It began with a conversation across Millie Crutchfield’s breakfast table.
Pfafftown artist Mary Goslen was making prints and cloth dolls when Crutchfield, a copper and enamel artist, invited Goslen to her home. Crutchfield discussed craft fairs she’d attended that had been sponsored by the Southern Highland Craft Guild.

She asked, “ ‘Mary, do you think we could do something like this in Winston-Salem?’ ” Goslen recalls.

“Being young and naive, I agreed, ‘Of course we can.’ ”

This year marks the 45th anniversary of the Piedmont Craftsmen’s Fair, scheduled for November 15 and 16 with 120 exhibitors.

“It’s kind of like a homecoming,” says Tom Suomalainen, a ceramicist and one of the four remaining founding members of the guild.

Beginnings

From that first discussion, Crutchfield took the idea to her fellow art teachers at the Arts and Crafts Association — an organization that later became the Sawtooth Center.
“Millie was just full of energy and follow-up,” Suomalainen says. “She was the one that motivated lots of us to really put our minds to it and take up the challenge.

“We formed the basic charter group of founders who are not all craftspeople,” he notes, “people who were able to give us legal advice, financial direction — really a very creative group of people.”

With Dr. Maxwell Little as Piedmont Craftsmen’s first president, members viewed the creation of a guild as a way to market their work, yet from the beginning they saw their mission as something more.

“Education was one of the first priorities,” recalls Goslen, who had been a participant in The Village of Yesteryear at the N.C. State Fair for many years. There, artists demonstrated their crafts as they sold their work — showing Goslen how important it was to teach the public the value of the skills.
Instead of competing with mass-produced goods, she explains, “you educate the public on the value of handmade things.”
Since its first fair in 1964, Piedmont Craftsmen, Inc. (PCI) has included craft-making demonstrations because meeting the artists and making that connection has proven important.

“I look at these things, and I know the person; it brings back a lot of memories,” says supporting founding member Wylie Yarborough, as he views the many varied pieces of art in his home. His late wife, Christine, was an exhibiting founding member who worked with fiber, pen and ink, and other media.

“It’s always been important to see how the crafts are made, to understand the thought process of the artist,” explains the PCI President and CEO Jane Doub. “It’s magical almost, but yet it adds the reality of how much work is involved and how much skill is required to create a piece.”

In May 1964, PCI held its first exhibit in a booth at the Old Salem Flower Fair, sponsored by the Garden Club Council and Old Salem. Six months later, PCI held a craft fair of its own in the original Krispy Kreme building in Old Salem. Thirty-five craftspeople exhibited, offering demonstrations of pottery, weaving, woodturning, enameling, and jewelry making. Nearly 4,000 visitors attended.
“We came along at just the right time,” says founding member Florence Illman, who worked in enamels and now paints watercolors and dyes silk. “Things were in place at the time that legitimized craft, and there was general acceptance by the people of hand-made [items].”

Though she was energized to work by the late Ernest Illman, her husband and fellow artist, she says PCI was “a great motivator for the craftspeople. You had something to work towards. It used to get really hectic; the closer the time came, the more frantic you got. It makes you get off your duff and get busy.”

In addition, Illman notes, PCI gave artists a broad network of support. “Otherwise, each one would be working in isolation.”

Over the years, the PCI Fair moved to the top floor of the old coliseum, then down to the main floor, and finally to the Benton Convention Center.
Having a regular venue for sales has also been a priority. In 1966, PCI leased space for a shop at Salem Square, and then rented three other downtown locations before moving to Reynolda Road in the 1980s.

During that same decade, PCI became a funded partner of the Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County, and those regular grants were a stabilizing force that enabled PCI to do more education, Doub says.

Finally, in 2003, thanks to a low interest loan from The Winston-Salem Foundation, PCI purchased just over 2,200 square feet on Trade Street. The location is pivotal for the Arts District and has an economic impact of more than $5.5 million annually to Winston-Salem and the region.

“PCI has had outstanding board and staff leadership, and has had a downtown presence much of its life,” says Milton Rhodes, president and CEO of the Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County. “But the last few years since it’s been the anchor — the solid anchor — on Trade Street, the Arts District has thrived.

“Having the professional craftsmen in the area just raises the bar for all of us. And that’s good.”

Growing Pains

Evolution wasn’t easy — just ask Yarborough. He helped publicize and set up the shows, built pegboard backdrops for the booths, and one year, he carried booths in one door as circus elephants lumbered out another, and the sawdust and debris were swept from the floor.

The coliseum’s ice rink posed yet another challenge. To make a floor for the fair, they placed sheets of plywood over the ice. “The ice began to melt, the boards began to warp,” Goslen remembers. Their feet were cold, and more than one craftsperson lost their work when the tables toppled.

Over the years, organizers worked to bring in other aspects of the community. For example, they asked designers to set tables with crafts.  Sometimes people bought the unexpected, Yarborough adds, like the dried weeds that had been placed in pots as decorations.

In the beginning, convincing people to bring their work to the show was an effort, Goslen says, and the founders faced the normal resistance that often accompanies a new idea. Eventually the rigor of the two-part juried process for acceptance into the guild became something people sought. “To many craftsmen in the area, it created a standard for other arts and crafts to elevate to,” Doub says.

The process ensures not only quality for consumers, but a stamp of approval for artisans. Yarborough says that there were debates about what qualifies as fine crafts or art, and some felt the jury process was elitist. “I don’t feel that way,” he says. “I appreciate people who have that ability.”

Moving Forward

PCI now has approximately 370 exhibiting members who pass jury selection and pay dues. The nonprofit raises money through its gallery sales, the Craftsmen’s Fair, grants from other foundations, and its sponsoring memberships.
“All of these programs together help fund education,” Doub explains, and that continues to be a mission of the guild. PCI offers in-class education and a hands-on Artist in Residence program to Forsyth County school students. Its Craft Career Day, which teaches high-school students about craft-related careers, will be expanded to six high schools this year. The group also holds regular lectures and panel discussions at the gallery.

“The arts in general have a great deal to offer the community,” Doub says. “It basically is the soul of the community. The arts are for everyone: They embrace all types of people, all types of talent; they’re non-discriminating.”

PCI has updated its publications and Web site to reflect the color and quality of the crafts it represents. In some ways, though, technology has been dual-edged.
On one hand, people no longer need to come to craft fairs to see fine crafts. Instead, they can log onto the Internet, and that precludes making the personal connection that is so vital. Yet the Internet also makes more visibility possible.

In the future, Suomalainen envisions adding a satellite gallery space downtown to feature two artists at a time so that patrons would have the opportunity to spend more time learning about individuals’ work.

He says that at a recent First Friday Gallery Hop, attendees discussed the current economic situation and agreed that in these kinds of times, more emphasis needs to be put toward community support.
PCI facilitates such support.

Nevertheless, finding patrons remains PCI’s biggest challenge. Ironically, fair organizers anticipate 4,000 attendees this year — the same number that attended the first fall fair. Education is still key, Goslen says, “There’s a new public coming up all the time.”

For information, call 336-725-1516 or go to http://www.piedmontcraftsmen.org.

Piedmont Craftsmen, Inc. Founding Members

Exhibiting Members:

Lena Albright

Bianca Artom

Mildred Ball

W.M. Ball

Mildred S. Crutchfield

Mary Goslen

Cynthia Hensel

Gypsy Hollingsworth

Albert Hubbard

Florence Illman

Louise Little

Charlotte Shermer

Thomas Suomalainen

Christine Yarborough

Associate Charter Members:

Wm. H. Boyer

L.G. Crutchfield

Hamilton C. Horton, Jr.

Martha Hubbard

Dr. J. Maxwell Little

Wylie M. Yarborough

IF YOU’RE GOING

The 45th Piedmont Craftsmen’s Fair is November 15 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and November 16 from noon to 5 p.m. at the Benton Convention Center. Admission is $6 for adults, $5 for seniors and students, and free for children under 12. A weekend pass can also be purchased for $10.