Situated on historic Museum Row since 1965, the Craft & Folk Art Museum (CAFAM) is an invaluable contributor to Los Angeles culture, exhibiting current artists with intriguing perspectives and distinctive practices. CAFAM offers consistently unexpected exhibitions of compelling work that takes traditional techniques in new, often surprising directions. Exploring the leading edge of craft, art, and design, CAFAM gives audience to diverse makers and artists whose work is often not represented in larger art institutions.

The Craft & Folk Art Museum (CAFAM) is special because it is a place to both see art and make art. Tying into exhibitions, CAFAM coordinates a robust roster of hands-on workshops led by professional artists and instructors. The museum is a place where friends and families come to spark creativity, appreciate more fully what it means to craft something by hand, and feel how satisfying that can be. CAFAM enjoys collaborating with community organizations throughout Los Angeles to draw artists and crafters from across the city together for work on group projects and for special events. It’s impossible to guess what extraordinary thing you will find here next.

This extends to the CAFAM Shop, which features an expertly curated, ever-shifting array of beautiful handmade items from skilled artisans. The intimate, atypical museum space and independent spirit at CAFAM combine to create an atmosphere of genuine excitement and delight, where people in Los Angeles deepen their relationships to art, creativity, and one another. Step inside, and become a part of what’s happening at CAFAM. 

Current Exhibitions at CAFAM include:

Betye Saar: Keepin' It Clean - (Through August 20, 2017)

This solo exhibition of seminal contemporary artist Betye Saar features the artist’s series of washboard assemblage sculptures—an ongoing body of work Saar started in the late 1990s. The washboard is a potent object for Saar, a reference she uses to examine the intersection of race, class, and labor. Saar has shaped the development of assemblage art in the United States, and the washboard pieces demonstrate Saar’s ongoing commitment to illuminate the social and political concerns of our time. To give deeper context to the washboard assemblages, two related tableaux and a selection of washboards from Saar’s personal collection are included in the exhibition.

Material as Metaphor - (Through August 20, 2017)

This exhibition of fiber sculpture presents eleven contemporary artists from the western United States who generate large-scale fiber forms through experimentation with gravity, process, and mass. Using materials such as vinyl, industrial felt, wire, canvas, and nylon, the artists create abstract works that underscore the contemporary transformation of fiber arts. Featured artists: Joel Allen, Miyoshi Barosh, Phyllis Green, Lloyd Hamrol, Mary Little, Christy Matson, Victoria May, Senga Nengudi, Lisa C Soto, Kay Whitney, and May Wilson.

The Craft and Folk Art Museum (CAFAM) is located at 5814 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90026.  Phone (323) 937-4230. The museum hours are Tuesday - Friday: 11AM - 5PM, Saturday - Sunday: 11AM - 6PM.  The museum is closed on Mondays.  The first Thursday of every month: 6:30PM - 9:30PM.  Admission - General: $7, Students/Seniors (65+): $5, Veterans and Active Military: Free, Children under 10: Free, Sundays: Pay what you can!