John Garrett

Biography
John Garrett (b. 1950) merges textile technologies with unconventional materials to create sculptural investigations of structure, pattern, and possibility. For the past forty years, he has applied these methods to an expansive range of materials, from distressed metal and aluminum flashing to hardware cloth, license plates, vinyl records, and VHS tapes. Drawing on needlepoint and embroidery as structural strategies, Garrett developed flexible rectangular components that can be folded, layered, and reconfigured into dynamic forms, emphasizing the beauty of the discarded and overlooked. Rooted in weaving yet unbound by tradition, his work explores rhythm, repetition, and material transformation.

John Garrett earned his B.A. from Claremont McKenna College in 1972 and his M.A. from UCLA in 1976. Now a full-time studio artist in Las Cruces, New Mexico, he previously taught at institutions including Scripps College and UCLA and continues to lead workshops nationwide on creative and sculptural textile methods. His achievements have been recognized with two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, election to the American Craft Council College of Fellows, and the National Basketry Organization’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Garrett has exhibited widely in the United States and abroad, and his work is held in major museum collections including the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Philbrook Museum, the Albuquerque Museum, and the Racine Art Museum.

Education
1976 M.A. University of California, Los Angeles
1972 B.A. Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, CA

Select Exhibitions
2026 The Art of ReUse, Richard Levy Gallery, Albuquerque, NM
2017 Schemes and Dreams, Chiaroscuro Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
2016 The Box Project: Uncommon Threads, Commissioned works from the Lloyd Cotsen Collection, The Fowler Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA
2014 Urban Weavings, Belconnen Arts Centre, Canberra, Australia
2012 Wire Transference, Philadelphia University, Philadelphia, PA
2010 Caravan: An Installation, Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, MA
2007 The Baroque Line, The Bemis Center, Omaha, NE
2006 The Windows Project, Racine Art Museum, Racine, WI
2005 Recycle, Reuse, Recreate, Artspace Gallery, Center for the Arts, Jackson, WY
2004 Inaugural Exhibition, Artspace 116, Albuquerque, NM
2003 Environmental Installation: Paper Wall, UW-River Falls, WI
2002 John Garrett Retrospective, Oceanside Museum of Art, Oceanside, CA
1998 Ninth International Triennial of Tapestry, Central Museum of Textiles, Lodz, Poland
1997 Trashformations: Recycled Materials in American Art and Design, Whatcom Museum, Bellingham, WA
1996 Viewpoint: Art As Message, Craft Alliance Gallery, St. Louis, MO
1993 Subversive Crafts, MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA
1993 USA-Today, Netherlands Textile Museum, Tilburg, The Netherlands
1990 Explorations: The Aesthetic of Excess, American Craft Museum, NYC, NY
1989 Craft Today, USA, Musee Des Arts Decoratifs, Paris, France
1988 Frontiers in Fiber: The Americans, North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, ND
1987 The Eloquent Object, Philbrook Museum, Tulsa, OK
1986 Fiber R/Evolution, Milwaukee Art Museum, WI
1984 Vehta Biennale, Romaanse Kerk, Brussels, Belgium
1982 Art and/or Craft: USA and Japan, Kanazawa, Japan
1981 Made in LA: Contemporary Crafts ’81, Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles, CA

Collections
Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, NM
Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA
Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit, MI
Erie Museum, Erie, PA
High Museum, Atlanta GA
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, MN
Mint Museum of Craft and Design, Charlotte, NC
Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe, NM
Philbrook Museum, Tulsa, OK
Racine Art Museum. Racine, WI
Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC

Press Release
2026 The Art of ReUse at Richard Levy Gallery