrad, Anna Koplik, Dan Kuhn, Stacy Larson, Maia Leppo, Michael (Fig) Mangiafico, Janice Patrignani, Chuck Purviance, Dean Simpson, Dan Tomcik, Nathanael Weiss, Wayne Werner, Sam Whitney, Travis Winters

Read More...

Location: Clay Place at Standard 
1 Walnut St., Carnegie, PA 15106

Clay Place at Standard is located at Standard Ceramics Supply. The gallery is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.  Items are available for sale.


Summer Evening Arts II

Reception for Touchstone’s 2018 Staff Exhibition
Sunday, July 29, 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. 

Touchstone is proud to showcase the work of our talented staff, including resident artists, summer interns, studio technicians and assistants. Please join us for refreshments and a Meet the Artists Reception on Sun., July 29th from 2-5pm. The event is free and open to the public.

The exhibit runs through Aug. 31, 2018 in the Bea Campbell Gallery. The gallery is open to the public Thursdays through Sundays from 10am – 4pm or by appointment. 

 


Summer Evening Arts I

Exhibition for Touchstone’s 2018 Artist of the Year: Tadao Arimoto

Touchstone is excited to celebrate Tadao Arimoto, a talented, hardworking, and renowned maker, with an exhibit in the Bea Campbell Gallery from May 4 through July 8, 2018. Join us for a Meet-the-Artist Reception on Friday, June 22 from 5-7pm

 


NCECA 2018 Pittsburgh

The Gist Street International Ceramics Bash & Exhibition:

 

Organized by James Simon and Whitney Smith, the exhibition includes

Artwork by Touchstone ceramic artists:

Mark Arnold
Fred Herbst
Doug Jeppesen
Daniel Tomcik

Dan Scully
Matthew Hyleck
Stacy Larson

Yoko Sekino-Bové
Brett Kern
Didem Mert
Travis Winters 

Exhibition Dates: March 13-18, 2018
Hours: Tues.-Sat. 1:00-6:00 pm (Wed. 10:00 am-5:00 pm)
Reception: Fri., March 16, 7:30 pm until 1:00 am

 


 

‘Taste of Touchstone’ Gallery Exhibit

Showcasing the wide range of diversity and talent that Touchstone Center for Crafts brings to campus each year!

Read More...

February 3-17, 2018
Reception: Saturday, February 10 from 6-8 PM

at The Allegany Art Council’s Saville Gallery 
9 North Centre Street, Cumberland, MD 21502

Featuring Works By:

Mark Arnold
Phil Ashworth
Jim Bové
Elizabeth Braun
Meg Burke
Glen Gardner

Dorie Guthrie
Fred Herbst
Glenn Horr
Matthew Hyleck
Roger Hyndman
Doug Jeppesen
Joy Knepp

Rajesh Kommineni
Stacy Larson
Drew LaVercombe
Zach Lihatsh
Didem Mert
Dan Neville

Heather Nuber
Nash Quinn
Laura Lyn Stern
Dan Tomcik
Travis Winters
Kensuke Yamada

Touchstone Center for Crafts is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to advance excellence in the arts and crafts by educating and encouraging individuals to develop technical skills, good design, and innovative expression.


Touchstone Center for Crafts stands in solidarity with the Black community and condemns all acts of racism, discrimination, and senseless violence. We firmly believe that everyone has a right to dignity, respect, and equality without fear. As an organization, we commit to listen and learn and to grow. We will continue to work to empower people to use art as a means of expression, a way to build community, and a powerful voice for change.


2021 Registration Is Now Open!

Click Workshops to view offerings in each studio

NEW! Artist Residency Opportunities in 2021!

LEARN MORE


In light of the current COVID-19 concerns and need for social distancing, Touchstone’s staff is working a rotating mix of office hours and remote work until further notice. Office voicemail: 724-329-1370 will be checked daily. Staff members can be reached by email: info@touchstonecrafts.org.

Our offices and campus remain closed to the public. Please follow our social media: Facebook and Instagram, and check out our digital offerings on the Virtual Events page. Thank you for your patience as we take precautions for the health and safety of our staff and community.

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