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Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft

The Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, located in a renovated 19th-century building on Louisville’s West Main Street, was founded in 1981 to continue the art and craft heritage of Kentucky through the support and education of craft artists and education of the public. In 2001, the KMAC celebrated 20 years of supporting more than 400 artists and providing educational programs to more than 500,000 schoolchildren. The museum is supported in part by the Fund for the Arts and the Kentucky Arts Council, a state agency of the Commerce Cabinet.

The museum’s growing permanent collection includes works that relate to its history of showing and promoting crafts in Kentucky. Housed in the Brown-Forman Gallery on the third floor, the collection features work by artists such as Marvin Finn, Rebekka Seigel, Minnie and Garland Adkins, Sarah Frederick, Rude Osolnik, Alma Lesch, and Wayne Ferguson.

The museum hosts numerous exhibitions each year, attracting more than 65,000 visitors. More than 2,000 students and teachers visit the museum on field trips each year. Workshops offered to visiting school groups can be general or thematic and exhibition-based.

More than 35,000 students and teachers have used the museum’s Traveling Suitcase Program, which offers hands-on learning using real art objects in the K-12 classroom. Suitcases available for loan cover a range of fascinating topics, including walking sticks, art cars, ceramics, basketry, photography, folk art, and wood.

The KMAC Education Center also provides special-needs workshops; summer art camps; community center programs; school partnership workshops; Girl Scout workshops; child, teen, and adult workshops; and craft artist demonstrations.

Visitors can also take art home with them via the museum’s Gallery Shop, which features the work of approximately 200 artists at any one time, in media from folk art to furniture.

The Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft hosts two major fund-raisers a year: the Bourbon Ball in October and the Oaks Brunch on the morning of the eve of the Kentucky Derby. These events benefit KMAC educational and exhibition programming.

The museum web site offers additional information about exhibits and educational resources and includes downloadable teacher’s guides on a variety of topics.

For more information, contact:

Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft
715 W. Main St.
Louisville, KY 40202
(502) 589-0102
www.kentuckyarts.org

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