(From left) Flummel Jade. Jasmine Steinacker, artist; Kevin Duckett, artist; Bailey Fritz, artist
The Southern Highland Craft Guild has announced its third cohort of the Emerging Artist Program (EAP), the Guild’s now-permanent initiative to bring early-career makers into the orbit of one of Appalachia’s oldest, distinguished craft institutions. Ten artists from six craft media and seven states make up the 2026 spring cohort.
Selected artists receive a discounted booth fee for exhibiting at the Craft Fair of the Southern Highlands, marketing support through the Guild’s channels and professional development programming through a new partnership with Mountain BizWorks’ Craft Your Commerce initiative—covering pricing, web presence, grant writing and exhibition photography.
Like Guild membership, EAP artists are chosen through a competitive jury process, conducted this year by Daniel Garver, ceramicist and former Penland School of Craft resident artist, and Guild members Emelie Weber Wade and Erica Stankwytch Bailey.
Christa Schoenbrodt, artist
“The Emerging Artist Program offers substantial resources and structure that can help build a strong foundation, not only within the Guild but for a sustainable career in craft more broadly,” says Weber Wade. “It offers a point of entry for artists who are still developing their practice or professional footing, but who show strong potential. The EAP allows artists to access resources and community while refining their work and business practice, rather than requiring them to meet the full expectations of Guild membership.”
The jurors reviewed applications independently before coming together to discuss their choices, and each brought a different perspective to the process. Garver was an intentional selection, as an established craft artist that is not a Guild member. “Through the years of working in craft at a variety of craft schools and residences I was able to provide a different lens to the jurying process that is adjacent but relevant to the SHCG,” Garver says. “The jurying process cannot be as simple as evaluating the strength of work, images and writing, but rather all the more amorphous details such as intent, potential and DEI to compose a solid cohort that will learn together and support one another through the program.”
Kevin Duckett of Sandy Mush is a leatherworker who was chosen for the spring cohort. “While I feel confident in my artistic skill set, I know that marketing and promotion is a piece of the business side where I need assistance,” he says. “Since my ultimate goal is Guild membership, there is no better place to learn art as a business than from this group of skilled artisans and makers.”
Anna Rose Garrett, a printmaking and paper artist from Andrews, sees her participation in the EAP as a stepping stone for her artistic growth. “I often feel that my creative practice and my business practice are at odds with one another,” she says. “I hope that through my involvement with the EAP these two aspects of my work can more seamlessly coexist and foster one another. I hope to achieve a greater level of confidence as I engage with the wider circle of artists in the WNC region.”
Other members of the spring EAP cohort include Toryn Davis Black, Amy Burka, Bailey Fritz, Samuel Harley, Emiko Kuhs, Ethan McKellar, Christa Schoenbrodt and Jasmine Steinacker. These artists will exhibit at the Craft Fair of the Southern Highlands, July 16–19 at Harrah’s Cherokee Center in downtown Asheville.
Learn more at CraftGuild.org.
