Innovators in Rural Community Economic Development
I recently returned from an amazing learning journey which brought Black Belt Treasures Cultural Arts Center in the Alabama Black Belt to Western North Carolina to learn from HandMade in America. A learning journey is a key tool to foster understanding and application of the WealthWorks approach. It is a visit to a site where a value chain similar to your own has been created and maintained over time and successfully produces multiple forms of wealth.
Black Belt Treasures Cultural Arts Center is a nonprofit organization developed to showcase and promote the arts of and provide arts education opportunities to the Black Belt region. BBTCAC is supporting the economic engine that has resulted in increased sales and recognition for area artists, access to arts educational opportunities for youth and adults, as well as contributing to the development of the tourism industry in the region. Since its opening in 2005, BBTCAC has grown from representing 75 artists to well over 400. Three amazing women who I’ve been working with over the past couple of years, Sulynn Creswell, Judy Martin and Kristin Law, were part of the learning journey, as well as a number of other representatives from their region’s art economy, including artists, representatives of educational institutions, another arts organization, and the Black Belt Community Foundation.
HandMade in America was chosen as the place to visit, as it has a long history (since 1993) of creative placemaking, arts as economic development, arts entrepreneurship, and arts tourism. We were lucky in that a colleague of mine, Glenn Cox, formerly of the Mississippi River Corridor-Tennessee, who I’ve been working with over the past few years in my work with the Walton Family Foundation along the Lower Mississippi River, recently became the new Executive Director of HandMade in America. Bringing together the wonderful folks at Black Belt Treasures Cultural Arts Center with Glenn and his staff at HandMade in America was a fantastic experience.
Glenn Cox and Janelle Wienke at HandMade put together a jampacked itinerary for us, allowing us to visit a variety of different arts councils, art studios with interesting business models, educational institutions that provide not only arts education but entrepreneurial training for artists, and small towns that HandMade has helped to implement creative placemaking so that they are true destinations. Great care was taken to have stops in our travels that would make sense for the roles people played in the Alabama Black Belt arts economy.
I was struck by how well underutilized resources were being put to good use in the arts economy. In the Town of Marshall, an old high school was purchased by an artist to develop into art studios for other artists (Marshall High Studios).
Jackson County decided to use the methane gas from an old landfill to create methane powered art studios at Jackson County Green Energy Park, including a blacksmithing studio, a glass studio and a pottery studio.
In Stecoah, a group of concerned citizens formed a nonprofit, the Stecoah Valley Arts, Crafts and Educational Center, to restore the historic school to its original role as the center of the community.
We visited the Echoview Fiber Mill, which was filling a gap in the regional fiber value chain with its LEED certified mill building. We visited a number of impressive arts councils that were getting their communities interested and excited about art, often providing classes and training for their communities and their artists.
To acquire the education/training perspective, we had the opportunity to visit the Penland School of Crafts, the Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College Small Business Center, Haywood Community College, the John C. Campbell Folk School, and the Cherokee K-12 School. Each institution had its own way of working with artists/craftspeople and the community
We visited a variety of communities that HandMade has worked with using creative placemaking principles, including Bakersville, Hayesville, and Bryson City. What struck my Alabama compatriots was how clean these communities were and how residents seemed to take such pride in their communities, which showed.
And we had an opportunity to visit a number of artist studios with different business models, including Village Potters (a pottery collective) and Dogwood Crafters (a craft cooperative).
HandMade also arranged for us to have dinners with special people too, including Becky Anderson (the founder of HandMade), local mayors, a representative of Asheville’s Buy Local initiative, and others.
It was a truly special experience, which has started the wheels turning in the minds of the Black Belt Treasures Cultural Arts Center group about where to go next and what is possible, in rural Alabama. And it has created what I hope will be a lasting friendship between the Black Belt Treasures Cultural Arts Center and HandMade in America.
