The Center for Craft, Creativity and Design (CCCD) has launched ENEWS to keep you current with all our programs, exhibits and events. ENEWS will be sent out monthly with most news linking to more lengthy information found on our website www.craftcreativitydesign.org. Announcements cards will still be mailed for upcoming exhibits and talks. If you are on our mailing list to receive an announcement card for exhibits and would prefer to receive the information through ENEWS, please let us know and it will save us a stamp!

Creativity is a process that all industrial designers experience as they conceptualize, sketch, render and fabricate their designs. Showcasing the designs of 15 Appalachian State University (ASU) design students, this exhibit illustrates the journey that ideas take, as they move from the head to the hand, and from conception to eventual reality.

Saturday, November 10, 2007 Opening Reception and Talk
4pm, Banks Tulley, Assistant Professor, ASU "What is Industrial Design?"
Kellogg Center
5-7pm Reception for ASU senior studio Industrial Design students who created the exhibition
Center for Craft, Creativity and Design

Appalachian State University is one of the three University of North Carolina universities affiliated with the Center for Craft, Creativity and Design.

Melissa Post will be moving to the west coast next month to become Curator at the Tacoma Glass Museum. As Assistant Director of CCCD she administered the Craft Research Fund grants program, and developed sessions that focused on scholarly research on American craft for major national conferences. She brought a high level of scholarship to the essay Pursuing Excellence: Studio Craft Movement, Western North Carolina and designed an exhibition for CCCD that honored the excellent work of the craft artists in the exhibit and we will miss her. Melissa began her 15 year career at the Corning Glass Museum and we wish her best as she returns to her love of glass art.

To view the job description for Center for Craft, Creativity and Design, Assistant Director go to www.unca.edu/hr. Applications for the position must be submitted online by the end of the day, November 12, 2007. This is a full-time 12 month position. We hope to have the position filled by January 2008.

October 12th Marshall High Studios opened with 24 artist studios in the Marshall High School building, a two-story, 28,000 square foot brick building located on Blanahassett Island in downtown Marshall. www.marshallhighstudio.com The adaptive reuse construction restored the windows that take up one wall of the old classrooms that have 12 foot ceilings. New electricity, plumbing, and even wireless make these studios a dream. From Asheville, the drive to Marshall along the French Broad River is about 25 minutes, and like many small towns in the region, there is already a coffee shop with espresso at the one stop light. Madison County, joins other counties in the region, with an expanding craft artisan population.

Fall is known not only for colorful leaves, but for artists opening their studios over a weekend. Following are a few of the larger upcoming events:

Weaverville Art Safari (www.wearvilleartsafari.com) November 3-4 will include 43 artists in and around Weaverville, a small town 20 minutes north of Asheville, NC.

River District Artists Studio Stroll (www.riverdistrictartists.com) November 10-11 now in its 14th year, showcases artists who have turned old warehouses and industrial buildings into a bustling Asheville artist scene. Location of Odyssey Center, with resident clay artists.

TRAC Studio Tours (www.toeriverarts.org) sponsored by the Toe River Arts Council, December 1-2 from 10am -5pm with over 100 artists and 12 galleries in Yancey and Mitchell Counties surrounding Penland School of Crafts - a study of the map and plotting your course is necessary for you can never see all.

The Energy Xchange (www.energyxchange.org) has an opening for a ceramic artist in their three residency program "Craft Studio Business Incubator Program." EnergyXchange is located at the former Yancey-Mitchell Landfill on Highway 80N in Burnsville, NC, just six miles from Penland School of Crafts. Application information is available at http://energyxchange.org/application.html.

In July 2007, we began a monthly focus the 2006 Windgate Fellows, featuring one Fellow each month. Windgate Fellowships are $15,000. In 2006 fifty-four universities across the United States, with strong craft programs, each nominated two students. Students then completed an online application with images and a proposal. A jury of artists, curators, and craft scholars selected the ten winning students. Following the award, Fellows enter images and text in an online journal that describe the successes and challenges they encounter as they apply the Fellowship to their proposal. You can see the images, and read the proposals and journals of all ten 2006 and 2007 Windgate Fellows at www.craftcreativitydesign.org/research/windgate.php

In the last segment of the Windgate Fellowship, I have had several exciting opportunities and seen many fruitful projects completed. In late February, my new body of work, The Romance Series, was shown in a two-person exhibitions, Boys Don't Cry at Sam Houston State University in Houston, TX. I attended my first professional conference, the Bi-annual Surface Design Conference, in Kansas City, MO, where I had many networking opportunities with other fiber artists and students. In July, I was honored to receive an assistantship at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, ME. I assisted Chunghie Lee and Anais Missakian in their workshop on simple screen-printing and the Korean stitching technique of pojagi. For Knoxville's First Friday gallery night in August, I was invited to show another new body of work, Targets, at The University of Tennessee's Gallery 1010. For two weeks in August, I traveled to the Pacific Northwest to check out the art/craft scenes in Portland, OR, and Seattle, WA. In Portland I scoped out many small craft shops, visited the major art museums and saw the spectacular Craft in America exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Craft. In Seattle, I saw the most amazing exhibit of Asian book arts at the Asian Museum, and great sculpture in the new waterfront sculpture park.

As of October 2007, my studio is finally organized and fully stocked. I have the capabilities of sewing, machine quilting, dyeing and printing, drawing and book arts. I have spent roughly $9,500 on studio equipment and supplies. At the Oregon College of Art and Craft, I took a Print Gocco workshop, where I learned all aspects of this Japanese printing tool, which I've recently used to make small-batch productions of cards and prints. These are part of a themed line of crafts, including screen-printed scarves and shirts, which I plan on launching this winter. I will hopefully be selling these both online and in a few galleries in the Southeast.

The fellowship has inspired me to strive for a life as a professional artist. Over the past six months, I have been researching and testing out different forms of self-promotion. I had three different postcards printed and business cards made. Just recently, I launched my website, www.aaronmcintosh.com, which I hope will give my work more visibility. I have also applied to Penland School of Crafts' Core Student Program, which would give me the opportunity to explore new dimensions in my work by taking classes in various craft media, as well as be part of a world-renowned crafts community.

Overall, the Windgate Fellowship has been instrumental in shaping my studio practice after undergraduate studies. I have been able to explore this identity of "working artist" at my own pace, before plunging into graduate studies or residency programs. Instead of just working to pay the bills, I have been able to rent and put together a studio, purchasing equipment and supplies that most artists my age are not able to invest in. I have been able to actively exhibit work in various venues without funding issues. Fellowship funds have allowed me to take several trips to art and craft "capitals" of our country, and I have come back from each trip more inspired in my own studio work. Truly, the Windgate Fellowship has jumpstarted my career in the craft world, and for this I am very grateful.

The Windgate Fellowship Award program was established to help encourage and advance the development of serious, innovative artists in the United States whose work is in some way related to, or informed by, the process, material, or idea of craft. The 55+ partner institutions across the country develop a careful selection process to identify two graduating seniors who best meet the following criteria:

Their work must demonstrate a balance of content and design and a mastery of materials
Their work must in some way be informed by craft process, materials, traditions and/or sensibilities
Successful applicants will demonstrate innovation and curiosity, be committed to growth of their own work, and show evidence of how their work might stimulate creative thinking or dialogue among other artists.

HandMade in America staff and dozens of volunteers collected data for the 1995 study, by Dr. Dave and Dr. Evans, of the Center for Business Research, Appalachian State University, that determined the total annual economic contribution of the craft industry in Western North Carolina to be $122 million! This was amazing at the time and important for the business world to recognize that the craft artisan in aggregate was significant entrepreneurial activity in the mountains. For an overview of this and other economic studies on craft in western North Carolina see www.craftcreativitydesign.org/community/

Twelve years after the first study it is very important to document the increased importance of craft to the economy of the region. The major effort of collecting data through surveys begins October 1, 2007 with a final report by Drs Dave, Evans and Stoddard in August, 2008. The following organizations and institutions are supporting this study and reaching out to all involved with the craft industry to provide the most thorough survey data for this update: UNC Center for Craft, Creativity and Design, together with HandMade in America, Haywood Community College Professional Crafts Program, UNC Asheville Craft Campus, Southern Highlands Craft Guild, Penland School of Crafts The Blue Ridge National Heritage Area, and many of the local arts agencies in the 25 counties of western North Carolina.

If you are one of the talented craft artisans in this region, you may receive more than one survey in the mail because of the number of organizations supporting this effort. Please fill out only ONE and give any extra to craft artists that may not have received a survey. You can also fill your artist survey out and return it electronically.

If you are a consumer, volunteers will be seen at area craft fairs and - please take the time to complete a survey. This is a critical component of the study and we need your help. Over 1000 surveys were completed by attendees at the Southern Highlands Craft Fair October 18-21 in Asheville and the attendees at the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair, October 26-28 at the NC Agriculture Center. Craft artists are themselves consumers of work by other artists as they understand and appreciate techniques and artistic vision.

October-November is the favorite time for many to track the changing color of leaves as they hike the Rudnick Public Art and Nature Trail. As the above images show, the is also an amazing variety of mushrooms that are every bit as colorful and beautiful. If you are in the area, come hike the trail and enjoy the color at your feet as well as that of leaves above your head.

Makers: 20th Century American Studio Craft (working title)
At the first "Think-Tank" convened by CCCD in 2002, of craft faculty, museum director and curators, scholars and critics, the initiative ranked as most important to the advancement of the field was a history of American Craft in the twentieth Century. The journey toward making this a reality can be tracked on www.craftcreativitydesign.org/research/history.php. 20th Century American Studio Craft by Janet Koplos and Bruce Metcalf is with the publisher, the University of North Carolina Press. Long awaited, the book, researched and written under the auspices of CCCD, will include 500+ images and also serve as an undergraduate text. The University of North Carolina Press is making craft history and criticism a focus of the Press.

Knitting America: A Glorious Heritage from Warm Sock to High Art by Susan M. Strawn, has been released by Voyageur Press (www.voyageurpress.com) Knitter, writer and illustrator Susan Strawn has a Ph.D. in Textiles and Clothing from Iowa State University and teaches textile-related classes at Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois. The book celebrates the long history of knitting in American, as the first fully detailed, full-color, comprehensive history of knitting in America from colonial times to the present..

Reinventing Art in Everyday Making, Tuomi-Grohn, Editor, released at the end of 2007 by Peter Lang Publishing Group as a part of the International conference sponsored by the University of Helsinki in 2008. See below for call for submission of abstracts.

Cahiers m�tiers d'art* Craft Journal, is a nonprofit organization that encourages and publishes critical, historical and technical research on local and international craft. Membership includes a subscription to the Cahiers m�tiers d'art* Craft Journal published twice a year. Each issue presents essays from international researchers in both French and English; book and exhibition reviews; and profiles of craftspeople from around the world. (www.craftjournal.ca) Denis Longchamps, publisher and managing editor, is interested in critical, technical and historical research on craft from all regions of the world.

New in 2008! The Journal of Modern Craft, edited by Glenn Adamson, Victoria & Albert Museum, UK; Edward S. Cooke, Jr. Yale University, USA; Tanya Harrod, Royal College of Art, UK, is the first peer-reviewed academic journal to provide an interdisciplinary and international forum in its subject area. It address all forms of making that self-consciously set themselves apart from mass production - whether in the making of designed objects, artworks, buildings or other artefacts. Published three times a year in March, July and November - the first issue will be released in March 2008. To place an order/subscription visit www.bergpublishers.com and download order forms or email custerserv@turpin-distribution.com.

November 23-25, 2007 Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
NSCAD University is hosting NeoCraft an international, interdisciplinary conference on the crafts, celebrating 2007 as the Canadian Craft Federation's Year of Craft in Canada. A three-day conference with over sixty juried papers, over a dozen simultaneous craft exhibitions around the city of Halifax, panels on Aboriginal craft and graduate studies in craft history, theory and practice. A book NeoCraft by Sandra Alfoldy, will be launched with the conference. See www.neocraft.ca or contact conference@neocraft.ca.

Deadline for submitting abstracts to International Craft Conference
Crafts: Crafticulation & Education Deadline for submitting abstracts - December 15, 2007 for this International Conference of Craft Science and Craft Education hosted by The University of Helsinki, Iceland next fall, September 24-26, 2008.
For more information www.helsinki.fi/kktl/english/news/index.htm

The 96th Annual Conference of the College Arts Association (CAA) will be held in Dallas-Fort Worth, February 20-23, 2008. CCCD is sponsoring a session entitled Enabling Creativity and Preserving Processes: Partnerships between Academia, Artists and Communities. Chaired by Jody Servon, Assistant Professor, Appalachian State University, the panel includes Marjorie Devon, Director of the Tamarind Institute, College of Fine Arts, University of New Mexico; Brent Skidmore, Director, Craft Campus, University of North Carolina at Asheville, and Andrew Freear (to be confirmed) Director of Rural Studio, Auburn University. The day and time will be included in future ENEWS.

The Center for Craft, Creativity and Design is an inter-institutional Center of the University of North Carolina.

The mission of the regional UNC Center is to support and advance craft, creativity and design in education and research, and, through community collaborations, to demonstrate ways that craft and design provide creative solutions to community issues. The mission of the nonprofit CCCD is to support the mission of the UNC center through funding, programs, and outreach to artists, craft organizations, schools in the community, region and nation.