Verve magazine: New Handmade in America director ready to pull organization out of tailspin

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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Verve magazine’s March issue features an interview with the new director of Handmade in America, the venerable Western North Carolina nonprofit aimed at boosting the region’s crafters but lately has been dealing with a leadership crisis. It’s Gwynne Rukenbrod’s first local interview since taking the helm of Handmade after the nonprofit’s board fired its previous executive director. 

From the story:

One of Rukenbrod’s first objectives will be to help Handmade diversify its revenue stream, a project Plato had started. In addition to going after new grants, she’ll reach out to individual donors and create core programming that generates cash. She’ll also shift staffers so that people who, in the past, oversaw only one program will now handle several. …

Rukenbrod also wants Handmade to reconnect with craft artists. “We seem to have forgotten the more direct services to crafters,” she says. Figuring out which crafters is an interesting question. In the past, the nonprofit has formed strong ties to traditional crafters like potters and quilters. One of its major efforts is the Barn Quilts project, which promotes the Appalachian tradition of painting bright quilt patterns on barns. But Asheville’s craft community now includes a swelling crowd of people in their 20s and 30s whose kitschy, nontraditional creations often incorporate recycled materials and technology.