American Craft Week
What they are doing in western North Carolina
There has been a big push, headed by CRAFT members Sherry Masters, of
Grovewood Gallery, and Maud Boleman, of
Black Mountain Studios, to turn American Craft Week into a large celebration. They have generated a lot of excitement and participation in their area, so I asked Sherry to share how she got started and what they've been doing. Her response follows. Hopefully this will give you some ideas and inspiration about what you can do in your area.
"I started with calling Southern Highland Craft Guild. They have approx. 900 members in the Appalachian Mtn. regions of 9 states from Maryland down to GA. They said they would get the word out to their membership.
Between late Feb and late April I just passed the information on to our Chamber of Commerce and as I saw other gallery owners or craft business affiliates or artists, including Grovewood Studio artists, the UNCA Craft Campus and some of the staff at HandMade in America.
By late in April I had collected the contact information of as many galleries in Asheville and the surrounding towns that I could think of and sent out a mass email announcing an initial meeting to see what we could do collectively. (this went to over 30 galleries) Many people emailed back that they could not attend the meeting but were interested. We had 11 people attend the meeting. This is when Maud and I started working together. Maud had been spreading the word in her area and had also written a proclamation for her mayor suggesting the town of Black Mtn. name Oct 1-10 as American Craft Week. Maud shared her draft with the rest of the group. (I know she was also networking with her town who is having a music and craft festival the first weekend of Oct).
It was decided early on that there were many events already planned and we didn't need to come up with a lot of new activities...we just needed to collect the list of what was scheduled to happen. That is what we are doing now. We want to get a print piece designed to be available to summer visitors so they will know to come back to events during Oct 1-10.
In the meantime a rep from SHCG and Maud met with 3 staff from the Chamber and Vistors Bureau about the best way to announce our events on the CVB website. They agreed to set up a dedicated page on the site called exploreasheville.com for ACW events in the Asheville and surrounding areas.
Also, the HandMade in America Director of the Small Towns program invited us to speak at their Cluster Gathering of representatives of 11 small towns in Western NC. I was able to go and since I'm a "small town" native of WNC I knew several of the attendees...and pitched ACW. This group was excited and talked about tying into ACW with their "heritage day" events...or doing community studio tours, craft demonstrations, etc. I know my home town of Mars Hill, NC is doing Heritage Day on Oct 2 and plans to join as a participant."
So, get out there. Contact your local guilds, chamber of commerce and schools. Let them help you turn American Craft Week into a big celebration.
If you would like copies of the invitation letters and sign up sheets we have been using, email
info@americancraftweek.com and we'll email them to you.
