Craft, Architecture & Design Exhibit Travels to Valleytown Cultural Arts The Valleytown Cultural Arts and Historical Society in Andrews is proud to announce that a traveling exhibition from HandMade in America's 'Craft, Architecture & Design Expo', recently held at the NC Arboretum in Asheville, NC, will be on display during the months of July and August. The exhibition will be open Mondays, Fridays and Saturdays from 10:00am to 4:00pm, and Sundays from 1:00 - 3:00pm. With the objective of showing how craft can be integrated into home spaces, rooms that integrate glass, wood, ceramics, metals, and textiles were created by artist teams. On exhibit in Andrews will be the "Hearth" room, showcasing a cherry mantel and a hammered copper hood. Pottery and baskets are placed among handcrafted tables, and photomedia hangs on the walls and is incorporated into a quilt. Jackson County metalsmith William Rogers created a hammered copper fireplace hood using repousse, a rare, historic technique. Rogers also made two pedestal tables in forged steel and granite, as well as a fireset and lighting sconces using steel, copper, pewter, and bronze. Asheville furniture maker Chris Spoerer created the fireplace mantel and two end tables, each made from cherry wood. Stoneware pottery made by Travis Berning includes several large platters and vases that bear a hallmark of his work, a natural leaf pressed into the clay. Berning is co-owner of Treehouse Pottery in Dillsboro. Western Carolina University professor, Anna Fariello of Cullowhee was the team leader. A documentary photographer, Fariello's work captures a familiar rural landscape that is quickly fading from the region. Burnsville quilter Barbara Webster also used photomedia to create a large quilt with a pattern derived from nature. Members of Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual, a Cherokee crafts organization, participated in the original installation. "Our aim was to show the best of western North Carolina crafts that draw on the region's traditions. Our mutual love of nature - and the mountain landscape - brought our concept together." Travis Berning, www.treehousepotterync.com, is originally from Marienthal, Kansas. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Wichita State University in 1995, before continuing to study at the graduate level at the University of North Texas. In 1998 he returned to Kansas to set up his own studio and spent the next five years as a full-time potter traveling and participating in art shows throughout the United States. His work has been exhibited in shows such as Ceramics USA and published in Clay Times and Southern Living. In 2003 Travis moved to the Appalachian mountains of western North Carolina where he partnered with Joe Frank McKee to open Treehouse Pottery and establish the WNC Pottery Festival. Travis's work celebrates nature in both design and creation, using a motif of leaves and functional form. The rich texture of clay is revealed using glazes from nature's pallet of browns and greens. Woodworker Chris Spoerer, www.unionwoodworks.com, creates fine furniture and cabinetry using traditional techniques and incorporating exquisite finishes. His work references the elegance of traditional form building on the best of experience-honed knowledge. Borrowing influences from Danish, Asian and English designs, he is evolving his own aesthetic to reflect a commitment to the craft. Chris has recently started Union Woodworks, a design and build studio located in the historic neighborhood of Montford. Union Woodworks' mission is to offer the community craft conscience expression in wood, providing professional finishes to the trade. A full-time studio artist throughout the 1980s, team leader Anna Fariello, http://craftrevival.wcu.edu, is attempting to resurrect her creative self. She is a mixed media artist with an MFA in studio art and an MA in Museum Studies and Art History. Anna spent a year as a James Renwick Fellow in American Craft and is co-author of the textbook, Objects and Meaning and a recent book on Cherokee Basketry. Her work - show in Architectural Record, Ceramics Monthly, and MS. Magazine - combines photography and craft media to create objects of interest and beauty. Anna was also a speaker at the Expo. Her talk, Why Craft? Why WNC? traced the roots of today's craft renaissance to the Craft Revival of the early 20th century. Named a "master craftsman" by Virginia (2004) and his native state of Tennessee (1985), William Rogers, www.jcgep.org/rogersProfile.html, has been a professional artist and educator for 30 years. He provides educational, consultation, and restoration services to schools, museums, and the public. William S. Rogers Metals design studio is known for work that uses the traditional tools and techniques of the blacksmith, silversmith, and coppersmith to create contemporary work that provide personal interaction for generations. In 2008 William was commissioned to produce work for Asheville's HandMade House, a model home that showcased the work of the region's craftsmen. Barbara Webster, http://starforestquilts.com, creates quilts from photographs using traditional techniques with non-traditional technology. Originally from Knoxville, TN, her degree is in music from the University of Tennessee. She moved to the mountains of North Carolina in 1994 when she made her first quilt. She has won many awards, including "Quilt 2004" at The Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, England, and a first place at the American Quilter's Society Show in Paducah, KY. She is currently Executive Director of Quilt Trails of Western North Carolina, a project that is putting painted quilt blocks on barns and buildings throughout Mitchell and Yancey Counties. Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual Inc., www.cherokee-nc.com, was founded in 1946 with the goal of promoting the development, production, and marketing of unique and authentic Cherokee arts and crafts. Known locally as the "co-op," Qualla Arts and Crafts represents the work of 250 artists, members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. One of the oldest Native American cooperatives in the United States, its stone and glass facility is located on the Qualla Boundary in Cherokee, North Carolina. Within, visitors will find a large retail operation selling member crafts directly to the public, a gallery with an historic permanent collection on view, and an opportunity for workshops, demonstrations, and other educational programs.

Valleytown Cultural Arts and Historical Society · Corner of Chestnut and Third Streets · P.O. Box 399, Andrews, NC 28901 · info@AndrewsValleyArts.com