Cranbrook Academy of Art is an internationally recognized school of art, design and architecture comprised of a community of working artists and students. Established in 1932, the Academy of Art's Graduate Program remains a "living studio of artistic invention" as envisioned by its founder, newspaper publisher and philanthropist George Booth. The prestigious two-year Graduate Program includes approximately 150 students working with ten Artists-in-Residence, each of whom heads one of the Academy's ten departments: Architecture, Ceramics, 2D Design, 3D Design, Fiber, Metalsmithing, Painting, Photography, Print Media, and Sculpture. Each April, as part of the requirements for earning either a Master of Fine Arts or Master of Architecture degree, the second-year Master's degree candidates present their thesis work in the annual Graduate Degree Exhibition.

The debut of American House 08, the first in a series of ten prefabricated houses designed and constructed by William E. Massie — the award-winning Architect-in-Residence and Head of the Architecture Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art — will take place on March 7, 2008, at Cranbrook Art Museum in conjunction with the opening of a larger exhibition. American House 08 embodies Massie's drastically divergent practice from traditional architecture through his use of computer-based fabrication technology for efficient, precise, and customized fabrication. Constructed entirely within the architect's 12,000 square-foot studio just minutes away from the historic Saarinen-designed Cranbrook campus, American House 08 was designed, in part, at full scale. By composing in real-time, Massie is able to negotiate between material and concept, relying on human reaction to the actual space and details. Utilizing computer-based fabrication technology for production, the house consists of a prefabricated steel frame, in-filled with manufactured structural panels—all filtered through a process of digital fabrication.

Craft in America — Expanding Traditions celebrates the rich legacy of an American artform. The exhibition is landmark historical survey, touring nationally, which features exemplary works that celebrate the aesthetic achievements in the field. Spanning more than one hundred years, beginning with the Industrial Revolution, Craft in America explores the many cultures and movements that have contributed to the development and refinement of American crafts during the last century. The history of Cranbrook and the Academy of Art figure centrally into this exhibition which features more than 17 objects from the Collection of Cranbrook Art Museum, and work by Cranbrook faculty and graduates including Eliel and Loja Saarinen, Ed Rossbach, John Glick, Marianne Strengell, Jack Lenor Larsen, Harry Bertoia and Harvey Littleton. Other artists represented in the exhibition, which features over 150 works, include Ron Nagle, Gertrude and Otto Natzler, Peter Voulkos, Wendell Castle, Sam Maloof, George Nakashima, and Wharton Esherick.

Craft in America: Expanding Traditions is organized by Craft in America, Inc., Los Angeles, and Curatorial Assistance Traveling Exhibitions (CATE), Pasadena, California.

Long recognized as one of the foremost ceramic artists of the twentieth century, Toshiko Takaezu (CAA 1954) investigates and questions the idea of vessel form and decoration in her work, drawing on both Eastern and Western aesthetics and the natural world for inspiration. To celebrate the recent gift of fourteen outstanding pieces by the artist, Cranbrook Art Museum will present its entire collection of thirty-one works, a comprehensive selection that spans the breadth of Takaezu's remarkable career. The collection of new work includes remarkable vessels dedicated to Takaezu's teacher at Cranbrook, the ceramist Maija Grotell, as well as the former Director of the Academy of Art and artist Gerhardt Knodel.

The sensual and provocative forms of the artist Richard DeVore (1933-2006) transformed the landscape of contemporary ceramics. Over the course of a prolific career, DeVore established himself as one of the predominant artists working with clay, blurring the boundaries between fine art and ceramic tradition to produce a body of work that is conceptual, sensual and emotionally charged. DeVore began to explore these issues while at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, where he not only attended the Academy from 1955-1957, working with the famed ceramist Maija Grotell, but also took the helm of the department as Grotell's successor, a position he held between 1966 and 1978. From 1978 until his death from cancer in 2006, DeVore was on the faculty of Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Richard DeVore: Retrospective and "Last Works" is the first major museum exhibition of the artist's career in over twenty years. The show includes rare ceramics and mixed media objects from the first decades of DeVore's professional career. These are joined with a wide body of work, spanning the last half-century, that presents a comprehensive showcase for the artist's unique rethinking of the vessel form. The exhibition also includes a selection of never-before-seen "Last Works" the final group of pieces to leave the artist's studio before his death. The exhibition features selections from the Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation for Art — the largest and most comprehensive collection of DeVore's work — with additional works from the collection of Cranbrook Art Museum and the Estate of Richard DeVore, courtesy of the Max Protetch Gallery.

The exhibition is organized by Cranbrook Art Museum and co-curated by Art Museum Director Gregory Wittkopp and Jeanne and Ralph Graham Collections Fellow Emily Zilber. It is accompanied by a full-color catalogue with major essays by Emily Zilber, Art in America Senior Editor Janet Koplos, and the writer and former Richard DeVore student Robert McGowan. The catalogue is generously sponsored by the Max Protetch Gallery.

What is craft? While most makers would agree that craft is important to the production of artistic work, few are be able to agree on what it means. Is craft a classificatory noun describing certain types of artistic work based in specific material traditions? Is it a verb that relates to the process of manufacture? Is it an adjective speaking to the finished aesthetic of an object?

In spite of these questions, it remains indisputable that the story of Cranbrook is the story of craft. As both a guiding concept and in practice, the idea of craft was essential to the foundation of Cranbrook, which modeled its utopian, creative vision on previously-existing Arts and Crafts communities in the United States and Europe. Craft continues to exist as a governing force in the production of contemporary work on the campus. The exhibition Noun, Verb, Adjective: Cranbrook Defines Craft does not aim to present a conclusive definition for the word. Instead, by looking at works from the collection of Cranbrook Art Museum, it explores the myriad ways in which artists and patrons at Cranbrook have grappled with the meanings that have been ascribed to the word craft. From the work produced in Cranbrook's first craft studios to the prolific output of Eliel and Loja Saarinen to the practice of the current Artists-in-Residence at the Academy of Art, Cranbrook artists have focused on specific meanings of craft in their work. By looking at figures as diverse as Arthur Nevill Kirk, Maija Grotell, Marianne Strengell, Gary Griffin, and Mark Newport, this exhibition will highlight the various meanings craft has held for the makers and thinkers that have helped to define the Cranbrook vision and present a thought-provoking entrée into what craft can mean in the increasingly interdisciplinary creative landscape of the twenty-first century.

Noun, Verb, Adjective: Cranbrook Defines Craft is curated by Jeanne and Ralph Graham Collections Fellow Emily Zilber.

This spring marks the completion of the groundbreaking artist Tony Hepburn's last year as Artist-in-Residence and Head of the Department of Ceramics at Cranbrook Academy of Art, a position he has held since 1992. To celebrate Hepburn's tenure at the Academy, as well as the innovative work in clay that he has pioneered since his arrival, Cranbrook Art Museum will present a selective retrospective of Hepburn's work over the last fifteen years.