Describe your collection in three words.
Personal, curious and touched by the hand.
Why do you collect?
I was always interested in handmade things. My dad was a lawyer and my mother a homemaker, but in their spare time they made traditional American furniture using joints, without glue or nails. So I was surrounded by craft, although I didn’t think of it that way. When my husband, Warren, and I were making our first home together, I decided everything had to be either vintage or handmade. He had previously collected early 20th-century art, while I began meeting contemporary makers. The more I learned about American craft, the more I realized how much support the field needed.
What was your very first collection, maybe as a child or a teenager?
Vogue magazines. I was a suburban New Jersey kid, and they were my entry into the world of fashion. I still have those covers from the 1980s and ’90s, by Peter Lindbergh and Steven Meisel.
What was your first serious piece of design?
A Misha Kahn mirror titled “On the Occasion of the Crumbling of Our Empire.” It’s his version of a Federalist mirror—playful and experimental, almost like a balloon—and has become a talisman of our collecting together.
How do you live with your collection?
If something is functional, we use it. I’ll put flowers in a ceramic vessel, perhaps with something inside to protect it from the water. Jeff Lincoln, who designed our house, will come over and joke: “I’m going to have to bring the restorers in.” We have a game table with chairs by Joaquim Tenreiro, and I think we’ve broken the chairs four times. Jeff says: “You have to stop letting people sit in them.” And I say: “No, then I’ll have to get rid of them.”
What prompted you to establish the Spector Craft Prize?
It began with a long dinner with curator and craft historian Glenn Adamson, during which we discussed American craft and the many ways we could support it. After that, Warren and I took a long walk on the beach on Martha’s Vineyard, and I proposed establishing a prize together.
We want to support artists living and working in the United States. Glenn was instrumental in developing the museum partnerships. Rather than starting with specialist craft museums, we decided to partner with major institutions, where craft has historically been underrepresented. The principal award is structured as an acquisition, ensuring the work enters a museum’s permanent collection.
We also want to help emerging artists build sustainable careers. I was a lawyer before working in fashion, which deepened my understanding of the skill involved in making things by hand. Licensing was part of my legal practice, and I know that artists can preserve the integrity of their work while earning income in other ways. It’s not selling out to want financial security. We want to strengthen craft’s place in American culture. You look at what the Pritzker Prize has done for architecture and dream that, in 50 years, we might have had that kind of impact.
Can you tell us about some of the prize’s inaugural artists?
We received almost 1,000 applications, and we’re enormously proud of the entire inaugural cohort. Among our five emerging artists, Luke-Thomas Tokimasa Henderson makes paper using a traditional Hawaiian technique to create sculptural kites, and Demetri Broxton draws inspiration from photographs of his ancestors, transforming boxing-glove leather through intricate hand-beading.
Then there is our principal prizewinner, Sharif Bey, whose sculpture Raptor Return, informed by his study of African adornment, will enter Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, in Bentonville, Arkansas. He was a museum kid in Pittsburgh who discovered ceramics as a teenager and learned from artists at the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild. I find it fascinating to see what emerges from that lifelong engagement with art. We’ll celebrate the recipients at our inaugural Spector Craft Summit at Crystal Bridges in November.
Do you have any rules for collecting?
Each of us has the power to veto.
Best impulse buy?
An “Urushi Split Armchair” by Max Lamb, from Gallery FUMI at Salon Art + Design in New York. I had no intention of buying anything, but then I learned how Max had gone to Japan to study urushi, a generations-old lacquer technique, with master artisans. It’s an incredibly time-intensive and communal process. His desire to then carry the tradition forward, all while making something entirely new is, to me, what craft is about.
What’s the piece that got away?
If I’d been more focused, I might have found a large closed-form vessel by Toshiko Takaezu by now. They’re scarce, but I’ve put the word out.
Best art gift, given or received?
My husband gave me a Wendell Castle jewelry box, when we had just started collecting. Now, if he could just fill it with jewelry…
What exhibition are you most looking forward to seeing?
I’d look back to Homo Faber in Venice in September. It told the story of craft and made us feel its importance in our culture. The opening room filled with makers’ tools was particularly powerful. I was also excited to help strengthen its American representation. This year there were 60 American artists, more than from any other country; five years ago there were none. Through Closely Crafted, whose board I sit on, I was among those introducing the team to American makers, including studio visits with Peter Lane and Katie Stout.
What artwork or object have you restored back to life?
Warren had a rare Arts and Crafts rug by C.F.A. Voysey from around 1910 that he loved. Then a pipe burst. The dyes bled into one another, and he thought it might have been lost. He found the Textile Conservation Laboratory beside the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, established to conserve its 17th-century tapestries. The conservators studied the rug’s construction, matched the wool and recreated its colors, hand-dyeing threads and painstakingly repairing the damaged areas. It took more than a year. As Warren puts it: “Craft isn’t just the object itself. It’s the knowledge of how to make it—and how to keep that knowledge alive.”
Which museum would you like to be locked in overnight?
The Ware Collection at Harvard—the Glass Flowers. Commissioned in the 19th century, the collection consists of thousands of exact glass replicas of plants, made over 50 years. It’s beautiful sculpture and a scientific record—such an early example of craft solving a problem.
