In the Making: Contemporary Craft from South Carolina 

Rebecca Elliot is Associate Curator of Craft, Design & Fashion at the Mint Museum (Charlotte, NC), where she oversees the collection of contemporary art jewelry and metalwork in addition to curating craft, design, and fashion across diverse media. Exhibitions she has curated at the Mint include Objects of Affection: Jewelry by Robert Ebendorf from the Porter Price Collection; Craft in the Laboratory: The Science of Making Things; Pumped: The Art and Craft of Shoemaking; and Body Embellishment, among others. She also juried and guest curated the 2019 edition of From These Hills: Contemporary Art in the Southern Highlands at the William King Art Museum (Abingdon, VA). 

She previously held curatorial positions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and Cranbrook Art Museum, and earned degrees in art history from the University of Chicago (MA) and Smith College (BA).

Maia Payne serves as the Associate Art Curator at the South Carolina State Museum. As part of the Curatorial Affairs Department, she oversees the museum’s rotating art exhibitions in the Lipscomb Art Gallery and plays a key role in the integration and management of artwork across various exhibitions throughout the museum. Beyond her work at the museum, she serves on the Board of Directors of Palmetto Luna Arts, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting Latinx arts and culture in South Carolina, and the Jasper Project, a Columbia, SC-based arts organization. Maia holds dual master’s degrees in Art Administration and Public Affairs from Indiana University Bloomington, along with a bachelor’s degree in Art History and Studio Art from Earlham College.

She will represent the Museum throughout the artist selection process and will conduct studio visits following the juried selection.

Harriett Green is the former visual arts director of the S.C. Arts Commission. From 1980-1988, she was the registrar and assistant curator at the Columbia Museum of Art in South Carolina. As former assistant curator of the Columbia Museum of Art, as visual arts director from 1993 to 2021 for the South Carolina Arts Commission, and more recently as an independent art consultant, Green has curated or co-curated exhibitions in South Carolina and New York City.

During her tenure at the SC Arts Commission, Green served as project director for collaborative efforts with other state arts agencies including Kentucky and North Carolina and arts organizations statewide for the two-year project, Views from the Edge of the Century. She also served as project manager for a multi-state arts agency partnership (Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, Kentucky Arts Council, Tennessee Arts Commission and North Carolina Arts Council) exhibition titled Thresholds: Expressions of Art & Spiritual Life and for the S.C. Arts Commission 50th Anniversary Visual Arts & Craft Fellows exhibition in 2017-18. In 2023, she served as project director for Southern Voices/Global Visions, a joint exhibition project of ArtFields and South Arts. Her current project includes the First Peoples Project: Art of the Native South” - a celebration of Indigenous craft in the 12 Southeastern states as part of ArtFields offering for Handwork: Celebrating American Craft 2026 Semiquincentennial initiative. 

Green served on the Charlotte Area Transit System's (CATS) Art-in-Transit program as a member of the Oversight Committee, fellowship panels for the Kentucky Arts Council and the Idaho Commission on the Arts. She is a former board member of the Alternative Museum in New York City, Penland School of Crafts where she serves as a member of the Committee on Trustees and recently rotated off the board of Central Carolina Community Foundation. Green served on the Artists Selection Committee for Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS) Art in Transit program and the Windgate Fellowship panel. 

She was appointed to the National Register of Peer Professionals by the General Services Administration in Washington, DC for its Art - in- Architecture Program and has served on selection panels for federal courthouse projects in the Southeast.

Green currently serves on the advisory committee for 701 Center for Contemporary Art in Columbia, SC which she co-founded in 2008. She is a member of the board of trustees for the Columbia Music Festival Association, American Craft Council and a founding member of Craft in America Planning Committee for Handwork: Celebrating American Craft 2026. Green is also affiliated with the Foundation for Spirituality & Art in Charleston, SC.

Green is an art consultant with ArtFields in Lake City, SC

Ariel Zaccheo - Curatorial Director - Museum of Craft and Design

Ariel Zaccheo is a curator and writer working in San Francisco. She graduated with a BFA in Art History from the University of Utah, and with an MA in Exhibition and Museum Studies from the San Francisco Art Institute. Ariel has been the co-curator of the Artist’s Television Access Window Gallery since 2013, a volunteer-run exhibition space and micro cinema in the busy Mission district of San Francisco, and has served on the Board of Directors since 2020. She currently works as the Curatorial Director at the Museum of Craft and Design, where she has been in the curatorial department since 2014.  Her research is focused on queer, feminist, and transgressive visual art strategies, with a specific emphasis on craft and video as media for radical activism.