Exhibition Tour: Material Nature

When craft no longer has to serve a function

Furniture, textiles, useful ceramics, glassware and silver service all belong to craft’s long history of skilled making. AMFA traces another direction back to the mid-19th century, when artists began taking familiar materials beyond established techniques and shaping them into complex sculpture. By the 20th century, craft included both functional objects and work made without a practical use.

Most of the Horn works in AMFA’s Foundation Collection are nonfunctional sculpture. The museum describes them as explorations of a material’s mass and movement, among other qualities. The collection reaches from Studio Craft Movement pioneers of the 1950s and ’60s—Toshiko Takaezu, Ed Rossbach, Stephen de Stabler and Dale Chihuly—to later artists including Hoss Haley, Michael Peterson, Todd Hoyer, Thomas Spleth and Mary Giles.

Further reading: Material Nature: Gifts from the John and Robyn Horn Collection – Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts ↗

The material is only the beginning

David Nash’s 2003 Crack & Warp Column is carved from white oak with a chainsaw. In Stoney Lamar’s circa-2003 All Dressed Up, madrone burl is turned on a multi-axis lathe and paired with steel and milk paint. Michael Peterson’s 2004 Arbutus takes another route through madrone burl, using chainsaw carving, sandblasting, bleaching and pigment.

Other listed works extend the range beyond wood. Rick Smith’s 2000 Oblique Transition combines forged mild steel and concrete. Todd Hoyer’s 2021 Untitled (Suspended Series) pairs Mexican blue oak with steel; the museum lists turning, weathering, carving, burning, inking and bluing among its processes. Together, these examples show why the exhibition’s subject is not simply a roster of materials: it is also the particular ways artists work them.

Further reading: Material Nature: Gifts from the John and Robyn Horn Collection – Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts ↗

A collection shaped by the maker community

John and Robyn Horn did not set out to build a large craft collection. Robyn Horn was pursuing her own art and seeking forms that interested her; through the community of makers, she learned from peers as she developed her artistic voice. As the Horns met artists who became friends, they bought work that mattered to them—and understood those purchases as a way to help artists continue working in their studios.

The Horns have given more than 250 works to the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts Foundation Collection. Material Nature presents a selection from that larger group. AMFA puts the relationships around the work at the center of the collection’s story, adding the choices and connections behind the objects to the question of how craft is made and collected.

Further reading: Material Nature: Gifts from the John and Robyn Horn Collection – Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts ↗

Two displays, with different dates and settings

The exhibition has two distinct gallery presentations. In the Robyn and John Horn Gallery in the Windgate Art School, it is scheduled for Aug. 15, 2026, through April 25, 2027; AMFA describes the works there as inspiration for art-school students and other museum visitors. In the Governor Winthrop Rockefeller Gallery, the collection works are on view March 14, 2026, through March 7, 2027, in conversation with the museum’s permanent collection and the history of 20th- and 21st-century art.

Both date ranges include the November tour, but they are exhibition display periods, not extra dates for this particular session. The tour listing promises a docent-led look at works on view and the exhibition’s themes; it does not publish a gallery route or a guaranteed list of objects.

AMFA has organized the exhibition as part of Handwork: Celebrating American Craft 2026, a nationwide initiative presented by Craft in America that highlights handmade work in historical and contemporary life.

Further reading: Material Nature: Gifts from the John and Robyn Horn Collection – Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts ↗ · Exhibition Tour: Material Nature – Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts ↗ · Handwork: Celebrating American Craft 2026 – Celebrating American Craft 2026 ↗