The Economic Impact of the Craft Industry on Western North Carolina - $206.5 Million annually

ASHEVILLE – N.C. Department of Cultural Resources Secretary Linda A. Carlisle today unveiled the findings of a new research study which shows that the professional craft industry contributes $206.5 million into Western North Carolina’s economy each year...click for full story
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link to the UNC Center for Craft, Creativity, + Design

Meet the Maker:
Conversations of Meaning
with Craftspeople

Thank you to all who attended this first year of lectures.  We will post our schedule for Fall 2009 soon!
 

The UNC Asheville Craft Campus will be the leading undergraduate craft studies program in our nation while re-centering and advancing the American studio craft movement in Asheville and Western North Carolina. We will accomplish this by educating new makers, teachers, scholars, collectors, and advocates who will communicate, strengthen and sustain the power of the handmade object and its rich cultural and economic heritage.

The UNC Asheville Craft Campus will serve as a national model for dynamic interdisciplinary craft education and environmentally innovative campus design.

Situated on a bluff along the French Broad River, the UNC Asheville Craft Campus will return a former Buncombe County landfill to sustainable, productive public use. The Craft Campus green facility will be comprised of interconnected state-of-the-art studios in ceramics, glass, sculpture/metal, and wood around a Craft and Environmental center. Within the facility, methane and other alternative fuels generated on-site will serve as an environmentally friendly energy source to power kilns, furnaces, forges and other critical infrastructure. Demonstration of these best practices will help others to recognize the economic and environmental benefits such innovation yields.

Capitalizing on the unique energy opportunities at the landfill, the location in Western North Carolina and the well-recognized UNC Asheville faculty, we will develop 4-year degree and community outreach programming in accordance with our commitment to invest in the people of North Carolina while supporting and recognizing our strong cultural heritage. This programming will be rooted in the liberal arts, entrepreneurship and the environment and will be responsive to a recent change in craft education that supports decentralization of individual media in favor of collaboration across disciplines.

Graduates of the program will explore their professional and personal lives throughout the state, bringing with them, as makers, teachers, scholars, collectors, and advocates, a value of the handmade object that reflects and sustains the communities in which they live. Ultimately, the UNC Asheville Craft Campus will take a former landfill, a testament to a throwaway culture, and transform it into an educational center exemplifying the environmental sustainability and community enhancing programming.