Cranbrook Academy of Art

Cranbrook Academy of Art Cranbrook Academy of Art is the country’s top ranked, graduate-only program in architecture, design and fine art.
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Each year, just 75 students are invited to study and live on the landmark Saarinen-designed campus in Bloomfield Hills, which features: private studios, state-of-the art workshops, the renowned Cranbrook Art Museum and 300 acres of forests, lakes and streams, all a short drive from the city of Detroit. The focus at Cranbrook is on studio practice in one of ten disciplines including Architecture, 2

D and 3D Design, Ceramics, Fiber, Metalsmithing, Painting, Photography, Print Media, and Sculpture. The program is anchored by celebrated Artists- and Designers-in-Residence, one for each discipline, all of whom live and practice on campus alongside the graduate students. The community-at-large is invited to participate in public events at the Academy which annually include exhibitions, symposium, and lectures by dozens of internationally acclaimed artists, critics, scholars, art museum directors, curators and gallerists who are invited to campus each semester to supplement the individualized instruction, critiques, and mentoring by the Artists-in-Residence. For more information on all our programs, please visit: http://www.cranbrook.edu

This August, shape your own series inside Cranbrook Academy of Art Metalsmithing studios with rising Second Year MFA can...
05/30/2026

This August, shape your own series inside Cranbrook Academy of Art Metalsmithing studios with rising Second Year MFA candidates Pavonis Giron and Megan Kerr. If you take both August workshops, you'll learn techniques and materials to build a cohesive necklace and pendant/locket set, including:

◼️ A stunning, wearable pendant or locket (Pendants and Lockets Workshop)
◼️ A completed chain that can work as a necklace or bracelet (Chain Making Workshop)

Each session offers a rare opportunity to work slowly, skillfully, and with intention. Register today on our website: https://bit.ly/4dQrOlk.

Cranbrook artists are at the center of the Society of North American Goldsmiths (SNAG) Labor & Legacy conference in Detr...
05/28/2026

Cranbrook artists are at the center of the Society of North American Goldsmiths (SNAG) Labor & Legacy conference in Detroit (June 11–13)! ⚒️ ✨

In conjunction with the conference, several public exhibitions across the city feature Cranbrook Metalsmithing alumni and students. Opening receptions happen June 10 and 12, an excellent opportunity for a gallery hop downtown!

👀 See more details for Academy artist-associated exhibitions and openings: https://bit.ly/4uMSPNm

🔸 Metal Labor: Recent Works by Alberte Tranberg + Adam Shirley at Wasserman Projects (through July 7)
🔸 VOL 1: Ryan Seng + Monica Rickhoff Wilson at (through June 28)
🔸 Neo Natal Installation by Emily Culver at Unit 1: 3583 Dubois (June 10–13)
🔸 The Poetics of Specific Labor: Portraits and Poems at Galerie Camille (through July 3)
🔸 Belts & Buckles: From One Country of North America and One Country of South America at Galerie Camille (through July 3)

👉 And if you are in town Sunday, June 14, don't miss a very special day on Cranbrook's campus in Bloomfield Hills.

Cranbrook Academy of Art is proud to celebrate alumna Akea Brionne (MFA Photography 2023) on the opening of her first so...
05/27/2026

Cranbrook Academy of Art is proud to celebrate alumna Akea Brionne (MFA Photography 2023) on the opening of her first solo museum exhibition, "Akea Brionne: A Dreaming Hour" at Cranbrook Art Museum (CAM) next month. This new body of work centers on a mythical forest as a site of refuge and communion.

A Detroit–based interdisciplinary artist working within Afro-Surrealism, Brionne uses AI and digital weaving to transform surreal compositions — rooted in the African Diaspora, Afro Creole culture, and personal and archival memory — into luminous, large-scale jacquard tapestries adorned with glitter, rhinestones, and oil pastels.

"A Dreaming Hour" will be open to the public from June 20 to September 6, 2026, and is the fourth installment of CAM's "Fresh Paint" series, showcasing emerging local artists. Don't miss the museum's summer season ArtMembers' opening on June 19 from 6 to 9pm.

Plus, join us for an artist talk and moderated discussion at deSalle Auditorium on July 18 at 3 pm.

Brionne is represented locally by Library Street Collective.

We're celebrating Cranbrook alumna Toshiko Horiuchi-MacAdam (MFA Fiber 1966), whose extraordinary crocheted playground i...
05/23/2026

We're celebrating Cranbrook alumna Toshiko Horiuchi-MacAdam (MFA Fiber 1966), whose extraordinary crocheted playground installations are the subject of a new feature in The Thread by Fabrics-Store.com.

For more than five decades, Horiuchi-MacAdam has created large-scale, hand-crocheted structures in vivid color that children can climb, play in, and explore — fusing textile art, architecture, and a deeply held belief in the power of free play. A Cranbrook graduate, she later founded Interplay Design and Manufacturing in Nova Scotia, bringing these one-of-a-kind play environments to sites across Japan and beyond.

Read the full feature: https://blog.fabrics-store.com/2026/04/17/playground-art-the-colourful-crocheted-worlds-of-toshiko-horiuchi-macadam/

Congratulations to recent Academy graduate Maryangela Sanchez Rocca (MFA Industrial Design 2026) — a 2026 NYCxDESIGN Stu...
05/22/2026

Congratulations to recent Academy graduate Maryangela Sanchez Rocca (MFA Industrial Design 2026) — a 2026 NYCxDESIGN Student Awards Winner for her Mechudo Collection! 🎉🎉🎉

NYCxDESIGN is one of the world's leading design festivals, and the NYCxDESIGN Awards, presented by Interior Design Magazine, recognize the most outstanding student and professional design work of the year. To be recognized among this year's winners is a significant achievement.

Sanchez Rocca's Mechudo collection uses the language of utilitarian objects—such as brooms and brushes—associated with hard labor (construction, cleaning, etc). The designer aims to recontextualize these objects as furniture that represents beauty, leisure, and refusal.

The objects feature fibers extracted from lechugilla. Also known as Tampico fiber, lechugilla is a member of the agave family and is used to produce both alcoholic beverages and bread. The fibers extracted from the leaves, called ixtle, have been used to create brushes, ropes, shoes, and baskets.

Sanchez Rocca’s understanding of ixtle comes from Juan Gamboa, an activist and farmworker from Jalpa, an ejido (farmer-owned land) in the state of Coahuila, Mexico. The people of Jalpa have not only preserved the tradition of ixtle extraction but also maintain an organic milpa, a cultivation method rooted in indigenous Mesoamerican cultures, which fosters cultural resilience. Lechuguilla and ixtle also play an essential role in farming; the lechuguilla plant grows abundantly and helps prevent erosion in the desert. Ejidos that still produce ixtle typically sell their fibers at lower prices to larger companies that process and package them into brushes and brooms.

The best thing you can do for your Cranbrook application this fall is to have a conversation this spring.Our admissions ...
05/22/2026

The best thing you can do for your Cranbrook application this fall is to have a conversation this spring.

Our admissions team, Cranbrook alums, offer one-on-one sessions to help you figure out if Cranbrook is right for you right now, what your portfolio needs, and how to best present your work for review.

Schedule your session and get prepped before applications open: https://bit.ly/4fxFp3p

📸 Elan Schwartz (Photography 2027) in his Cranbrook studio, 2026. Photo by Danielle deo Owensby.

🎤Next Thursday, May 28 at 6pm in Detroit!! Cranbrook Art Museum Director and Academy alumnus Andrew Satake Blauvelt (MFA...
05/21/2026

🎤Next Thursday, May 28 at 6pm in Detroit!! Cranbrook Art Museum Director and Academy alumnus Andrew Satake Blauvelt (MFA Design 1988) and Kat Goffnett, Associate Curator of Collections, will be at the Elaine L. Jacob Gallery Wayne State University to give a special lecture, "Keith Haring: Cranbrook & Beyond" in coordination with their current exhibition, "UNDERGROUND – Keith Haring: Subway Drawings" open through August 15, 2026.

❗Parking: Metered parking available along Hancock, Cass, Second, and Warren. WSU Campus Parking Structure 3, 6, and 8 will be open to public, parking rates apply.
WSU Campus Map: https://maps.wayne.edu/view/jacob-gallery

Making jewelry from scratch sounds intimidating until you're actually doing it.Cranbrook intensive workshops are designe...
05/19/2026

Making jewelry from scratch sounds intimidating until you're actually doing it.

Cranbrook intensive workshops are designed so beginners can make two silver rings, a charm bracelet, chain necklaces, or a locket in just two or three days.

Small groups. Expert instruction. All materials and tools included.

Today is ~ please support and plan a visit to our public Cranbrook Educational Community partners! 🖼️ Cranbrook Art Mu...
05/18/2026

Today is ~ please support and plan a visit to our public Cranbrook Educational Community partners!

🖼️ Cranbrook Art Museum
💐 Cranbrook House and Gardens
🔬 Cranbrook Institute of Science
🏡 Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research

Thank you all for your hard work and dedication in researching, curating, and organizing exceptional exhibitions, programs, tours, and memory-making experiences. ❤️

1. Cranbrook Art Museum entrance, PD Rearick
2. Cranbrook House and Sunken Garden, Eric Franchy
4. Saarinen House interior, James Haefner

🎉 Congratulations to Lauren Levato Coyne (MFA Painting 2020) on being named the recipient of the 2026 AICA USA Irving Sa...
05/17/2026

🎉 Congratulations to Lauren Levato Coyne (MFA Painting 2020) on being named the recipient of the 2026 AICA USA Irving Sandler Award for New Voices in Art Criticism, presented by the International Association of Art Critics, United States Section earlier this year.

She is currently the 2026 artist-in-residence at the Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies at UMass Amherst, where she will have a solo exhibition this fall.

Levato Coyne is a writer, artist, and STEAM educator based in the Berkshires whose criticism spans queerness, climate change, species loss, and the ecological imagination — published in Antennae, Sculpture Magazine, Boston Art Review, Gulf Coast Literary Journal, and internationally. AICA-USA recognized her intersectional, interdisciplinary practice as offering a model for art writing as a generative system vital to human flourishing.

Her previous honors include the Toni Beauchamp Prize for Critical Arts Writing (awarded by Legacy Russell), a Rabkin Foundation travel grant, a Vermont Studio Center Fellowship, and a 2025 Warhol Arts Writers Grant finalist selection.

Read more: https://bit.ly/4uoGFun

Address

39221 Woodward Avenue
Bloomfield Hills, MI
48303

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

Telephone

+12486453300

Website

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