In her 2015 book The Rise of Asheville: An Exceptional History of Community Building, author Marilyn Ball looks at an often-ignored historical period: the recent past.
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In her 2015 book The Rise of Asheville: An Exceptional History of Community Building, author Marilyn Ball looks at an often-ignored historical period: the recent past.
Perhaps not surprisingly, topics of discussion mirrored the diverse mix of folks who came together for the daylong event at A-B Tech’s Enka campus: small-business owners, investors, employees and assorted individuals with an interest in collective prosperity.
“This is one of my favorite events of the year because it’s all about mindfully deciding where to spend holiday dollars,” says Lindsey Mudge, communications and operations manager of HandMade in America. She’s talking about the nonprofit organization’s annual Cool Craft Market — an indoor shopping experience featuring more than 40 vendors of crafts (think […]
Six writers participated in a panel on Friday night as the final installment in the three-part Within the Lines: Creative Perspectives on Wilderness. The exhibit and monthly panel discussions, held at HandMade in America’s offices, celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act. Friday’s discussion seemed especially poignant as the recent election put a number […]
Southern writing evokes a certain set of expectations, from Flannery O’Connor’s “Christ-haunted” prose to Gail Godwin’s glimpses into shifting society. But when talking about North Carolina writers, there’s one theme that returns again and again: place. From Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain and Robert Morgan’s Gap Creek to Ron Rash’s Serena and Vicki Lane’s A Day […]
As the local creative sector gains financial clout, tensions loom between art as a business, an economic-development tool and a means of personal expression.
Six western North Carolina nonprofits are among 28 state organizations that will share $5.85 million in grants from the N.C. Community Development Initiative over the next three years aiming to spark economic growth and job creation in some of the state’s most distressed areas.
Western North Carolina is no stranger to the craft biz: We have more crafters per capita than almost any other region in the country, and an Appalachian tradition that pairs creativity with hard work. But how does that passion for crafts translate into good business practices? Regional nonprofit Appalachian Women Entrepreneurs provides a helping hand.
A slideshow look at some of work on display today, June 26, at the WNC Craft, Architecture and Design Expo at the N.C. Arboretum. The event is put on by Handmade in America and ends today. The work of local crafters and artists is displayed in 11 separate vignettes, such as kitchen, bedroom, livingroom.
Many voices in the craft community are still shocked by the sudden departure of HandMade in America’s former executive director last month.
HandMade in America, the Asheville-based nonprofit that brought Western North Carolina crafts new attention, was born in the mind of Becky Anderson in 1993. The area native married the idea of place-based economics to the artistry of the region’s craft tradition, placing new emphasis on how to support handmade crafts and their creators as an […]
A new executive director has just been named to take the reins of HandMade in America from founder Becky Anderson.