Arts thrive on pacific coast

Berkeley, Calif., is one of the best kept secrets in the world of arts and crafts. This beautiful neighborhood, located just across the Bay from San Francisco, is home to a bevy of talented craftspeople and crafts-related events.

Stoneware by William Hulce, a member of the Berkeley Potters Guild, and participant in the Berkeley Artisans Holiday Open Studios.

Each year, over 100 of these artists participate in the Berkeley Artisans Holiday Open Studios event. For four consecutive weekends between Thanksgiving and Christmas, artists open the doors to their studios for eager shoppers. Jewelry artist Barbi Jo Stim says she’s been participating in the event for the last eight years and has seen it grow in popularity each year. Stim says that she has from 300 to 700 visitors a day during the event and she counts this as one of her biggest sales venues.

The self-guided tour is highly publicized and tour maps are made available on the Internet and are placed at other distribution points throughout the area. “Customers love to buy something from the artist directly,” says Stim, “and it’s a wonderful venue for folks to do their holiday shopping.”

Susan Brooks, a jewelry designer and painter who also participates in the Open Studios event says she does about 25 percent of her total annual sales during those weekends and that the event draws over 12,000 visitors. This year’s event will be held Nov. 29-30, Dec. 6-7, 13-14, and 20-21.

California’s East Bay area just became home to an ActivSpace complex, as its owners have dubbed it, which provides work space exclusively for artists and craftspeople. The 43,000-square-foot, three-story building is equipped with 200 units of work space, ranging from small, closet-size spaces that rent for $175 a month, to larger studio apartment size spaces that rent for $1,000 a month. And although the rent isn’t exactly on the cheap side, most of the tenants say that the collective creative atmosphere is worth the price. “I think that the quality of the artwork coming out of the studios here is a quality to be proud of,” says fiber artist and tenant Jennifer Mackey.

The building’s owners, Jude Siddall and Gary Romain of Seattle, Wash., have been developing ActivSpace studio complexes since 1995. Currently, there are seven such buildings in Seattle and Portland and an eighth is being planned for Boulder, Colo.

Down the Pacific coast in Laguna Beach, Calif., a self-described artists’ colony, over 200 craftspeople are spending the summer participating in the Sawdust Art Festival. The event was started in 1966 by a group of artists who objected to the standard show jury system that they felt was excluding many talented artists. The show’s founders held their first event in a vacant lot and to keep down the dirt and dust, sawdust was brought in and put on the ground, hence, the show’s current name. Ceramic artist Debby Carman, who participates in this show each year, says she “couldn’t dream up a better experience” than Sawdust.

Today, the show is held on a three-acre site nestled in a eucalyptus grove less than a half mile from the Pacific. Artists are assigned “demo” booths in which the public is invited to participate. The 37th annual event runs from June 27 through Aug. 31 and includes art classes, demonstrations and a variety of live entertainment for both children and adults.

The annual exhibition of the Hawai’i Craftsmen.

Hawaii Crafts Bank on a ‘Buy Local’ Atmosphere

Arts and crafts mean business in Hawaii … and big business at that. In fact, the non-profit arts sector in Hawaii generates $223 million in economic activity — well above the national average. And with a “Buy Local” campaign, courtesy of the Hawaii Island Economic Development Board, local artists and craftspeople are hoping that Hawaiian-made arts will soon get all the attention they deserve. “The art and craft scene in Hawaii is alive and well,” says Derek Bencomo, a woodworker from Maui. “On any weekend on any island, you’ll find a craft show or a gallery exhibit.”

Bencomo has been a member of the Maui Crafts Guild since 1992. The Guild is an artist-owned cooperative and gallery in Maui that features locally made crafts from its 21 members and offers artists an opportunity to learn how to run an arts business.

Bencomo says that the Guild has seen quite a few changes over the years as it has adopted a more business-like attitude in order to keep up with the growing demand for Hawaiian crafts. “For the first time in more than 20 years, we are now advertising,” says Bencomo. “[The Board of Directors] still has long, drawn out discussions, [but] we make decisions in days and weeks now, not months and years.”

In Honolulu, the nonprofit member organization, Hawai’i Craftsmen, has been one of the driving forces behind Hawaii’s crafts scene since 1966. Executive director and artist, Kim Coffee-Isaak, says the organization “strives to get recognition for craftspeople in Hawaii by connecting them to each other and to other artists in the rest of the country.”

In 2000, Hawai’i Craftsmen took over management of The ARTS at Marks Garage, an exhibition space that has given some of Hawaii’s best known artists opportunities to show and sell their work to the public for the first time. In addition, the organization offers several other sales,
exhibition and education opportunities including the “Fiber Hawai’i” exhibit; “Aha Hana Lima (Gathering of the Crafts),” a mixed-media workshop; “Raku Ho olaule a,” a raku workshop and campout; and the annual “State-wide Juried Exhi-bition,” which takes place each October for three weeks.

Nevada Crafts in National News

Artist Dion Wright works on his sculpture at the Sawdust Art Festival.

In Reno, Nev., the entire town gets behind its arts and crafts and transforms its identity into “Artown” each July. For the eighth year, Reno was home to one of the biggest arts festivals in the world. In 2002, the month-long event drew nearly 150,000 visitors to the city and garnered press in nearly every major newspaper across the country.

For local craftspeople, the event offers a variety of venues in which to sell and exhibit work. In July, the Creative Quilters of Nevada held their “Colors of Summer Quilt & Fiber Art” exhibit. Local craftspeople, such as collage artist Polly Peacock and glass-blower Linda Yaxley, held open studio tours and sales; and local crafts galleries, including River Gall-ery and Art Access Gallery, participated in evening “Artstrolls” by holding after-hours events and activities.

In Las Vegas, which was recently voted by American-Style magazine as one of the “10 arts destinations to watch,” the summer kicked off with the JCK Show-Las Vegas, one of the jewelry industry’s largest events. Last year’s show included over 2,700 exhibitors, including all types of industry professionals and craftspeople. In addition to being one of the largest wholesale opportunities for exhibiting artists, this event offers a variety of networking opportunities: golf tournaments, charity dinners and live auctions are just some of the venues in which craftspeople and buyers can participate.

Each fall and spring, promoter Steve Powers brings his “Great Craft Festival” to Reno and Las Vegas. The three-day, indoor shows provide sales opportunities to over 300 craftspeople per show. Powers says that the events are highly publicized and that nearly $25,000 was recently spent on TV commercials to run in the local market. In addition, he uses nearly 50 percent of the total fees, about $40,000, to promote the shows. The fall 2003 shows will be held in Las Vegas on Nov. 14-16, and in Reno on Nov. 28-30.

Heather Skelly is associate editor of The Crafts Report.