Convocation to Focus on Berea Craft: A Renewable Resource

Stephen Burks, Glenn Adamson and, Berea’s own, Aaron Beale will present Berea Craft: A Renewable Resource, on Thursday, Sept. 26 at 3 p.m. in Phelps Stokes Chapel. The three will discuss the history and current tradition of craft making at Berea College and a new collaboration between Burks and the College focused on inclusive design that can sustain the mission of Berea well into the future.

Burks is the principal and founder of his company Stephen Burks Man Made LLC. He is a traveler and designer who has worked as a product development consultant in Australia, Colombia, Ghana, Haiti, India and other nations.

His studio has been commissioned by many of the world’s leading design-driven brands to develop collections that engage hand production as a strategy for innovative manufacturing. Burks has received awards including the Brooklyn Museum Young Modernist Award, the Architektur & Wohnen Audi Mentor Prize, and the 2008 United States Artists Architecture & Design Target Fellowship Grant.

Adamson is a curator, writer and historian who works at the intersection of craft and contemporary art. A Senior Scholar at the Yale Center for British Art, Adamson’s publications include Thinking Through Craft (2007); The Craft Reader (2010); Postmodernism: Style and Subversion (2011, co-edited with Jane Pavitt); The Invention of Craft (2013); and Art in the Making (2016, co-authored with Julia Bryan-Wilson). His book Fewer Better Things: The Hidden Wisdom of Objects was published by Bloomsbury in 2018.

Beale, director of Berea College Student Crafts, will provide a third prospective on this week’s topic.
The convocation events, are provided free to both the campus and public communities, and are a significant part of a student’s educational experience at Berea College. For a schedule of all convocations this academic year, visit the Convocations site. (Note: the overflow venue for this convocation will be Baird Lounge in the Alumni Building.