An arts campus that would provide space for craftspeople, artists and designers to create, test and market new products is still in the works for Asheville, despite a funding setback.
The Hive will provide resources for college students transitioning into their careers, artists who want to test materials and explore marketing strategies and researchers practicing traditional hand-based techniques that connect to the heritage of Western North Carolina.
The former Lark Books building at 67 Broadway will house the project in the space below and above the Center for Craft, Creativity Design. The national nonprofit is spearheading the effort to create the arts incubator and makerspace, as these centers for testing, production and small-scale manufacturing are called.
“The (center) is without doubt the most important national funder of craft scholarship. More than this, it has shaped the field through proactive undertakings such as think tank gatherings, publications, and internships that foster emerging talent,” said Dr. Glenn Adamson, director of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City. “Today, scholars are not limited to a few mediums (like pottery and weaving) but instead see skilled craftsmanship as a pervasive cultural force, with deep impact on social change, artistic creativity, and the economy at large. (The center) has been at the forefront of that change.”
The Hive project is particularly relevant to Asheville now. Artists and economic development leaders have been talking about the future of the arts in Asheville — sparked by the Economic Development Commission’s decision to remove the arts and culture sector from the main focus of its economic plan.
The Hive represents a potential way forward for the arts economy in Asheville: a product-focused development center to transform art and craft into an economic engine.
“That’s our goal: to be an asset to the learning environments and to the local creative sector,” said Stephanie Moore, executive director of the center. “Nationally, it’s not a new model. It’s bringing it to Asheville so that the Center for Craft, Creativity Design can sustain itself and be part of that. We’re very hungry to be part of this type of ecosystem and to make sure that people in our building can partner together and work on something greater (than) the sum of their parts.”
Worldwide, makerspaces and arts campuses are creating a place for students, emerging craftspeople and entrepreneurs to launch their businesses and discover new methods. Moore said the Haystack Fab Lab, a collaboration between Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Haystack Mountain School of Craft in Maine, is a particularly relevant example of this type of project.
“So if you have a student at Warren Wilson College who is making fiddles, and they’re doing a great job making fiddles, and they want to start selling fiddles, how can this campus teach them to be a better entrepreneur or to test different products?” Moore said. “The campus is a plug-in for all these different centers for academic learning, and that is the foundation of the center – to advance the understanding of craft through education.”
For more established craftspeople, the makerspace will provide shared equipment. Moore said it will probably couple technology, such as 3-D printers, with traditional machinery such as textile looms.
The second floor of the building will offer office space and equipment, meeting rooms and other co-working resources. Flexible membership packages with daily rates will accommodate people who only need these facilitates some of the time.
“The creative sector we will certainly show preference for, but we may also have accountants or designers, small-scale technology companies all working in the same space,” said Moore, explaining that networking and cross-pollination occur when these people converge in the same space.
What types of entrepreneurs would use this space? Furniture builders, textile and clothing makers, production potters, jewelers and more. An exhibition of these producers’ work is on display now in the center’s first-floor gallery. The “Made in WNC” show includes products from Asheville’s Blue Ridge Chair Works, Circle A Brand accessories and clothes, Bat Cave’s Mudtools pottery tools, Marshall’s Capricorn Bicycles and more than a dozen others.
Although these items don’t sound like typical gallery pieces, they’re unified by an emphasis on design and hybrid manufacturing techniques that combines handmade character with technological innovation.
“The Hive opens up so many opportunities to collaborate and create new alliances in our community,” said Karie Reinertson of handbag and textile company Shelter Design Studio, which is part of “Made in WNC.” “If the Hive was available when we first moved to Asheville, we would have found a way to participate in any capacity we could. It would have been such an incredible resource to orient ourselves toward.”
Josh Dorfman, director of entrepreneurship at Venture Asheville, which seeks to support small businesses in Asheville with the potential for high growth, said The Hive would complement his work. His group offers programming; The Hive would offer space for makers to activate what they learn with him.
“An organization that is is putting a strategy together specifically to help creative, artistic, product-driven entrepreneurs get the resources they need to scale up — that fills a strong niche here in Asheville. That warrants attention,” he said. “So the team involved with The Hive brings a lot of resources to this effort that have the potential to create very strong, high-growth entrepreneurial companies … companies here in Asheville who are going to be able to reach national or global markets. “
When complete, The Hive will include the makerspace, the coworking center, a nontraditional conference facility and rooftop event space, and the galleries that already exist on the ground floor — the center’s Benchspace Gallery and a Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center expansion.
The entrances to the basement and second floor spaces would front on Carolina Lane, and the center hopes the project will transform that street.
“We have an opportunity to really transition that whole street into something like Wall Street, where it could be a pedestrian/vehicle coexistence but really start to have a European flair,” said Mike Marcus, who works on creative placemaking and property development at the center. “And if you want to talk about tax dollars, there’s a lot there of new businesses and new uses for a really underutilized space.”
Brenda Mills, economic development specialist for the City of Asheville, said a project of this scale would upgrade a street that is currently little more than an alley.
“Energizing a block that has not been energized is important to starting that conversation about the arts,” she said. “They’re making sure it’s part of that vision … that this is a place craft and creative people can be.”
Like the center’s free-admission Benchspace Gallery, The Hive will be a resource for Asheville. However much of the Center for Craft, Creativity Design’s work takes place nationwide. The nonprofit raises about $1 million a year in grants and private funds. As part of its mission, it regrants about a third of that money to advance the field of craft all around the country.
But with the exception of a few private donors and the North Carolina Arts Council, all the fundraising for The Hive has come from out-of-state donors. Moore said local institutions have been slow to support the project, with the exception of Warren Wilson College, which is a founding academic partner.
In June, the Center for Craft, Creativity Design announced it was applying for a grant from the Tourism Development Authority to create The Hive.
In late October, the TDA awarded $3.9 million in grant money derived from room tax revenues paid by hotel and other overnight guests in Buncombe County. Of the seven groups that applied for funding in the final round of the application process, the center was the only group not funded.
Grant recipients included the City of Asheville, which received money for riverfront redevelopment and soccer fields, the WNC Nature Center, the Asheville Museum of Science, The Collider and Riverglass Public Glass Studio School.
The center has already invested $4 million in its property since it moved there from Hendersonville in 2013. To complete The Hive, the group plans to raise $1-2 million to begin renovations, in addition to the $500,000 it has already raised.
“We’re bringing money here,” Moore said. “But we need to also demonstrate not just funds but support. Whether it’s an ”Atta girl’ or an ”Atta boy’ or some city recognition.”
The center owns the four-level building and the adjacent parking garage debt-free, a position of unusual financial strength for a nonprofit, Moore said. She hopes the community can take advantage of the opportunity to develop the space for the arts.
The board has entertained offers from tenants who want to lease the space. These businesses, although unrelated to the arts, could ensure the future of the gallery operations by providing a steady stream of income.
But in the year the space was on the market, the board turned away four tenants, Moore said. None of them complemented the center’s mission. But continued funding hangups could force their hand.
“We could be very selfish and say, ‘We’re just going to lease the upstairs to a medical company,'” she said. “But I don’t think that value-wise or even intent-wise that’s what the organization wants to do. We really want to use our building in support of the arts, which in turn supports us.”
Who would use The Hive?
To see examples of the arts businesses The Hive will support, visit the “Made in WNC” exhibition at the Center for Craft, Creativity Design’s Benchspace Gallery. The show includes dozens of makers — craftspeople who couple design and technology with more traditional craft processes. Products on display include 3-D printed sweaters by Asheville’s Appalatch, pots and tableware from Marshall’s East Fork Pottery, handmade home textiles from Asheville’s Outra and dozens more. The show is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. at 67 Broadway. For more information, visit craftcreativitydesign.org.
The Center for Craft, Creativity Design by the numbers
19 years in continuous operation, first in Hendersonville (1996-2013) and then in Asheville (2013-present)
The Center for Craft, Creativity Design raises about $1 million every year through grants and private contributes. It redistributes about $350,000 of that money to craft innovators nationwide. The rest of the money remains in Asheville to fund Benchspace Gallery and support the nonprofits four full-time employees.
$2.7 million paid for 67 Broadway, the former Lark Books building, in 2013. The center owns the building and the adjacent parking garage debt free.
$4 million invested in the historic 1912 property so far, including the cost of the building.
$500,000 raised toward the creation of The Hive, a makerspace, arts incubator and conference facility.
$2-3 million needed to complete The Hive.
The center applied for a $936,000 grant from the Tourism Development Authority, but the request was not funded.
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