Meet the Inaugural Spector Craft Prize Recipients
The inaugural Spector Craft Prize recognizes one established artist and five emerging artists whose work reflects the excellence and breadth of American craft today.
Working across ceramics, beadwork, wood, fiber, paper, sculpture, glass, and mixed media, these six artists bring exceptional skill and distinct approaches to material and making.
2026 Spector Craft Prize
Sharif Bey is the inaugural recipient of the Spector Craft Prize. A ceramicist, sculptor, and educator, Bey draws from functional pottery and the visual traditions of Africa and Oceania, reimagining ornament and familiar forms at a monumental scale. His work challenges the boundaries between function and sculpture.
The Prize includes the acquisition of Bey’s Raptor Return by Crystal Bridges for its permanent collection, with funding from the Spector Family Foundation.
Sharif Bey
2026 Spector Craft Prize for Emerging Artists
Five emerging artists. Five distinct voices.
The Spector Craft Prize for Emerging Artists invests in five exceptional artists each year at a pivotal stage in their practice, providing a $10,000 award, mentorship, professional development, and participation in the Spector Craft Summit.
Japheth Asiedu-Kwarteng
Japheth Asiedu-Kwarteng reimagines traditional Ghanaian ceramic forms through bold color, scale, and unexpected combinations of form, creating contemporary vessels that carry stories and traditions across cultures and generations.
Demetri Broxton
Through intricate, labor-intensive beadwork, Demetri Broxton transforms familiar objects, using adornment to shift their meaning from the everyday to the symbolic.
Vivian Chiu
Vivian Chiu uses woodworking and sculpture to explore how materials can carry their histories with them.
Merryn Omotayo Alaka
Merryn Omotayo Alaka embodies the expansive possibilities of contemporary craft, moving across fiber, sculpture, installation, and performance. Using materials ranging from vinyl and plastic to hair, earrings, and cowrie shells, she questions how materials acquire value and meaning.
Luke-Thomas Tokimasa Henderson
Luke-Thomas Tokimasa Henderson brings delight and possibility to craft, growing, harvesting, and transforming plant fibers into handmade paper. Combining inherited practices with experimental techniques, he creates work deeply connected to land and place.
2026-27 Spector Craft Prize for Emerging Artists
Applications open November 1, 2026.
Applications for the 2026–27 Spector Craft Prize for Emerging Artists open November 1, 2026, and close February 15, 2027.