June 2010 - Regional Technology Strategies, INC

Sketches
June 2010 Volume 6 Number 2
CraftNet is an international network of community colleges devising innovative ways through
partnerships to develop artisan-based strengths into a sustainable growth sector for each of
their service areas. Projects at each college integrate various aspects of design, production,
technology, marketing, collaboration, and business management skills, and include ways to
attract low-income and nontraditional learners. CraftNet’s website at http://www.
craftnetglobal.com features a curriculum designed for artists who want to use ecommerce,
galleries displaying work from students and faculty at member colleges, and past issues of
CraftNet Sketches. For information about RTS, please visit the website of Regional
Technology Strategies, Inc. at http://www.rtsinc.org or call (919) 933-6699.
In this issue
• Community College News: Haywood Community College, Berea College, Patrick Henry
Community College, Arkansas State University-Beebe, Montana, GMIT-Letterfrack
• Events and Innovative Practices: TA3 Symposium; Surry Hills, Australia; Cape Town;
Wormfarm Institute; South Africa; SouthArts
• Research and Resources: DC Creative Economy; Charleston Creative Economy; Teaching
Creativity; EU Green Paper; Creative Vitality Index
• CraftNet member profile: Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College
• CraftNet Member News
Haywood Community College’s Professional Crafts Program reports the following
recent activities:
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Clay students participated in “Clay Day” at the Folk Art Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway
near Asheville, North Carolina with demonstrations and lessons for families and children.
The 2010 Professional Crafts Graduate Show Exhibition also opened at the Folk Art Center.
David Nestler, a 2010 graduate of Haywood’s Professional Crafts Wood program, won the
Sequoyah Fund Business Plan Contest, which will provide $10,000 in start-up capital for his
new business, Tree of Life Woodworks LLC, to be located in Sylva, NC. A requirement of the
competition was that entrants must start and operate a business in the seven western
counties of North Carolina within one year of winning the award.
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Melissa Engler, also a 2010 graduate, won a
Powermatic Student Workshop Scholarship to
study at the Arrowmont School of Arts and
Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
The Professional Crafts faculty will exhibit their
work in an "Instructors' Show,” opening on
Friday July 2 at the Haywood Arts Council's
Gallery 86 in Waynesville, North Carolina.
The faculty also exhibited a room vignette at
Handmade in America's "HandMade Craft,
Architecture, and Design Expo" at the Asheville
Arborteum, June 25 and 26. The Western North
Carolina Craft, Architecture, and Design Expo is
a two-day event that brings together artists,
architects, builders, and designers to share and
learn about collaborations among craft artists,
homeowners, and industry professionals. The
event emphasizes craftsmanship in architectural
elements and design for both high-end and midrange home markets. For more information please
visit http://www.handmadeinamerica.org/designexpo.
Haywood Professional Crafts faculty
recently exhibited a room vignette at
Handmade in America’s “HandMade Craft,
Architecture, and Design Expo at the
Asheville Arboretum.
Tim Glotzbach at Berea College reports that the SCOTS program (Student Crafts on the
Square) is experiencing great success. Students are becoming comfortable engaging with the
public, and sales have increased every month since November—doubling and almost tripling in
April and May. Feedback from the community and the public has been very encouraging.
The Southern Virginia Artisan Center (SVAC) and Martinsville-Henry County Visitor Center
celebrated a grand reopening event on June 15 after completing renovations and upgrades to
the gallery/visitor center facilities. The Southern Virginia Artisan Center is a program of Patrick
Henry Community College in
Martinsville, Virginia that provides
retail gallery space for regional
artisans as well as classes in fine
woodworking, ceramics, jewelrymaking, glass art, fibers, culinary
arts and decorative painting. The
Center gallery shares space with
the Martinsville-Henry County
Visitor Center through a unique
partnership with the MartinsvilleHenry County Economic Development Corporation. Through this
partnership, this fall the Southern
Virginia Artisan Center will begin
offering a FastTrac®
Grand reopening of Southern Virginia Artisan Center in Martinsville, Virginia
NewVentureTM for Creative
Enterprises artisan entrepreneurship program. Upon completing the 10-week facilitated program, participants will walk
away with an actionable business plan and entrepreneurial certification. Valuable networking
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and coaching are just a few of the many benefits available through this effective entrepreneurial
training. The new program offers non-traditional, experiential learning with hands-on coaching
sessions. Participants also gain opportunities to network and learn from peers as well as from
seasoned entrepreneurs and professionals who have experience in working with with start-up
businesses.
The English and Fine Arts Division and the Business and Agriculture Division at Arkansas State
University-Beebe are collaborating to launch a Graphics Design Program. The initial two
courses are the History of Graphic Design and Introduction to Macintosh Computers. The rest
of the program will be developed this Fall and debuted in Spring 2011. A “Mac” Lab will be in
place by beginning of Fall 2010. Eight students currently are enrolled in “Introduction to
Macintosh Computers.” The England Center (formerly the Math/Science Building) renovation is
proceeding on schedule for opening in the fall, which will more than quadruple the classroom
and studio space available to arts students. David Curl, a student studying to become a luthier,
has successfully completed his guitar building/repair schooling in Michigan and is a candidate
for graduation from ASU-Beebe with an AAS-Creative Arts Enterprise.
In May, Montana’s fourth cohort of artists enrolled in the Montana Artrepreneurship
Preparation (MAP) program, which is part of the Montana Arts Council’s (MAC)
broadly based initiative to help build capacity in the creative sector. Using a “toolbox”
approach to prepare and certify traditional artists in becoming market-ready, the MAP
program helps artists compete successfully in larger marketplaces, whether in Montana,
nationally, or internationally. The MAC Folk Arts and Market Development Specialist
helps artists develop these skills through a series of intensive workshops. The program
also operates cooperatively with locally based institutions, such as in the case of
Flathead Valley Community
College. An annual conclave is
planned for this coming October
that will allow all the artists
involved in the program a chance
to showcase their work.
The program also develops guides
and mentors to help artists hone
their art-making and entrepreneurial skills. The MAP program,
funded in part by LINC (Leveraging Investments in Creativity),
targets highly rural folk and
traditional artists, including those
Montana Artrepreneurship Preparation (MAP) class
who live on the state’s Indian reservations.
Groups currently are located on the Fort
Belknap Indian Reservation in northeastern Montana, in southeastern Montana’s
Melstone area, in Montana’s Flathead region of the northwest, and in the Bitterroot
Valley in the southwestern part of the state. For more information about the program,
visit www.art.mt.gov or contact Cindy Kittredge, Montana Arts Council Folk Arts and
Market Development Specialist, (406) 468-4078 or email elkittredge@dishmail.net.
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After attending the TA3 Conference in Asheville in late April, Dermot O’Donovan, Sean Treacy,
and Paddy Tobin from the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology Furniture College at
Letterfrack staff visited Virginia Tech in Blacksburg and the Southern Virginia Higher Education
Centre (SVHEC) in South Boston, Virginia. Under a memorandum of understanding, they made
presentations and offered seminars on the “Letterfrack model,” which emphasizes integrating
design with commercial and technical curricula. Their overtly ”green” message, freshly
invigorated by the Asheville TA3 conference, was high on the agenda, and sustainability will be
a major element of future collaboration activities. The SVHEC recently received approval for an
Associate’s Degree program in “The Business of Art and Design.” In the past two years, several
students from GMIT-Letterfrack have worked on projects there. The objective of the three-way
partnership is to create new learning opportunities for staff and students, as well as
opportunities for each institution to learn and benefit from each other’s strengths. Dr. Paddy
Tobin also has been invited to join Virginia Tech’s Wood Science faculty as an Adjunct Professor,
joint or dual programs are being planned for the future.
Events and Innovative Practices
• In April, the TransAtlantic Technology and Training Alliance (TA3) hosted a symposium in late
April on Supporting Sustainable Communities: Opportunities and Challenges for
Community Colleges that attracted more than 160 attendees from 24
states and seven countries. The event featured experts and
practitioners who are integrating sustainable approaches into their
programs to educate a workforce able to compete in a marketplace that
doesn’t just value the bottom line of profits but also looks at environmental and community impacts that include the value of locally produced
artisan goods.
Three CraftNet members presented on the program. Paddy Tobin
representing the Furniture College of Galway-Mayo Institute of
Technology in Letterfrack, Ireland spoke about the shift toward
sustainable design, sustainable manufacturing, and its sustainable
campus. Students, for example, consider material recyclability, reduced
material content, extended durability, and re-use of waste in their work.
Terry Gess described Haywood’s professional crafts program, the
upcoming student and faculty shows, and the anticipated new LEEDcertified Professional Crafts Building (described in previous issues of
CraftNet Sketches). Christian Heide Petersen, head of the Department for Glass and Ceramics at the Danish Design School had been a
scheduled speaker but did not attend the conference due to the many
flight cancellations caused by the Icelandic volcanic ash. In his place,
Stuart Rosenfeld presented both the story of the school as well as
efforts of the Danish “Bright Green” Island of Bornholm, one of the
highest concentrations of craft artisans anywhere, to become an
“experience economy.” Jon Ellenbogen, past advisor to CraftNet,
Student at Furniture College
described the background and operations of the EnergyXchange, a
in Letterfrack and sample of
landfill in North Carolina that is using methane to power glass and
work.
pottery studios in a crafts business incubator. All of the PowerPoint
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presentations from the conference available at http://www.ta3online.org/2010meeting/.
• Mapping the Creative Economy in Australia: The June issue of Rod Brown’s “The
Cockatoo: Industry Issues—A bird’s eye view from Canberra and beyond” includes a
page one story that begins: “Surry Hills is to Sydney's artists what Mecca is to Muslims—all
must pass through it at some point. That's the preliminary finding of a study that ‘tagged’ a
group of designers with satellite technology to find where the people who fuel Sydney's creative
economy live, work, and play—15 designers wore small GPS tracking devices which recorded
their location every five seconds. Almost everyone in the group of 15 visited the inner-city
artistic hub of Surry Hills—and the north shore rated strongly too. Wollongong University's
Professor Chris Gibson says state and local governments may need to rethink where public
galleries, artists' studios, and other pieces of ''creative infrastructure'' are located in the future.
‘The story that we're getting is that there is a more complex geography to their activities than
you might expect,’ he said...It tells different councils that they're part of the creative economy
…incubating the creative industry should not just be left to the City of Sydney or Marrickville
Council.''
• The Wormfarm Institute in Reedsburg,
Wisconsin is a non-profit organization
dedicated to “reintegrating culture and
agriculture,” an “evolving laboratory of the
arts and ecology and fertile ground for
creative work.” One of its projects is its
Roadside Culture Stands, mobile farm
stands designed and built by artists that are
used to display and sell local produce as well
as the work of local artists. The rural stands
reinforce the message “Eat the View,”
meaning that to preserve working rural
landscapes, local residents should eat from
the food chain that created them. The
Institute also operates the Woolen Mill Gallery,
which has art exhibits, lectures, and workshops. The Institute began as a Community
Supported Agriculture (CSA) project in 1995, which spun off the Wormfarm Institute in 2000.
Co-founder Jay Salinas has coined the term “cultureshed” which is similar to the agricultural
concept of 'terroir,' where local products reflect the local area’s unique geography, geology, and
climate. Similarly, he believes, arts and cultural products from different culturesheds also reflect
their unique local influences. For more information, visit http://www.wormfarminstitute.org.
• Then there’s the connection between crafts and football. The Cape Craft and Design
Institute in Cape Town, South Africa (CCDI) prepared for the World Cup by ramping up
the design and production of soccer-related products and handmade memorabilia for the tens of
thousands of fans converging on South Africa. The Institute held workshops to get crafts
people ready and encourage them to make items that reflect the indigenous culture and likely
will be valued long after the event. CCDI manages and rents out 20 large and 18 small craft
stands to craft producers. It also distributes a guide map identifying regional crafts producers.
• South Arts, formerly the Southern Arts Federation, added five new Board members at its
April meeting: Stage and costume designer Myrna Colley-Lee, managing partner at Lett LLP J.
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Martin Lett, Esq.; Merrily Orsini, managing director, corecubed; Avery Macon Tucker, senior vice
president and philanthropic consultant, Wachovia; and Stuart Rosenfeld, principal and founder, RTS and CraftNet co-director.
Reports and Research
• The Washington, DC Economic Partnership and DC Government have officially released the
report on the city’s creative economy. Conducted by Mt. Auburn Associates with RTS, the
Creative DC Action Agenda found that DC’s creative economy generated $5 billion annually
in income and accounted for more than 75,000 direct jobs. The report can be downloaded free
of charge at http://www.wdcep.com/newsletter96.php?aId=493&pageId=19.
• A recent RTS study of Charleston, South Carolina’s creative economy found that it
represents much more than the world-famous Spoleto Festival. The creative economy cluster
includes more than 18,600 jobs, making it one top five largest clusters in the Charleston MSA
economy. Some of the most prominent sub-clusters include the culinary arts, with scores of
innovative restaurants highlighting the cuisine of the Low Country, and architecture and urban
design, which showcase Charleston’s extraordinary historic preservation efforts.
• The European Union has issued a Green Paper titled Unlocking the potential of
cultural and creative industries. It begins by noting something most of you know—that
“immaterial value increasingly determines material value, as consumers are looking for new and
enriching ‘experiences’. The ability to create social experience and networking is not a factor of
competitiveness.” The Green Paper asks, and answers, how to foster art and design schools/
business partnerships as a way to promote incubation and entrepreneurship; how to strengthen
the integration of cultural and creative industries into strategic regional and local development;
how to promote cultural diversity; and how to stimulate spillover effects into other industries.
The Green Paper and a video are available at http://ec.europa.eu/culture/our-policydevelopment/doc2577_en.htm.
• CraftNet member Tim Glotzbach from Berea College, along with Berea faculty members
Peter Hackbert and Gary Mahoney, co-authored Creative Entrepreneurial Applications in
the Wood Industries: An Appalachian Case Study. It was published in the “American
Journal of Business Education” in September 2009. They use the real-world example of a team
approach to solving design problems associated with renovating the century-old Boone Tavern
Hotel in Berea. Putting this into the context of the creative economy and drawing on the best
resources, including processes used by the renowned design consulting firm IDEO, the authors
use the renovation challenges, such as finding a lamp design aesthetically consistent with the
historic space, to identify new ways to teach creativity and entrepreneurship.
•The Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF) has developed a Creative Vitality Index
(CVI) that can be applied to cities, regions, or states. When applied to states, the West and
Northeast regions of the United States end up with the highest “creative vitality” indices. In
fact, each of the 13 Western states represented by the non-profit WESTAF ranks equal to or
above eight of the Southern states. The index leads to some surprising results that suggest
digging deeper. For example, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota all rank well above
Louisiana and North Carolina, both of which been studied recently and found to have very
strong creative economies. To learn more about the CVI, see http://
www.creativevitalityindex.org.
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CraftNet Member Profile—Turning Stories into Art:
Southeast Community & Technical, Kentucky
Depending upon whom you ask, a mention of the coalfields of southeast Kentucky may bring up
vastly different stories and associations. Some may recall the area’s heyday in the 1930s as a
center for some of the largest mining corporations of the era, as well as the unrest and strife
associated with labor strikes. Others may talk about the environmental degradation caused by
modern-day strip mining, and the epidemics of unemployment and drug abuse that have swept
the area. Regardless of whom you ask and what they say, the act of telling stories is central to
understanding the area’s culture, history and traditions. For this reason, oral histories are at the
center of several community-based arts projects that CraftNet member Southeast Kentucky
Community and Technical College (Southeast) is coordinating through its Appalachian
Program.
The Appalachian Program is housed in the Godbey Appalachian Center on the college’s main
campus in Cumberland, KY. The Godbey Appalachian Center houses the college’s visual arts,
music, and theater arts programs, as well as its Appalachian Archives, a collection of photographs, music, quilts, and oral histories that was the program’s main focus when Robert Gipe
arrived in 1997. Gipe came to the college from Appalshop, a non-profit arts, media, and
education organization focused on helping Appalachian communities find solutions to their
problems and revive some the traditions and stories that have defined them. Since his arrival,
the Appalachian Program has expanded beyond its archival mission by working with a diverse
group of community members, students and partner organizations to translate stories about the
area’s past into original public art and theater pieces.
In 2003, Southeast received a $150,000 three-year grant from the Rockefeller Foundation for a
project with three arts-based outcomes: 1) an original play that incorporated community stories
and music; 2) a photography exhibit; and 3) handmade tile mosaics. The overarching goal of
the grant-funded projects was to use art to address the social, economic, and environmental
conditions that threaten the county’s stability and livelihood. The project, called the Partnership
for Affirming Community Transformation, or PACT, was coordinated by Southeast and involved
more than 400 community members. The most enduring products that came out of this grant
were a play called “Higher Ground,” and a mosaic mural crafted out of handmade tiles.
“Higher Ground” wove together music by local musicians, traditional mountain tales and music,
and stories gathered through listening sessions that community college students and
community volunteers conducted with 400 community residents. The stories, once gathered,
were crafted into a script by award-winning Appalachian playwright Jo Carson and performed by
a cast of 80 people who ranged in ages from two to 80 years of age. The unifying theme of the
script—flooding—addresses issues identified by the community, both the literal floods that have
plagued the area for several decades as a result of environmental degradation and the
inundation of illegal use of prescription drugs that has affected nearly everyone in the area.
The play was a success from the start, drawing more than 1,500 viewers the first two seasons it
was performed. Building on its success, the Higher Ground Productions company—born out of
that first play—repeated the process to produce a second play called “Playing With Fire,” which
premiered in April 2009. Now, in the summer of 2010, there is a third play in the works; this
one will treat the theme of peoples’ relationship to the land, and will premier in April 2011.
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The mosaic that came out of the initial PACT
project had a special significance because it
represented a foray into public art. In a county
where 75 to 80 percent of all land is owned by
private coal companies, the “idea of public
space is stunted,” according to Gipe. This first
mural, housed at the Appalachian Center and
entitled “If These Hills Could Talk,” depicts a
grandmother and child on a porch swing
overlooking a mountain vista. If you look
closely, you will see that the mountains are
actually made out of handmade clay tiles
stamped with letters that spell out narratives
relayed by 10 women from the area.
Now, in the summer of 2010, Southeast and
its partners are at work on three new mosaics
that should be complete by the end of this
year. With these murals, Southeast is moving
into a new medium: three-dimensional mosaic sculptures. For example, one will be a largescale mailbox and on each side, mosaics will recount—in the form of a letter—the experiences
of migrants who came to the area to work in coal camps.
To date, much of the labor on the mosaic and oral history projects has been done by students
taking classes in Southeast’s Appalachian Program, which mostly caters to students preparing to
transfer to four-year colleges; community volunteers also have participated. What is exciting
about the sculptural mosaics is that they provide a chance for the Appalachian Program to draw
on the skills of students in the trades programs at the college—for example, welding.
Furthermore, some of the people who were involved in the first mosaic project have developed
their skills enough to serve as teachers to the students and volunteers working on the next
generation of mosaics. One such student even went on to receive a Kentucky Arts Council
grant. This year, half a dozen young people, ages 18 to 24, are participating in the mosaic
project as part of a federally funded work program.
Nevertheless, Gipe maintains that the limited work opportunities that Southeast’s efforts provide
are somewhat beyond the purpose of the project. “We’re not Asheville,” says Gipe, referring to
the fact that Harlan County is not a major destination for artists or cultural tourism, nor is art
“just an act of commerce” in Harlan County. Rather, for current residents, Gipe says, the act of
making art is born out of the needs and instincts that motivated their ancestors, who inhabited
the same hollows and hills. That is, the instinct for self-expression, the need for community
betterment and beautification, and of course, the urge to tell a story.
School Profile by Dana Archer-Rosenthal
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If you would like to receive future issues of “CraftNet Sketches,”
the quarterly CraftNet email newsletter, please send an email request
to williams@rtsinc.org. You may simply put “Subscribe”
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CraftNet Member Colleges
Arkansas State University-Beebe, Arkansas
Berea College, Berea, Kentucky
Danish College of Glass and Ceramics, Nexø, Denmark
Eastern Maine Community College, Bangor, Maine
Esaydi FET College, Port Shepson, South Africa
Flathead Community College, Kalispell, Montana
Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology-Furniture College, Letterfrack, Ireland
Greenfield Community College, Greenfield, Massachusetts
Haywood Community College, Waynesville, North Carolina
Hazard Community College, Hindman, Kentucky
Northeast Wisconsin Technical College, Green Bay, Wisconsin
Patrick Henry Community College, Martinsville, Virginia
Piedmont Technical College, Edgefield, South Carolina
Santa Fe Community College, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Sheridan College, Sheridan, Wyoming
Southeast Community & Technical College, Cumberland, Kentucky
Southern West Virginia Community College, Mount Gay, West Virginia
Western Piedmont Community College, Morganton, North Carolina
CraftNet Associate Members
Maine Crafts Association
Montana Arts Council
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