Eleanor Anderson (b.1988) engages in world-making through the process of play and material-errantry. Working predominately in textiles, but also glass, metal, and clay, her practices utilizes craft traditions as a flexible constraint. She collaborates with materials and colors to achieve a coherence and consistency aligned with her intuitive judgment. She looks for openings in the making process where she can ply confident imperfections and deviations, subverting fixed expectations of the tradition or technique at hand.

She has exhibited widely with solo exhibitions at the Springfield Museum of Art, Springfield, OH, Abattoir Gallery, Cleveland, OH, Blue Spiral Gallery, Asheville, NC, and Artworks Center for Contemporary Art, Loveland, CO, among many others. Anderson has been awarded residencies at Pilchuck School of Glass, Stanwood, WA, Windgate Fellowship at Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT, Haystack School, Deer Isle, ME, and the Textile Arts Center (Brooklyn, NY) and the Museum of Glass, Tacoma, WA, among others. Her work is in the public collections of the Museum of Glass, Tacoma, WA, Philchuck School of Glass Collection, Stanwood, WA, Herman Miller Archive, Zeeland, MI, Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts, Charlotte, NC, Carelton College, Northfield, MN, and Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO.

She has taught workshops at Penland, Pocosin School of Crafts, as well as been a professor at Colorado College, the Cleveland Institute of Art, and College for Creative Studies in Detroit. She lives and works in Portland, Maine.

SELECT Exhibitions

• Eleanor Anderson, Visual Arts Center, Richmond, VA, 2025 (Forthcoming)

• Irregular Around the Margins, Abattoir Gallery, Cleveland, OH, 2024

• A Place of One’s Own, H.F Johnson Gallery, Carthage University, Kenosha, WI, 2023

• Spectrum, Emily Davis Gallery at the University of Akron, Akron, OH, 2023

• Perseverate, Tennesee Tech University, Smithville, TN, 2022

• Prepping Pittsburg, Society for Contemporary Crafts, Pittsburg, PA, 2021

Selected Public Collections

• Museum of Glass, Tacoma, WA

• Pilchuck School of Glass Collection, Stanwood, WA

• Herman Miller Archive, Zeeland, Michigan

• Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts, Charlotte, North Carolina

• Special Collections, Carelton College, Northfield, Minnesota

• Special Collections, Colorado College, Colorado Springs, Colorado