Tanya Crane
North 2025
Copper, enamel, sterling silver, and brass
Collection of the Artist
Photography: Courtesy of the Artist
Tanya Crane: Embodied Histories—Exploring the Legacy of African Jewelry
January 21, 2026 – January 9, 2027
at Racine Art Museum
New England…has recently posited itself as a grand signifier in my existence as a jewelry artist. It is learning about New England’s seminal history as the seat of the American Industrial Revolution, the undeniable gravity to the founding of this nation, its growth and ultimate dissolution, and the remnants and detritus that are informing my current work. My formative years were spent in southern California where cultural imprints positioned me in a liminal existence between prejudice and privilege. I am half Black and half White. Living in a middle-class suburb of Los Angeles and visiting my father in socio-economically and racially divided South Central Los Angeles impacted my identity as a young person searching for which culture to occupy and how. Ultimately, I realized the choice itself provided me with a tool of social leverage. —Tanya Crane
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.”
Crane’s artwork metaphorically embodies the many layers of human existence—specifically, history, race, class, and culture. Through her practice, she reaches into the past to better understand the present and, potentially, the future. As a contemporary jeweler, Crane centers mark-making, patterns, and material choice to build the content in her individual pieces, and doesn’t shy away from using scale to create bold statements. The sgraffito technique she often employs means she carves through one layer of information to get to another—literally uncovering and exposing what has come before.
In 2022, RAM invited Crane—who was teaching at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, and has since moved back to her home state of California—to consider making work in response to a small selection of historical African pieces in the museum’s collection. Crane’s personal investment in using jewelry to make connections and her stated interest in the history of adornment made her a good candidate for this provocative project—she was ready to consider tackling the metaphorical weight of these metal historical objects that once functioned very differently than they do in a museum collection.
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.
More About the Exhibition
Gallery Guide, featuring work from the artist in a past exhibition (PDF)
Tanya Crane: Embodied Histories—Exploring the Legacy of African Jewelry
January 21, 2026 – January 9, 2027
at Racine Art Museum
Tanya Crane
North 2025
Copper, enamel, sterling silver, and brass
Collection of the Artist
Photography: Courtesy of the Artist
New England…has recently posited itself as a grand signifier in my existence as a jewelry artist. It is learning about New England’s seminal history as the seat of the American Industrial Revolution, the undeniable gravity to the founding of this nation, its growth and ultimate dissolution, and the remnants and detritus that are informing my current work. My formative years were spent in southern California where cultural imprints positioned me in a liminal existence between prejudice and privilege. I am half Black and half White. Living in a middle-class suburb of Los Angeles and visiting my father in socio-economically and racially divided South Central Los Angeles impacted my identity as a young person searching for which culture to occupy and how. Ultimately, I realized the choice itself provided me with a tool of social leverage. —Tanya Crane
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.”
Crane’s artwork metaphorically embodies the many layers of human existence—specifically, history, race, class, and culture. Through her practice, she reaches into the past to better understand the present and, potentially, the future. As a contemporary jeweler, Crane centers mark-making, patterns, and material choice to build the content in her individual pieces, and doesn’t shy away from using scale to create bold statements. The sgraffito technique she often employs means she carves through one layer of information to get to another—literally uncovering and exposing what has come before.
In 2022, RAM invited Crane—who was teaching at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, and has since moved back to her home state of California—to consider making work in response to a small selection of historical African pieces in the museum’s collection. Crane’s personal investment in using jewelry to make connections and her stated interest in the history of adornment made her a good candidate for this provocative project—she was ready to consider tackling the metaphorical weight of these metal historical objects that once functioned very differently than they do in a museum collection.
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.
More About the Exhibition
Gallery Guide, featuring work from the artist in a past exhibition (PDF)
Sample of Work in the Exhibition
Click/tap an image for more information
Exhibitions at RAM are made possible by:
Platinum Partners
Anonymous
The Estate of Karen Johnson Boyd
David Charak
Ron and Judith Isaacs
The Estate of Marilyn Rothschild
Windgate Foundation
Diamond Partners
Ruffo Family Foundation
Ruth Arts Foundation
Diane Zebell
Gold Partners
Anonymous
Judith and David Flegel Fund
Robert E. Kohler Jr. Fund
Osborne and Scekic Family Foundation
Reliance Controls
Trio Foundation of St. Louis
W.T. Walker Group, Inc.
Silver Partners
Anonymous
Bader Philanthropies
Baird
Dave’s Wine Garage
Lucy G. Feller
Ben and Dawn Flegel
Sharon and Tom Harty
Paula Kalke
Horizon Retail Construction, Inc.
Johnson Financial Group
Dorothy MacVicar
Willard and Mary Walker
Bronze Partners
Sandy and Gus Antonneau
Carol Baylon
Rose and Peter Christensen
Educators Credit Union
Patricia and Richard Ehlert
Deborah Ganaway
Carol Griseto
Hitter’s Baseball
Bill and Debbie Keland
Susan Manalli
Norbell Foundation
O&H Danish Bakery
JoAnna Poehlmann
Rasmussen Diamonds
SC Johnson
Harold and Lois Solberg
Kathy Stranghellini
Twin Disc
Janna Waldeck
Barbara Waldman
Marc J. Wollman
Media Sponsor
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