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What does that Cherokee County Arts Council really do?
I’m so glad you asked! Let’s start by understanding the role of Arts Councils in North Carolina. Just like each of the others, your local Arts Council is part of the infrastructure of the N.C. Arts Council, and though locally our own programs are carried out, the partnership with NCAC ensures that Cherokee County art organizations and working artists have a source that distributes (and helps create) state and federal grant funds for the arts in our community.
The executive directors of each Arts Council, working together and with the advocacy group ArtsNC, spend time with state legislators to keep them informed and motivated to fund the arts for all North Carolina communities. Most grant funds for the arts from the state, and sometimes from the federal government, have been initiated or shaped with input from local art councils – the folks who know their individual communities best.
In Cherokee County, we also enjoy being the pilot project, and first “anchor” galleries, for the recently developed Blue Ridge Craft Trail. The Blue Ridge National Heritage Area worked with local organizations to identify locations – businesses – where traditional crafts are found.
The Craft Trail then was developed to guide visitors, tourists, to our area galleries and studios. Your local Arts Council also helped secure a grant for the initial promotion of the Craft Trail. Are those tourists important? You bet they are!
Over the past 25 years, every one of the Arts & Economic Prosperity studies conducted by Americans for the Arts has shown that art and cultural activities are a major driver of tourist spending – pretty much equal in importance to outdoor recreation. In Murphy, our own community leaders developed a profile back in 2012 (part of the Small Town Economic Prosperity process), which also confirmed the importance of tourism to the economy of this area.
So, the Cherokee County Arts Council uses its energy and resources to ensure that the arts in general continue to be supported in our community, whether through a Grassroots Grant to a local concert group, or working behind the scenes to urge the creation of new grants like Spark the Arts (funds that other organizations can apply for directly).
But now, in this New Year, we are up to something new: Direct support of working artists – folks who earn their living, pay their taxes, and contribute to the local economy, by making and selling art and crafts.
In October, our long-time neighbors, the Valley River Arts Guild, moved to a new home and left in the historic E.C. Moore building a vast amount of space. What can we do with all that room? The absolute best recommendation came from the N.C. Arts Council – make it an Open Studios art community.
Right here on Valley River Avenue, we will create an environment of working studios where various artists can create while you watch, sell their work and share their creative ideas with each other. In Open Studios, you will be able to observe how a handmade journal is produced, or watch a watercolorist finish the detail of a new painting, or see a potter adding decorative images to their work. By providing a public presence and an environment for sharing resources and creativity, we will be able to assist working artists to further their own career and expand their own business.
We’re looking forward to a March 1 kickoff for this new project, and we’re excited for the opportunity to present an interactive model of art experiences for the folks of Cherokee County.
David Vowell is director of visual and literary arts with the Cherokee County Arts Council.