Trump’s National Park Service inexplicably removed a bright-blue Joel Shapiro sculpture from outside the Kennedy Center yesterday, offering no explanation for the move. The late artist was widely known for his quasi-abstract, kinetic stick-figure works that would seem unlikely to upset even the most politically sensitive relative, though the president apparently managed to find a problem anyway.
Was the sculpture considered too cheerful? Too much like a person? Or, perhaps most fittingly in the current political climate, “woke”?
Meanwhile, Teju Adisa-Farrar’s essential piece on Black American natural dyeing traditions offers a powerful response to cultural erasure. Published as part of our series on underrepresented craft histories, the article was researched and written by the 2025 Craft Archive Fellows in collaboration with the Center for Craft.
Adisa-Farrar explores how plants and organic fibers produced a rich spectrum of pigments, and how those histories deserve both preservation and renewed attention. The result is a vivid account of a tradition whose legacy remains worth safeguarding and reviving.
