Lloyd Herman: A Leading Voice Who Sees The Art In The Craft

If you follow the craft scene in this region, or in any U.S. region for that matter, Lloyd Herman's name is a familiar one.

An Oregon native who has lived in Western Washington for the last decade, he is one of the nation's leading voices on craft, a sought-after expert who often curates several shows a year.

In Seattle he has frequently curated craft shows at Bumbershoot, as well as larger touring shows. Two of his shows are on view in Western Washington: "Trashformations: Recycled Materials in Contemporary American Art and Design" at Whatcom Museum of History and Art in Bellingham, and "Trashures" at Facere Jewelry Art in Seattle.

Though craft is frequently seen by the art world as the less important stepchild to fine art, Herman has long championed ceramic work, textile art, jewelry making and the many other traditional crafts whose boundaries are constantly pushed by talented, innovative artisans. He has lectured on American crafts throughout the world, and is the author of "Art That Works; The Decorative Arts of the Eighties," published in 1990 by the University of Washington Press.

As a young man, Herman studied to be an actor. But the need to support himself soon pushed him into a job in public relations and marketing for a trade organization for commercial builders in Washington, D.C. Growing bored of having to write copy about trade fairs that featured sinks and drywall products, Herman started booking traveling industrial design shows into his employer's exhibition hall.

The shows he liked were organized by the Smithsonian Institution, and through that connection he was soon hired by the Smithsonian to help figure out what to do with the Smithsonian's large collections of industrial design objects, crafts and decorative arts. When the Smithsonian created its Renwick Gallery of the National Museum of American Art as its crafts and decorative arts museum, Herman became its first director. In the late '80s he was director of the Cartwright Gallery in Vancouver, B.C., and supervised its evolution into the Canadian Craft Museum.

These days Herman describes himself as retired, despite a busy schedule as an independent curator and eloquent spokesman for craft.

"What's encouraging is that in the '80s people came out of crafts programs at craft schools and helped spark a revival of craft," said Herman. "The best contemporary crafts people today understand the link to tradition and to the decorative arts. They also understand their materials, which is very important, and they use the materials in surprising ways."