Tanya Crane: Embodied Histories—Exploring the Legacy of African Jewelry
RAM Downtown
441 Main Street Racine, WI, 53403
Now –
Sat Jan 9, 2027
Overview
Responding to her own biracial background, Tanya Crane imbues her enamel, metal, and found object jewelry with reflections on history, resiliency, migration, community, adornment, humanity, identity, family, and heritage. As she considers how traditions shift across space or through time, Crane creates patterns that echo designs of global Indigenous makers. This exhibition features jewelry inspired by historical adornment in RAM’s permanent collection—specifically, incised metal bracelets and neckpieces from West Africa that were used as currency. Objects like this were exchanged within trade or barter networks, not only for local agricultural and luxury products but also in transatlantic slave trade negotiations. This potential compelled Crane to cautiously move forward with her explorations.
As she states, “The research for my jewelry encompasses both a response to my immediate landscape and my family stories relative to the impacts of the Great Migration. It is through this lens that I interact with and respond to the museum’s collection, contextualizing that historical work through a contemporary lens and providing a dynamic framework to investigate the past in the present.”
Artist Bio
Tanya Crane received her MFA in Metalsmithing + Jewelry from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and her BFA in Metal from the State University of New York at New Paltz. Crane is an Assistant Professor of 3D Foundations, Jewelry and Sculpture at Long Beach City College. Named a 2024 United States Artist Fellow in Craft, she was selected in 2023 to be an inaugural recipient of the Center for Craft’s Teaching Artist Cohort. Crane was also a recipient of The Doris Prouty Foundation Artist Grant—offered to BIPOC/AAPI women artists in Massachusetts and North Carolina to further their artistic activity and practice. She was the 2018 Society of North American Goldsmith’s Emerging Artist and selected to present at SOFA Chicago, as well as the 2017 winner of the Society of Arts and Crafts–Boston Artist Award.
Crane’s work is in the collections of the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, Little Rock, AR; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; National Ornamental Metal Museum, Memphis, TN; Philadelphia Art Museum; Springfield Museum of Art, Springfield, OH; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT; and Racine Art Museum.
Platinum Partners—Anonymous, The Estate of Karen Johnson Boyd, Ron and Judith Isaacs, Racine Community Foundation, The Estate of Marilyn Rothschild, Windgate Foundation; Diamond Partners—David Charak, Ruffo Family Foundation, Ruth Arts Foundation, Travel Wisconsin, Diane Zebell; Gold Partners—Judith and David Flegel Fund, Osborne and Scekic Family Foundation, Reliance Controls Community Fund, W.T. Walker Group, Inc.; Silver Partners—Anonymous, Anonymous, Bader Philanthropies, Baird, A.C. Buhler Family, Dave’s Wine Garage, Paula and E.L. Donovitz Memorial Endowment Fund, Ben and Dawn Flegel, Tom Harty, Horizon Retail Construction, Inc., Johnson Financial Group, Robert E. Kohler Jr. Fund, Luanne Frey and Mark Lukow, Sheri and Frank Sullivan, Visit Racine County, We Energies Foundation, Wisconsin Arts Board; Bronze Partners—Sandy and Gus Antonneau, Carol Baylon, Susan Boland, Rose and Peter Christensen, Educators Credit Union, Julia Ann Oas and Don Gloo, Carol Griseto, Hitters Baseball, Debbie and Chuck Hoffman, Susan and Dan Horton, Gary Van Wert and Ronald Jacquart, SC Johnson, Paula Kalke, Bill and Debbie Keland, Nancy Kurten, Susan Manalli, Norbell Foundation, O&H Danish Bakery, Rita Petretti, Rasmussen Diamonds, Harold and Lois Solberg, E.C. Styberg Foundation, Twin Disc, Marc J. Wollman, Amy and Robb Woulfe; Media Sponsor—Radio Milwaukee
