July 16, 1998 | Read Time: 9 minutes
North Carolina group uses arts heritage to unite disparate segments of society
When Jon Ellenbogen, a potter in nearby Penland, N.C., heard about a nascent effort here to use handmade crafts as a vehicle to drive tourism, economic growth, and civic engagement in western North Carolina, he was skeptical — to say the least.
“I hated the idea and I didn’t want to be any part of it,” says Mr. Ellenbogen, who makes his living shaping stoneware clay into household items such as coffee mugs and wall clocks.
Four years later, Mr. Ellenbogen sits on the Board of Directors of HandMade in America, a rapidly growing organization with an annual budget of $1.2-million that is altering life across the 22-county region, stimulating the economy and drawing tourists. Mr. Ellenbogen raves about the group’s projects, such as setting up a loan fund for artists, creating an academic center on crafts, using the Internet to link artisans with potential buyers, and helping to revitalize six tiny towns through its “Rural Main Street Project.”
But he talks most enthusiastically about HandMade’s ability to bring together disparate groups of people, such as bankers, lawyers, and craftspeople.
“They care about what I care about,” Mr. Ellenbogen says of his neighbors, “and they’re willing to shoulder the responsibilities of citizenship to get those things.”
The HandMade project is perhaps the most successful of 14 efforts started four years by the Pew Partnership for Civic Change, a charity in Charlottesville, Va., that is financed by the Pew Charitable Trusts, in Philadelphia. (See story on Page 42.)
The Pew Partnership solicited proposals from local newspapers, chambers of commerce, city managers, and mayors in cities with populations of 50,000 to 150,000. The hope was to engage large numbers of people around a single project in order to create lasting improvements in neighborhoods and cities — and to encourage people from different segments of society to work together.
Indeed, the HandMade in America project is noteworthy for its ability to forge unusual partnerships between charities, businesses, and government:
* With the help of the North Carolina university system, HandMade is building the Center for Craft, Creativity and Design on the outskirts of Asheville, which will serve as a resource center for the academic study of handmade crafts.
* Assisted by the North Carolina Department of Commerce and the Self-Help Credit Union, HandMade is establishing a $500,000 loan fund for craftspeople and craft-related businesses.
* With the help of the North Carolina Arboretum, HandMade is creating a number of “craft gardens.” The gardens are designed to provide the raw materials that are used to create crafts such as baskets and brooms — and allow artisans who are increasingly turning to Mexico or China for these supplies to buy them locally.
Rebecca Anderson, executive director of HandMade, was working at the Asheville Chamber of Commerce when Pew’s request for proposals crossed her desk. She saw it as an opportunity to turn her dream of using handmade crafts as a means to improve life in western North Carolina into a reality.
“We had looked for a long time at a way to diversify our economy,” says Ms. Anderson. “If we had said we were gonna do it by building the electronic village of the world, we would have failed in about the first three days. We said, We have to be true to our history, and we think we can develop an economic community development program out of the handmade object.”
The Pew Partnership agreed and awarded HandMade $400,000 over three years, and an additional $50,000 grant for a fourth year.
The focus on handmade objects was natural because of western North Carolina’s long history as a center of crafts. One of the first HandMade projects was to commission a study to determine the economic influence that craft-related businesses have on the region. The study found that $122-million is pumped into the economy each year through such busi nesses. That’s four times the value of the burley tobacco grown in the area, a long-time staple crop — or more than the manufacturing wages in 11 of the counties.
“We call it the invisible factory,” Ms. Anderson says.
Soon after the study, HandMade created a tourist guidebook, The Craft Heritage Trails of Western North Carolina. The book has sold about 25,000 copies and given a tremendous lift to local crafts studios in the region, many of which are located in rural, isolated areas.
The Weaving Room & Gallery at Crossnore School, which sells hand-woven goods to support a boarding school for disadvantaged children, has seen sales spiral from $103,000 in 1995 to more than $140,000 last year, an increase of almost 40 per cent. Barking Spider Pottery, which Mr. Ellenbogen runs with his wife, has seen the number of customers who visit the studio increase by about 30 per cent since the book was published.
From its modest beginnings, HandMade has expanded rapidly into such areas as housing and education. To deal with its continuing growth, HandMade has recently split up into four non-profit groups. One branch focuses on economic-growth projects, such as fixing up abandoned school houses so that they can be used for craft studios and other craft-related businesses. HandMade expects this organization to operate similarly to community-development corporations, which work to create housing and attract businesses in economically depressed neighborhoods, except with an emphasis on creating crafts-related businesses.
A second branch focuses on educational and cultural activities. One such project is the “A+ Schools” program, which has developed a curriculum for incorporating the arts into all subjects, from math to English. Another is a traveling photo exhibit designed to educate people about the importance of handmade objects to western North Carolina.
A third non-profit group focuses on fee-for-service operations, such as selling guidebooks and paid consulting work with government agencies and other non-profit groups. HandMade hopes to eventually pull in at least 40 per cent of its budget through such services. Ms. Anderson says that the organization believes that it is important to create a permanent revenue stream not subject to the often-fickle interests of grant makers.
The final branch will serve as a coordinating body, overseeing HandMade’s long-range planning and fund raising.
One reason behind HandMade’s success is that it has been extremely successful at drawing financial support from a variety of sources, including the government. HandMade has avoided tapping traditional sources of arts money such as the National Endowment for the Arts or the state arts council out of fear of alienating local cultural charities that have long relied on those dollars. Consequently, government grant dollars have often come from sources that have little or nothing to do with the arts.
“We get funding from a lot of strange places,” Ms. Anderson says.
The United States Forest Service, for example, has provided grants for landscaping work in the Rural Main Street Project, which is designed to revitalize small towns in the region. And through the federal Community Development Block Grant program, HandMade has received money to “winterize” crafts studios so that they can be used year round.
The Rural Main Street Project also has been bolstered by $28,000 in grants from the North Carolina Department of Commerce. Alan Lang, chief planner for the Division of Community Assistance, says that the state has long had in place a similar program for towns of more than 3,000 people, but that it had never seen the need for working in smaller communities. “What this program has proven is that you can have successful revitalization efforts in small towns,” Mr. Lang says.
The Rural Main Street Project grew out of some small towns’ disappointment at not being included initially in the crafts guidebook. Through the project, six small towns in western North Carolina have received at least $30,000 apiece in grants, which must then be matched with other funds.
About 20 miles north of Asheville, Mars Hill, one of the six small towns, is using the money and expertise to prepare for the looming completion of Interstate 26. By 2001, the highway will connect Dayton, Ohio, to Charleston, S.C., and serve as a major artery for beach-bound traffic.
“We don’t want to see our small-town values bulldozed under by this highway,” says Mayor Raymond C. Rapp over lunch at the Nostalgia Cafe on Main Street.
Many of the changes in Mars Hill that HandMade has already helped bring about are palpable. Six new businesses, such as the Common Grounds coffee shop and Blue Ridge Realty, have opened on the once-desolate Main Street. The road into Mars Hill is now adorned with $128,000 worth of mountain laurels, day lilies, and other plants and trees. And an abandoned gas station at the town crossroads is being transformed into a visitors’ center where tourists will be able to get information on craft studios and other local attractions.
Mayor Rapp says that he hopes the changes will help spur what he calls “heritage tourism,” attracting people who are interested in local culture such as the Rural Life Museum and the town’s champion clog-dancing team. “We don’t want the ticky-tacky rubber-tomahawk type of tourist,” he says.
Perhaps more important than anything else, HandMade hopes to show Mars Hill and other small towns throughout western North Carolina that their success depends on reaching out to help each other. Ms. Anderson says that is why her group requires each town participating in the “Rural Main Street Project” to raise all of its matching funds before any of the towns receives a single penny. In some cases, she says, when a community has had trouble coming up with the money, the other towns that are part of the project have helped bail them out.
“That’s what makes our little towns so different,” Ms. Anderson says. “They’re willing to share local money across the miles.”
Ms. Anderson says that she believes HandMade’s recent reorganization, as well as its contin ued partnerships with government agencies, businesses, and non-profit groups, will allow the organization’s varied projects to continue to expand. She says HandMade has evolved beyond what she even dared to imagine.
“Never, never did I dream four years ago that we would have such a complex program of work,” she says. “We don’t want to see our small-town values bulldozed under by this highway.”
