Kentucky\u27s Craft Legacy Workshop

Throughout the history of Appalachia and especially Kentucky, crafts have been an important part of life. In the settling of mountains and in the early years, crafts represented basic life skills needed to supply necessary objects for home and work and leisure pursuits. While items were always bartered, crafts production began contributing to the cash income of families in the early twentieth century. Today craft production has expanded to include art as well as utilitarian objects. As any student of history knows, stories get told from information that survives. The Kentucky Craft History and Education Association (KCHEA) has put together a workshop to encourage craftmakers to look ahead to what will happen to equipment and information about them. The objects they have made will continue to be in the hands of people and institutions, but it is vital that information about the craftspeople also survive. This workshop details how to place papers in archives, how to record oral histories, and how to distribute studio contents where it will find use. We have concluded a pilot project and refined the Craft Legacy workshop in preparation for taking it on the road to many locations throughout the state. Also, information from the workshop is available on the KCHEA website. KCHEA’s efforts are designed to be a model for other states to collect information about their state’s crafts activities and their craftmakers and promoters