American Craft Council St. Paul Show

For the artists appearing in this often amazing annual touring show, utility is by no means the enemy of beauty. Clothes, jewelry, lamps and furniture, all the art on display here is functional as well as aesthetic—adhering to a tradition of handmade household art that we too easily forget about in this age of mass production. Ikea’s nice and all, but if your bedroom furniture is painstakingly hand-carved out of maple by a guy you can actually meet and shake hands with, that’s on a whole different level. Gander at the works on display here, and you won’t think of “crafts” only as stuff you make out of yarn and construction paper. Rivercentre, 175 W. Kellogg Blvd., (651) 265-4800, www.craftcouncil.org