The Crafts Report - Leading the Crafts Industry for 35 years

Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont

Maybe it’s the spirit of Fannie Clary or it could be the picture-perfect setting, or the highly skilled faculty or the super-motivated students or most likely all of the above. Whatever the mix, Snow Farm’s magic is evident to even a casual campus visitor. Snow Farm, originally Horizons, The New England Craft Program, was founded in 1983 by potter Jane Sinauer. Originally located in Maine, the program’s original mission was and continues to be providing high school students with a quality crafts education in a summer-camp setting. The teaching staff, comprised of highly respected craftspeople, soon drew young, crafts-focused attendees from all over the country. The availability of 50 acres, including historic eighteenth-century farm buildings, led to a move to western Massachusetts in 1986.

Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont

Visitors who travel to down­town Brattleboro, Vt., find a small, classic Vermont city with a twist. Located on the Connecticut River at the southern end of the Green Mountains, it offers spectacular views of the mountains and the river flowing along right next to Main Street. Brattleboro is an exciting and vital small art city with the flavor of a college town (without the college). Like many other nineteenth-century industrial cities in New England, it has been given new life by the spirit of the creative people who have chosen to live and work in the peacefulness and physical splen­dor of southern Vermont.

Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming

Tombstone, Ariz., site of the infamous shoot-out at the O.K. Corral, has been called lots of things over the years: The Wickedest Town in the West, The Town Too Tough to Die, and similar monikers reflecting the rough-and-tumble nature of this windswept patch of desert an hour south of Tucson and an hour north of the Mexican border. But calling it a hub of creativity, a haven for craft artisans, a destination for those interested in quality handmade art? It’s not as big a stretch of the imagination as one might think.

Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming

Remember your very first show? The first time you put your creations out there before the masses in a little 10-foot-by-10-foot booth, or smaller? Remember how you waited and hoped, and tried not to appear too anxious? Nancy Pratt remembers that feeling, because it wasn’t that long ago for the weaver from Albuquerque, N.M. Having played around with and perfected her art for about seven years, she finally succumbed to her broth­er’s encouragement and applied for the New Mexico Arts & Crafts Fair in 2007. A juried event that began in 1962 and draws 15,000 prospective buyers over three days, the fair generates about $700,000 in sales for the 220-plus accepted New Mexico artists.

Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina

Asheville, North Carolina, is quite simply one of the great craft centers of America. Many of today’s handcrafts have their origins in the region’s Appalachian Mountains and this craft heritage has been passed on from one generation to the next. Today many of the nation’s finest craft artists make their home in Asheville and its environs.