At The Met, Three Artisans Give Ancient Craft a New Life

Three new objects appeared at The Metropolitan Museum of Art last night, bridging past and present through artisanship. Gently illuminated under the towering Temple of Dendur were the breathtaking results of the inaugural artisan residency hosted by The Met and Vacheron Constantin: a monumental and nuanced wooden vessel by Aspen Golann, an intricately detailed diadem by Joy Harvey, and a massive, exquisitely carved ceramic piece by Ibrahim Said. Over the course of the 18-month program, the three artists gathered inspiration from the museum’s collection as well as the storied craft techniques of the 271-year-old watch brand through visits to its Geneva headquarters.

Golann’s “Vessel” takes the form of an all-wood, 64-inch-tall vase with bas-relief decorations—a design that “no roadmap,” says the Southern New Hampshire-based furniture maker. Across its surface, hypnotic ornamentation of spiraling stems, leaves, and flowers mingle with animals like rabbits and dear. The conceptual starting point were 17-century blanket chests she discovered in The Met’s collection. These chests were once filled with blankets hand-embroidered by young girls crafting their dowries—and Golann’s designs echo their creations. “It’s this combination of the most restrictive possible object, of a woman stitching something to define her value, but it’s also the moment these girls left evidence of themselves, making these gorgeous yet intimate interior objects,” she reflects. The vessel further pays homage to fabric material with a painstakingly crafted surface that evokes the texture of a tapestry, with paper-thin strips of wood glued horizontally and vertically, creating faint black-and-white stripes; at the same time, the height, 5 feet, 4 inches, is the average of an American woman’s. “So this has the rigidity of wood but undulating quality of a tapestry and a body,” Golann says.

As a goldsmith considering ancient jewelry at The Met, Harvey took the singular opportunity of the residency to design a diadem with the aura of a ruin. The result, “Ruined Splendour Bronze Diadem,” balances a supremely delicate construction with the subtle grit of something that has survived thousands of years. “I want to highlight the two types of ruination that we have: natural, and violent human destruction,” says the Italian artist, who originally majored in chemistry and uses her knowledge to mix unique alloys to achieve her ambitious creative visions. The crown consists of a bronze braided shape interwoven with golden threads; the headpiece dangles with small, seed-shaped ornaments—these motifs a direct homage to a Greek necklace dating to the 4th-century BC at the museum. Clusters of gold bramble flowers, which often grow in neglected urban areas and represent “natural” decay, appear across the design; for these, Harvey borrowed directly from Vacheron Constantin, using a guillochage patterns to create an understated, natural-looking tactility. As a final step, Harvey inflicted her design with the wear of millennia: “I took a traditional, geometric technique, and I ruined it,” says Harvey. “I hammered it, I cut it out. I went out of my comfort zone—and I really enjoyed doing that!”

An Egyptian ceramist descended from generations of craftspeople, Said wielded his considerable skills to make an imposingly sized yet graceful ceramic sculpture, titled “Shaping Time”—its multi-segmented configuration appearing at once ethereal and as if demonstrating a principle of quantum mechanics. The form in fact reinterprets Vacheron Constantin’s Maltese cross emblem as if the shape were inflated and elegantly curving in three dimensions. Its specific roundness also harkens to the flattened circular shape of the Egyptian lentoid bottle (also known as a “New Year’s flask): “My idea was to divide this circle, open up this negative space, and make something inside it,” says Said, who is based in North Carolina. Sunset-like hues of pink, gold, and purple were created with lacquered pigment in the firing process. The entirety is stamped with traditional geometric patterns from Egyptian and Islamic aesthetic heritage, from eight-pointed stars to vegetal and lotus-inspired motifs. Visiting Vacheron Constantin, Said felt a special appreciation for the “hidden beauty” of the process, he says. In a similar spirit, one last Maltese cross sits discreetly on the very top of his sculpture, its arms slightly extending outward.

On contemplating what it means to be an artisan in 2026, Said takes a similar approach as he does with his craft: “I make my story and I live it.” So, as the saying goes, trust the process.