The Materials Collection is a growing repository of more than 150 materials used in craft. The collection has been reimagined as a resource for makers that thoughtfully emphasizes their needs and concerns, promoting a broader understanding of and access to creative resources, particularly biomaterials. Learn about a variety of materials used by makers, from seaweed textiles and flax fiber to wood samples and clay.
Materials can exist in different states (solid, liquid, and gas) and be captured in various forms of processing (raw cotton, cotton thread, woven cotton), which influence the material’s form or appearance. For example, in its raw state, soda-lime glass can exist as a white or grayish-white powdered rock-like substance. In some cases, as in ceramics, a common state of the materials used in the practice is wet—such as clay, slip, and glaze—which cannot be maintained in the collection over time. Therefore, we’ve included samples of dry clays, powders, and fired slabs.
Our decision of what constitutes a craft material in this collection is informed, in part, by the artists and suppliers who donated the materials. The collection also includes materials that may not typically be associated with craft. For example, marble plastic is a sheet good made from post-consumer plastics such as electronics, laundry detergent bottles, old refrigerators, and bread tags. Marble recycled plastics can be cut, designed, and used to create various objects and furniture, such as the Materials Collection’s table and drawer siding.
Material samples are organized into categories: Wood, Fiber, Metal, Glass, Mineral and Clay, Synthetic, and Bio-based. These categories focus on the origin, properties, and type of material samples so that users of the collection—and in particular artists—can gain a better understanding of where the material samples come from before they are used.
The Materials Collection category definitions were created using the Oxford-English Dictionary and Encyclopedia Britannica, as well as by referencing the Sustainable Biomaterials Collaborative, ©Biofabricate, existing Materials Collection definitions, and knowledge and expertise from the Center for Craft’s Materials Research Fellow Amira Chowyuk.
Terms such as “regenerative” and “compostable” were intentionally excluded to avoid greenwashing and potential misinformation.
Unlike the keywords used to categorize materials as bio-based, terms such as “regenerative” and “compostable” imply stricter criteria. While many materials classified as bio-based may have low—or even negative—environmental impacts and share some properties with regenerative materials, they may not meet all the requirements needed to accurately define them as fully regenerative or compostable.