We are excited to announce the recipients of the third annual Maxwell/Hanrahan Awards in Craft! This $100,000 unrestricted award honors visionary craftspeople who carry forward, innovate upon, and push the boundaries of material and making.

The Maxwell/Hanrahan Awards in Craft recognizes visionary approaches to material-based practices encompassing the stewardship of living cultural traditions, unique insight into material study, and the advancement of craft at the intersection of other fields. USA is thrilled to continue our partnership with the Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation to administer this landmark award for individual artists and craftspeople.

Join us in celebrating the 2024 awardees:

• Cristina Córdova is a ceramic sculptor whose work is influenced by the rich creative heritage of the Caribbean. Using clay to give voice to regional stories and aesthetic inquiries, Córdova strives to honor and innovate within this ceramic lineage, expanding collective creative language.

• Ibrahim Said is a ceramicist whose practice recognizes the rich cultural heritage, techniques and the history of the pottery industry from his hometown of Fustat, Egypt. Combining wheel throwing, hand-building and surface adornment, including carving, glazing and finials, Said pushes the physical limits of clay while engaging, respecting and building upon a lineage of Egyptian pottery.

• Nisha Bansil is a glass sculptor, artist and educator exploring how remnants of phenomenological events found in nature relate to patterns that become ubiquitous, sacred and divine. Bansil builds devices to render invisible, natural forces, like sound waves and motion, into visual forms in glass.

• Raul De Lara is a sculptor who practices storytelling through woodworking, exploring Mexican/American iconography, queer identity and the immigrant experience. De Lara’s research preserves, honors and propels forward traditional uses of wood while combining them with new developments in the global industry of woodworking.

• Thea Alvin is a stone mason and sculptor specializing in arch construction, large-scale sculptural installation, stone building, and, most recently, stained glass, building on her unique style and perspective of stonework, design, installation, team leadership and teaching in the trades.

This year's cohort features recipients whose work spans clay, glass, stone and wood, among other media. Their practices draw upon a range of artistic traditions as well as ecological, personal and social influences, representing the multifaceted realities of contemporary craft. The awards committee selected winners for their visionary approaches to material-based practice, their potential to make significant contributions to their craft in the future and the potential for this award to provide momentum at a critical junctures in their work. We aim to recognize the vibrancy of the field and the importance of these artists’ varied, hands-on explorations of cultural heritage, emerging technologies, materials and trades, and the intersections between them.