Craft and Folk art museum

The Craft and Folk Art Museum (CAFAM) and its predecessor, The Egg and The Eye Gallery, was an active part of "Museum Row" at 5814 Wilshire Blvd. on Los Angeles' Miracle Mile in the mid-Wilshire district, showing fine craft, international folk art, and design for over 30 years. It also became well known, starting in 1976, for its International Festival of Masks, a weekend event produced annually, co-sponsored by the City and County of L.A. The collection begins at the inception of The Egg and The Eye Gallery in 1965 and concludes in 1997, when the Craft and Folk Art Museum temporarily closed. Edith R. Wyle founded The Egg and The Eye in 1965, a commercial folk art and crafts gallery, which evolved into the Craft and Folk Art Museum in 1975. (The museum received its nonprofit status from the IRS in April 1973, but the first exhibitions organized by CAFAM were not mounted until August 1975.) CAFAM carried on the gallery's interest in contemporary crafts and international folk art, and in the 1980s added product design and vernacular architecture to its program. The museum was a showcase for the material culture of the world at a time when there were few ethnically-specific art institutions in Los Angeles. CAFAM was known for the involvement of local cultural communities in its planning and execution of exhibitions of folk art, its exhibitions of contemporary fine craft, and for being one of the first museums to show architectural and furniture prototypes. For almost 20 years, it sponsored the annual Festival of Masks, which involved over 100 local cultural groups in a weekend of festivities: a masked parade, two days of nonstop performances, and food and demonstration booths run by many of the local community organizations. It was the first, and for many years the only, Los Angeles organization to sponsor this type of multicultural event. After its temporary closure in 1998, the Museum regrouped and reopened in the Spring of 1999 at its original location at 5814 Wilshire Boulevard, with an active exhibition and education program.

Biography/History

The Craft and Folk Art Museum (CAFAM) and its predecessor, The Egg and The Eye Gallery, was an active part of "Museum Row" at 5814 Wilshire Blvd. on Los Angeles' Miracle Mile in the mid-Wilshire district, showing fine craft, international folk art, and design for over 30 years. It also became well known, starting in 1976, for its International Festival of Masks, a weekend event produced annually, co-sponsored by the City and County of L.A. The collection begins at the inception of The Egg and The Eye Gallery in 1965 and concludes in 1997, when the Craft and Folk Art Museum temporarily closed.

Edith R. Wyle founded The Egg and The Eye in 1965, a commercial folk art and crafts gallery, which evolved into the Craft and Folk Art Museum in 1975. (The museum received its nonprofit status from the IRS in April 1973, but the first exhibitions organized by CAFAM were not mounted until August 1975.) CAFAM carried on the gallery's interest in contemporary crafts and international folk art, and in the eighties added product design and vernacular architecture to its program. The museum was a showcase for the material culture of the world at a time when there were few ethnically-specific art institutions in Los Angeles. CAFAM was known for the involvement of local cultural communities in its planning and execution of exhibitions of folk art, its exhibitions of contemporary fine craft, and for being one of the first museums to show architectural and furniture prototypes. For almost 20 years, it sponsored the annual Festival of Masks, which involved over 100 local cultural groups in a weekend of festivities: a masked parade, two days of nonstop performances, and food and demonstration booths run by many of the local community organizations. It was the first, and for many years the only, Los Angeles organization to sponsor this type of multicultural event.

After closing temporarily at the beginning of 1998 due to financial difficulties, the Museum sold its permanent object collection at auction. Its library was given to the L.A. County Museum of Art Research Library and its institutional archives to the UCLA Library. It regrouped and reopened, with an active exhibition and education program, at its original location at 5814 Wilshire Boulevard, in the Spring of 1999.