Western Carolina University's ambitious Craft Revival Project
3rd year funding, thousands of visitors

The Brasstown Carvers began their work as a group in the 1930s in the communities surrounding the John C. Campbell Folk School in Clay County. (Photograph courtesy of John C. Campbell Folk School and Western Carolina University's Craft Revival Project).

Like a complex and colorful quilt, the pieces of Western Carolina University's ambitious Craft Revival Project are coming together to showcase a successful attempt in the late 1800s and early 1900s to preserve mountain crafts and hand-crafting skills of the Southern Appalachians.

The project, with its Internet-accessible collection of digitized images centered at Western's Hunter Library, recently received a grant of $100,000 from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services through the North Carolina State Library. That brings the project's three-year total to nearly $350,000.

"We're using the funds to create a comprehensive collection of images showing the crafts made by regional artisans - crafts such as furniture, toys, coverlets, pottery and other useful household items - along with photographs and stories of the craftspeople and their patrons," said Anna Fariello, project leader and associate professor at Western. "This Web-based collection represents pieces that remain widely scattered in public and private locations across the western counties of the state."

Small wood carvings like these made during the craft revival period were sold to tourists and could easily be shipped to far-away markets. (Photograph courtesy of Southern Highland Craft Guild and Western Carolina University's Craft Revival project).

Even before it has been completed, the collection is attracting about 1,000 Web visits each month from teachers, students, scholars, historians, archivists and the public at http://craftrevival. wcu.edu.

At the same time, the project has sparked scholarly research into the lives of craft revivalists who provided support, encouragement and equipment to mountain families so that the skills passed down to them for generations would not be lost.

"For example, I'm interested in Clementine Douglas who opened a shop called the Spinning Wheel in Asheville in the early part of the 20th century," Fariello said. The building still stands and is listed on the National Register of Historic Sites. While craft promoters wrote memoirs and documented what they did, little was written by or about Douglas. "But what she did was quite significant. She brought work from local people and sold it in her shop. That was innovative at a time when people were using their crafts for barter, not for cash," Fariello said.

More than a database of images and stories, the project also has produced an important new network of "heritage partners" who are sharing information. Together, they are mastering the use of sophisticated digital equipment and software to scan photos, documents, objects, audio and video files and clip them to standardized codes for electronic search and retrieval.

"As a result, we have a much deeper understanding of each other's collections and what it takes to bring them to life through the Craft Revival project," Fariello said.

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