This spring, the Rochester Folk Art Guild will present a major exhibition at the Central Library of Rochester & Monroe County celebrating seventy years of craft, community, and creative life in upstate New York.

Founded in 1957, the Rochester Folk Art Guild is a nonprofit working artist community based on a 350-acre working farm in the Finger Lakes, near Canandaigua Lake. The Guild is home to a group of craftspeople who live and work together, tending to the land and producing fine, handmade goods through traditional craft practices. Over the last seven decades, the Guild has grown into a nationally recognized center for fine craftsmanship, with work held in museums, galleries, and private collections throughout the United States and abroad.

The exhibition brings together historic and contemporary pieces from the Guild’s workshops, photographs, film and archival materials, and a timeline tracing the Guild’s evolution from its founding to today. The work on view reflects both a rich history and practices that are still being lived, taught, and refined today.

From its earliest years, the Guild’s unique combination of craft work and community life has drawn people from many backgrounds who are searching for a more conscious, creative, and responsible way of living. The exhibition offers a public window into a community that has shaped regional and national craft culture for decades, revealing a way of working and living together grounded in attention, effort, and shared purpose.