about me...contemporary craft scholar, writer/poet, curator, collections specialist, and arts administrator
Samantha De Tillio is an Upstate New York-based contemporary craft scholar, writer/poet, independent curator, collections specialist, and arts practitioner. De Tillio is Contributing Editor of Glass: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly, where she writes on themes of performance, gender, and ecology as it relates to glass. She is currently writing a three-part series on glass and performance from the mid-twentieth century through today, the first article of which, "Cold and Hot: Performative Art, Craft, and Glass in the Twentieth Century," is in the Summer 2022 issue. |
Haystack School of Crafts, 2019
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For nearly a decade, De Tillio was Curator of Collections at the Museum of Arts and Design, where she oversaw, researched, and exhibited the permanent collection, and managed the acquisitions program. During that time she curated or project managed over a dozen exhibitions and permanent collection installations; produced and contributed to four exhibition catalogues; and facilitated the accessions of over three hundred artworks. Her projects have included Beth Lipman: Collective Elegy, Burke Prize 2019 & 2018, Craft Front & Center, Wendell Castle Remastered, among others.
She has lectured widely, including at the College Art Association conference and the Bard Graduate Center; was a visiting artist at the Rochester Institute of Technology; and has juried numerous exhibitions, residencies, and prizes.De Tillio is engaged in ongoing research on the groundbreaking fiber artist Dorian Zachai (1932-2015), which she presented at the 2019 College Art Association conference. The first in-depth study of the artist's life and work, De Tillio has stewarded the accession of ten works by the artist in the permanent collection of MAD.
She has coined another line of inquiry she is passionate about "crafted lifeways" or the role craft can play in facilitating creative and regenerative lifestyles in harmony with the greater ecosystem, including material literacy, the intersection of art and craft with bioregionalism, and food and cooking. These values are central to De Tillio's own life.
De Tillio has a MA in the History of Decorative Arts from the Smithsonian Associates with George Mason University, and a BA in History from the University at Albany with minors in Ancient Greek and Roman Civilizations, and Spanish; she also studied drawing and painting. She has held various curatorial and research positions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, and the Albany Institute of History and Art.
De Tillio is a member of the Public Programming Committee at UrbanGlass in Brooklyn and a Board Member-at-Large for R'Ville Stage Creations, a community theater in Upstate New York. She lives in the Hudson Valley with her husband and son.
She has lectured widely, including at the College Art Association conference and the Bard Graduate Center; was a visiting artist at the Rochester Institute of Technology; and has juried numerous exhibitions, residencies, and prizes.De Tillio is engaged in ongoing research on the groundbreaking fiber artist Dorian Zachai (1932-2015), which she presented at the 2019 College Art Association conference. The first in-depth study of the artist's life and work, De Tillio has stewarded the accession of ten works by the artist in the permanent collection of MAD.
She has coined another line of inquiry she is passionate about "crafted lifeways" or the role craft can play in facilitating creative and regenerative lifestyles in harmony with the greater ecosystem, including material literacy, the intersection of art and craft with bioregionalism, and food and cooking. These values are central to De Tillio's own life.
De Tillio has a MA in the History of Decorative Arts from the Smithsonian Associates with George Mason University, and a BA in History from the University at Albany with minors in Ancient Greek and Roman Civilizations, and Spanish; she also studied drawing and painting. She has held various curatorial and research positions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, and the Albany Institute of History and Art.
De Tillio is a member of the Public Programming Committee at UrbanGlass in Brooklyn and a Board Member-at-Large for R'Ville Stage Creations, a community theater in Upstate New York. She lives in the Hudson Valley with her husband and son.
