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Keeping Folkways Alive in Virginia:
The Blue Ridge Art Craft Trail
 Political boundaries can be arbitrary,
especially when it comes to cultures.
For instance, the Craft Heritage Trails
of Western North Carolina follow the
Blue Ridge Parkway through that state.
But the mountains and parkway don’t
stop at the Virginia border. That same
mountain chain extends far northward,
encompassing the whole western segment of Virginia, and beyond.
Folk artists and crafters also live and create in the small towns
and hamlets of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. Borrowing
from HandMade in America’s highly successful concept of
heritage trails, the Hand Craft Alliance (HCA) of Virginia was
born in 1998.
 Overcoming a rash of issues—ranging from suspicion that
cultural heritage tourism can be a reliable economic tool and
skepticism that there were actually enough artful points of interest
to warrant the trails, to outright doubt that funding could be
found—HCA forged a partnership of 30 public and private
organizations in Virginia’s central mountain region to
create a multijurisdictional cooperative marketing effort to
support the indigenous art and craft industries.
The results can be found along the four trails detailed in the
32-page, 4-color booklet The Blue Ridge Art & Craft Trails,
a Creative Meander. A website, www.artsvirginia.com, provides
this marketing tool to countless potential
visitors, as well.
Success in partnering is evident in the healthy blend of historic
and traditional crafts with modern marketing and tourism techniques.
Of equal merit in this endeavor is the combination of public
and private funding. Public funds for the project came through
the Tourism and Arts Initiative, a grant program of the Virginia
Commission for the Arts and the Virginia Tourism Corporation.
Local partners put up matching dollars.
Contact the Hand Craft Alliance at P.O. Box 123, Waynesboro,
VA 22980,
or call
(540) 949-7687, or e-mail artcraft@ntelos.net.
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