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Furniture-maker and artist Aspen Golann has developed carved wooden vessels and a five-foot-four cabinet inspired by early American embroidery. The works were made during an 18-month residency organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Vacheron Constantin; the cabinet is scheduled for a New York exhibition opening November 6, 2026.
Furniture-maker and artist Aspen Golann has translated motifs from early American embroidery into carved wooden vessels and a cabinet more than five feet tall, work developed through an 18-month residency organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Vacheron Constantin. The cabinet, titled Crewel Cabinet, is scheduled to go on view in New York beginning November 6, bringing needlework traditions that Golann describes as under-researched into a contemporary craft exhibition.
The cabinet stands five feet, four inches tall and is built from 37 narrow wooden strips, or staves, joined edge-to-edge into a rounded form. Each stave contains 14 colored layers. Golann carved images of plants, rabbits, dogs and other forms into the layered material, using the changing colors to evoke the threads and imagery of colonial-era crewel embroidery.
Other works apply the same research to vessels. Pouring Vessel carries needlework-inspired motifs made with a strapworking technique, while Strap-Carved Vessel has a flattened profile but remains hollow. The artist’s work draws on the tension between an object’s practical use and its role as something to be looked at; the flattened vessel foregrounds its decoration without giving up its basic function.
The residency also included ceramicist Ibrahim Said and jeweler Joy Harvey. Golann’s cabinet will be included in Pattern Recognition: Superhouse at Five, a group exhibition at Superhouse in New York running from November 6 to December 19, 2026, according to the report. The source material does not specify whether the vessels will also be shown there.
Needlework Recast as Carved Furniture
Golann’s work shifts embroidery motifs from a fragile, portable textile tradition into substantial wooden objects. That change in medium gives the designs a public scale and makes the cabinet difficult to store away, a contrast with the small sewn works that prompted the project. It also draws attention to the makers and meanings behind historical needlework, which Golann says has received limited research and display in major art institutions.
The artist connects the embroidered compositions to the lives of girls and women who made them, including the constraints surrounding their expected roles. Her interpretation is not simply a reproduction of period patterns: she carves imagery into colored layers and uses furniture and vessels to frame the motifs as both decorative and functional. The result offers viewers a contemporary way to encounter craft history while keeping the historical objects and their makers at the center of the discussion.
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From Boston Chairs to Embroidery
Golann’s project follows earlier work inspired by early American furniture. The report says she drew on a Boston interpretation of the high-backed Windsor chair for Meeting Bench, made with chairmaker Peter Galbert, and Union Settee. Those pieces reference furniture styles that developed from English motifs and techniques used by colonial makers in the 17th century.
Research into early needlework extended that interest into embroidery. The residency, described as an 18-month program focused on preserving and reinterpreting traditional craft techniques, gave Golann a setting to develop the vessel series and complete Crewel Cabinet. She has also made imaginative brushes and brooms, continuing an interest in how objects relate to use and to the people who handle them.
Golann says historic embroidery was often made by young girls and could serve as a dowry object. While themes and compositions could be consistent, she sees the pieces as records of individual expression and attention to the natural world. Her cabinet translates that reading into a larger, more durable form rather than attempting to reproduce an original textile.
““[The embroidery] is under-researched and under-displayed, and it’s fragile, rare, and stowable. I wanted to make some version of this thing that couldn’t be put away.””
— Aspen Golann
Exhibition Scope and Future Work
The report identifies Crewel Cabinet as part of the Superhouse exhibition, but does not confirm whether Golann’s carved vessels or other works will be included. It also does not provide exhibition opening hours, admission details, or information about whether the cabinet will be available for purchase.
Golann says she is developing a furniture commission for the U.S. Treasury and working toward a solo exhibition at Fuller Craft Museum slated to open next November. The source does not give a date for the Treasury work’s completion or a specific opening date for the museum exhibition. Those projects remain planned developments, not completed exhibitions.
New York Showing and Planned Projects
Pattern Recognition: Superhouse at Five is scheduled to open at Superhouse in New York on November 6, 2026, and continue through December 19. The exhibition will provide the next public presentation of Crewel Cabinet identified in the report.
Golann’s next announced project is a furniture piece for the U.S. Treasury, which the report says commissions a work for its collection every 50 years. She plans to use precious-metal tones and reflective surfaces so viewers see themselves within an abstracted landscape based on early American embroidery. A solo exhibition at Fuller Craft Museum is also slated for next November; further details were not included in the source material.
Key Questions
What is Aspen Golann’s Crewel Cabinet?
It is a five-foot-four wooden cabinet made from 37 staves, each assembled from 14 colored layers. Golann carved plants, animals and other forms into the layered wood to evoke early American crewel embroidery.
Where will Crewel Cabinet be shown?
The cabinet is scheduled to appear in Pattern Recognition: Superhouse at Five at Superhouse in New York, from November 6 through December 19, 2026.
What inspired Golann’s wooden vessels?
Golann’s research into early American needlework inspired the vessel series. The works translate embroidery motifs into carved wood, including through strapworking and layered color.
Were the vessels confirmed for the Superhouse exhibition?
No. The report names Crewel Cabinet as part of the exhibition but does not say whether the vessels will be displayed there.
What is Golann working on next?
Golann says she is developing a furniture work for the U.S. Treasury and preparing for a solo exhibition at Fuller Craft Museum, slated to open next November. Specific dates and further project details were not provided.
Source: thisiscolossal.com
