Martinsville-Henry County Economic Development Corporation

Speakers: Crafts can help revitalize economy

Jul 26, 2007
By SHAWN HOPKINS - Bulletin Staff Writer. The products of people’s hearts, hands and minds can be a key element in revitalizing a local economy, two experts told a packed house Wednesday at the Southern Virginia Artisan Center.

Stuart A. Rosenfeld, president of Regional Technology Strategies Inc., and Rebecca Anderson, former executive director and consultant for HandMade in America, talked about how crafts, art, music and other creative endeavors are overlooked industries in their own rights that can be used to add value to products and promote tourism.

Rosenfeld talked about the importance of what he dubbed the “creative economy.” That includes art, music, film, bookstores, crafts and any other industry where creativity plays a vital role, he said.

In the 1960s and 1970s, it was enough to make things cheaper, Rosenfeld said. However, in the 1980s and 1990s, thanks to worldwide competition, companies had to shift to making things better.

Now, because improved manufacturing methods have become widespread and available, companies must shift to making better things to succeed. An important element in making better things is a focus on design, customization and aesthetics, he said.

Companies must change to maintain and recapture business and industry lost to globalization, he said.

“It’s clear that we’re not going to get them all back,” he said. “It’s a question of what we can save and how.”

As an example, Rosenfeld told the humorous story of Kinky Boots. Kinky Boots started as a standard footwear company for men but found it could not move its product. The owner realized that there are many male transvestites who want to wear high heels but cannot because the shoes are not built to support them. The company shifted gears to producing high quality, fashionable high-heeled boots that could support a man’s weight and found new success, Rosenfeld said.

Using the creative economy and local creative people, Rosenfeld said, companies can find and target profitable, high-end niche markets.

Rosenfeld used Apple Computer, which produces fashionable gadgets such as the iPod and the iPhone, and Harley Davidson Motorcycles, which has created a culture of motorcycle customization, as examples of how a design-driven philosophy can work.

Unfortunately, the creative economy is an underdeveloped source of growth that faces obstacles and resistance, he said. It is hard to get good data on the size of it, and many economic developers remain heavily focused on large industrial recruitment.

Rosenfeld said community colleges, such as Patrick Henry Community College, can take the lead in educating and popularizing the creative economy and preparing the workforce for it.

“You have to be a business person, too,” Rosenfeld said, not just an artist or craftsperson.

Anderson, in her second visit to speak in the area in recent months, shared the story of the organization she founded, “HandMade in America,” which celebrates and promotes craftspeople and crafts in western North Carolina.

There was great resistance to the organization when she was working as an economic development director in Asheville, N.C., Anderson said. At that time, North Carolina’s textile and furniture businesses were booming, she said, but she could see that change was coming.

One of the ideas behind HandMade in America is that of “place-based economy,” she said, which involves products and services that are so tied to a region’s culture and history that they cannot be “outsourced” or “clicked away.”

Anderson said she could see evidence of cultural identity in this area as she drove here, driving along the Smith River and seeing former textile plants and worker housing.

The craft economy, when all supplier and other supporting industries are included, is more significant than people expect, Anderson said. She called it a sort of “invisible factory” that does about $140 million worth of business a year in western North Carolina alone. About 67 percent of what is produced is sold to tourists, she said, so instead of creating a market, “HandMade In America” simply had to expand and enhance an existing one.

To do that, she said, organizers created two regional trail systems and guides to them, being careful to take the wishes of the community into consideration and show respect for the craftspeople.

Anderson shared slides of some things a “place-based economy” produces, such as baskets and glasswork, and she shared success stories such as a tobacco farmer who converted to growing Japanese bonsai trees and found he had enough business for the next two years.

Other projects her organization has been involved in include ones to revitalize small towns by putting art and music downtown, a craft-business incubator built on a landfill that is powered by the methane from the landfill, and a showcase home built and furnished by craftspeople.

Earlier Wednesday, Rosenfeld and Anderson gave presentations to officials in the furniture, textile, homebuilding and other industries at the Martinsville-Henry County Economic Development Corp. (EDC). Anderson said she talked about how the companies can use craftspeople to design high-end niche lines.

“Everybody was excited” about the concept and had “really good ideas” about how it could be integrated on a local level, she said. She did not elaborate.

Rosenfeld said his discussion was focused on how design could be given a higher priority in the local textile and furniture industries.

Mark Heath, chairman of the EDC, said investigating the ideas presented by the speakers is part of the EDC’s “holistic” approach to economic development, which focuses on more than just large industrial recruitment.

The EDC is not trying to pave new ground, he said, but is focusing on “best practices” that are known to work, such as HandMade in America’s methods.

“This is the kind of stuff that is going on here,” Heath said after Anderson’s speech about local craftspeople. He said people in this area just need to “connect the dots” and find ways to support the economy.