Alberta Craft Gallery

The Exhibition

The Alberta Craft Gallery is the Calgary location of the Alberta Craft Council, a Provincial Arts Service Organization that develops, promotes, and advocates for Fine Craft in Alberta. We support contemporary and heritage crafts as significant art forms that contribute to Alberta’s culture, and are invested in developing a craft sector of creative, skilled, viable, and sustainable craftspeople, studios, businesses, and networks. We also have a retail gallery where you can experience fabulous shopping, and discover exceptional Fine Craft in clay, wood, metal, jewellery, fibre, stone and glass hand-made by Alberta artists.

Current exhibitions:

A.C.E. Alberta Craft Excellence
September 11 to November 6, 2021

A.C.E.: Alberta Craft Excellence features a diverse selection of exceptional fine craft artists in our province today. Marking the Alberta Craft Council’s 40th anniversary (2020), the exhibition serves both to celebrate and to commemorate excellence in Alberta contemporary and traditional fine craft recognizing quality, authenticity, innovation, and craftsmanship.

The invited jury – two professional makers Natali Rodrigues and Sharon Rose Kootenay and craft historian Jennifer Salahub had the arduous task of selecting from many high-quality submissions, those most representative of craft excellence in 2020.

Participating Artists:  Jim Etzkorn, Pamma FitzGerald, Brian McArthur, Mackenzie Kelly-Frère, Susan Kristoferson, Liv Pedersen, Bonita Datta, Bonny Houston, Marty Kaufman, Brenda Malkinson, Jackie Anderson, Karen Cantine, Sarabeth Carnat, Albertine Crow Shoe, Charles Lewton-Brain, Shona Rae, John Smith-Jones, Simon Wroot, Kenton Jeske, Talar & Jean-Claude Préfontaine, Erin Schwab.

SPOTLIGHT: Phillip Bandura
August 28 – October 9

Phillip Bandura graduated from the Alberta College of Art and Design with Distinction and is a co-creator of the Bee Kingdom Glass Blowing Collective which ran for 14 years in Calgary, until 2020. Phillip is back at AUArts as a candidate in the Masters of craft program with glass as a focus. With the temporary closing of the glass blowing Studio at AuArts due to Covid-19, Phillip became fascinated with using other materials that have a glass-like quality. Winter gave him the opportunity to make ice sculptures from unorthodox molds creating a magical ice wonderland in his backyard. The ice sculptures reminded Phillip of glass, especially the textures created by repeatedly submerging molten glass in water to make a crizzled texture. Along with the icy feel that can be obtained from the process of wrapping glass.This inspiration led to two series: Cracked But Not Broken, a set of vases resembling cracked ice, and The Winter Night Lights, a collection of lamps, using the technique of wrapping.