Tanya Crane

Tanya Crane is a Southern California native who after years of exploration has found a home and community in Providence, Rhode Island. This is where she practices her research and jewelry and sculptural creation. In addition to her rigorous studio practice, Crane is a Professor of the Practice in Metals at the School Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts where her interdisciplinary focus in jewelry, craft, sculpture, and performance is utilized to influence the next generation of artists, craftspeople, and thinkers. Crane’s jewelry and sculpture are framed within a dual existence of prejudice and privilege having adapted to life amongst family in both the white suburbs of rural Los Angeles and the predominantly black suburbs of South Central, Los Angeles. Craft has become a conduit between these two worlds and has provided her with the framework in which her current work is centered. Crane’s jewelry embodies the many layers of human existence. These include history, race, class, and culture. Coming from the perspective of an African American woman, she uses community and inclusiveness as a magnetic beacon to diversify and expand ideas, understandings, and codifications.  

Crane was a 2022 Artist in Residence at Indigo Arts Alliance, Portland, Maine. She exhibited her work in a solo exhibition at the National Ornamental Metal Museum in Memphis, Tennessee in 2018. Crane's work is in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Stewart Program for Modern Design in Montreal, Canada, Yale University Art Gallery, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Crocker Museum, Springfield Art Museum, Racine Art Museum and the National Ornamental Metal Museum in Memphis, Tennessee.