Dear Vermont Craftspeople and Visual Artists,

Put our resources to work for you.

Few businesses are like craft and arts businesses, designing, producing, and selling beautiful objects.

Our community needs an organization that maintains a network of information for and about Vermont craftspeople and visual artists and their businesses, one that develops new projects tailored for our professional needs, one place where anyone can direct a question about Vermont crafts or arts and get an answer. Because of this need, in 1990, the Vermont Crafts Council was formed.

Early in our existence, we realized that a small organization with limited resources must choose its area of concentration in order to be successful. We decided to focus on providing information about the Vermont crafts community to three important groups, the general public, the arts and craft community and to divisions of state government that were tasked with promoting Vermont's products, arts, and tourism. In this way we have become a connecting point for opportunities to flow between individual craft and arts businesses, the public, and divisions of state government.

We remain the only statewide organization devoted to this kind of advocacy for the Vermont crafts community.

We can help you connect with others working in the same business and facing the same challenges. We represent your concerns when we attend state cultural heritage tourism planning meetings to encourage that craft and art be included in tourism programs. After years of attending such meetings, we have become familiar faces at the table, known to represent Vermont crafts.

At this point in the life of our organization, there are numerous direct results of our activity. The Addison County Heritage Guide, was created in 2002, and modeled after the prototype Western North Carolina Craft Heritage Trails, a model that we brought to the attention of Vermont's tourism and arts councils. This was followed by the Northeast Kingdom counterpart, and recently, the third in the series, the Stowe-Smugglers' Notch Cultural, Arts and Heritage Guide was completed.

In 2008, Open Studio Weekend will take place for the sixteenth time. In recognition of the significance of this event and other statewide cultural heritage tourism events, the state of Vermont has created Vermont Cultural Heritage Days, of which the Open Studio Weekend is a leading event.

We represent working craftspeople and artists with our participation on the Vermont State Craft Center Overview Commission, formed in 1993 by Governor Dean to set guidelines for the awarding of the coveted designation, Vermont State Craft Center. Recently, we have been instrumental in revising the guidelines for the designation to make them more inclusive.

The Vermont Crafts Council works to encourage artists and craftspeople to differentiate their marketing and to consider new markets and new partnerships. In 2000, in conjunction with Craftproducers and the Department of Tourism and Marketing, we debuted a fine craft show in Manhattan, New York, called Vermont Downtown.

We partnered with Cabot Creamery to revisit Manhattan in the summer of 2005, in an innovative Best of Vermont showcase that included four rooms furnished with Vermont products and a website that connected every product to its producer.

For ten years, we have presented Vermont crafts to an audience of 1 million people interested in Vermont, by maintaining a booth in the Vermont pavilion at the Eastern States Exposition held in West Springfield, Massachusetts. During this time $283,000 of Vermont crafts were sold.

Open Studio Weekend, our most public project, grossed over $342,000 in sales and orders for those participating in 2006.

Here is a brief profile of our organization:

Founded: 1990 Annual membership fee: $60 Number of members in 2007: 350
Membership Year: Membership expires 12 months from when you pay your fee.
Member Profile: Three main groups: Visual artists and craftspeople including novices and veterans working with clay, wood, metal, fiber, glass, painting, drawing, printmaking, and paper.
Craft and Visual arts organizations. Galleries and shops, crafts events organizers.
Membership Guidelines: Vermont residency.
Mission: We are dedicated to the advancement of Vermont crafts and visual arts within Vermont and nationally, through education and advocacy.

In late 2007 and 2008, these are the key projects that will be active.

NEW! We are presenting a Fall Marketing Conference on October 17 at Goddard College.

Seminars offered include Bruce Baker's Product Development and Trends for the second time in Vermont! Also hear about how to build an Open Studio cluster in your town, promotion through blogging, free and low cost support for visual artists from the state and arts associations, and updates from our State of Craft project. Not to mention great food, good company and a beautiful location.

Same place, different season! Our Annual Meeting and Marketing Conference will be held in April at Goddard College in Plainfield. This conference offers a choice of workshops that deal specifically with craft and visual arts business topics. Vermont Crafts Council Members enjoy a reduced fee to attend this day of networking which typically includes seminars on promotion, marketing, and the web.

Vermont Crafts Council Web Site - All Vermont Crafts Council members have their own simple page with business name, address, phone number, product information, picture and website links. (options) This site has consistently listed in the top ten listings for all of the major search engines when searching for Vermont crafts.

Open Studio Weekend, May 24 - 25, 2008. The Open Studio Weekend is a statewide event held during Memorial Day weekend, during which Vermont craftspeople and artists open their studios to the public for the sale and demonstration of their work. Widely considered to be one of Vermont's most important arts events, in 2007, participants reported 20,000 visits to 265 sites from Newport to Readsboro and from White River to Fair Haven. Vermont Crafts Council members receive substantial discounts on fees for the Open Studio Weekend. Vermont Crafts Council member studios pay $40 less than non-member participants.

NEW! State of Craft
In anticipation of our 20th anniversary in 2010, we are launching a multi-faceted, collaborative initiative encompassing documentation, interpretation, and acquisition of Vermont crafts. The purpose of the project is to illuminate the individual careers of master Vermont craftspeople and to document the evolution of the larger crafts community (as reflected in the history of key organizations, events and projects) through three distinct periods—1965-1980, 1981-1990, and 1991-present. Project research will include archival study, oral history interviews, field photography, and curatorial survey/evaluation. Our partners in this project are the Vermont Folklife Center and the Bennington Museum.

With this substantial list of achievements and partnerships, and our soon to be eighteen year history, you may have the impression that our funding is secure.

Not so.

Every year sees a different combination of income from membership, grants and fees, most of which have specific projects to fund. We continue to be a self sufficient organization that manages to cover its costs from year to year through frugality and efficiency. This is a big factor in our longevity. A top priority for us is to keep project fees as low as possible in order to afford everyone a chance to participate.

But your membership or donation (we are now a 501 C-3 non-profit organization and your contributions are tax deductible) is absolutely essential to our survival.

If you've never joined the Vermont Crafts Council, we need you. If you've let your membership lapse, we need you. If you are one of our loyal members who renew every year, we need you and we thank you. Please send in your 2008 membership today and help us continue to work for the Vermont crafts and visual arts community.

Professional Membership Form | Options | Frequently asked questions about membership | Glossary of VCC Terms

Sincerely,

Martha Fitch, Director

2007 - 2008 Vermont Crafts Council Board of Directors
President: Matthew Tell Pottery - Matthew Tell, Vice President: Carol Crawford - Carol Crawford Handweaver, Treasurer: Jenny Hermenze, Secretary - Sandra Lance Ceramics - Sandra Lance, Ellen Spring Painted Silk - Ellen Spring, Huntington River Smithy - Jim Fecteau.

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