The most difficult thing about being an editor is all of the decisions that need to be made. When you are continually exposed to so many interesting people and so much good work yet only have a specified amount of pages to work with (and only so much time in the day) making those decisions can be extremely tough. We are always looking for work that is thought provoking, reads well visually and tells a compelling story. While this criteria obviously helps us narrow down what we might include in the pages of American Craft, it still leaves us with extremely difficult decisions to make.
In order to help us focus on up-and-coming makers who are just starting to make waves, we created a section in the magazine that we call ‘Radar’. This is one of my favorite sections because generally these artists haven’t gotten much exposure so often we’re learning about them for the first time and that is always a lot of fun. I wanted to share our first six ‘Radar’ artists with you here for those of you that may not have seen the magazine (shame on you!):
Matt Eskuche is a glass artist working out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was our first featured ‘Radar’ artist in our October/November 2007 issue
In the afternoon post, some great artists who have not made it onto our pages yet!
Chris Antemann is a ceramist based in Oregon though her work has been showing and selling all over the world lately. She was featured in our December/January 2008 issue. [Image above: Chris Antemann, Gather, 2007]
We doubled up in our December/January 2008 issue and featured another ‘Radar’ artist in addition to Antemann. Matthias Pliessnig, a furniture maker based in Providence, Rhode Island, fit the bill perfectly. [Image above: Matthias Pliessnig, Delapidated Flow, 2007]
Sangjoon Park is a ceramist originally from Korea but now based in New Jersey. He was the ‘Radar’ artist in our February/March issue. [Images above: Sangjoon Park, Bowl Series, 2005]
Elizabeth Lundberg Morisette is a Washington D.C. area artist that we featured in our April/May 2008 issue. [Image above: Elizabeth Lundberg Morisette, Shrug, 2007]
In our June/July issue we featured the husband and wife glass artists Marc Petrovic and Kari Russell-Pool. They are based in Connecticut and produce some really stunning work. [Image above: Kari Russell-Pool, Eternally Yours
Hisano Takei is a jewelry artist in Southern California. She is our featured ‘Radar’ artist in our August/September issue that should be on the stands very, very soon. [Images above: Hisano Takei, Stackable and Hisano Takei, Entangle]