Bill Aycock on fri 21 aug 98
Lisa and others- some notes about the SHCG (or SHHG, as it was called)
The guild is one of the older craft guilds in active existance. Last year
was the fiftieth year of active craft fairs by the guild (they have two a
year). One of the purposes of the guild is to perpetuate the traditional
crafts, such as Pottery, weaving, blacksmithing, spinning- etc. Penland
School and Arrowmont are "center members" of the guild.
The guild is a closed membership organization, in the sense that you must
satisfy several criteria to belong. You must belong to sell at the fairs or
in the shops. The two most important criteria are:
1. (This is the one that has been misunderstood) You must be a permanent
resident of an area described as the Homeland of the Southern Highlander in
a book documenting a serious sociological study done before WW II. The book
was titled (surprise !) " The Southern Highlander and his Homeland". The
area covers parts of nine states, extending from north Alabama to Mariland.
The Highlands are the mountains.
2. To join, you must submit your work, first in slides, then in "solid", to
a standards Committee. This process, if you are successful, takes about a
year.
The guild is a tax free educational organization , and operates four shops,
two of which are in facilities of the National Park service. The largest
is in the Craft center on the Blue Ridge Parkway, in eastern Asheville. It
was either the center, or the Guild shop on Tunnel Road that Lisa probably
visited. Both have GOOD stuff-(including some from Iris, with whom I
happily reside)
If you need any more info, let me know
Bill- working his poor little fingers to the bone, at the keyboard, on
Persimmon Hill
Bill Aycock --- Persimmon Hill
Woodville, Alabama, US 35776
(in the N.E. corner of the State)
W4BSG -- Grid EM64vr
baycock@HiWAAY.net
lpskeen on sat 22 aug 98
Bill Aycock wrote:
> Lisa and others- some notes about the SHCG
Bill et al. :
Please let me clarify something. Everyone seems to have the impression
that I asked about putting my work in the Guild gallery and was rejected
because I don't live in the mountains. That experience had absolutely
NOTHING to do with any guild of any kind. It was a "GALLERY" in Black
Mountain, NC that had those rules, and that gallery had nothing to do
with the SHCG.
We did visit the Folk Art Center and see the work of the Guild members,
some good, some tacky (IMHO), but I didn't even CONSIDER asking to show
there.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled clay patter, already in
progress.
--
Lisa Skeen ICQ# 15554910
Living Tree Pottery & Soaps
http://www.uncg.edu/~lpskeen
"We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful
words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of
the good people." -- Dr. M. L. King, Jr. 4/16/63
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