Artists, local officials, and travel fans gathered to celebrate the Piedmont section of the fun, family-friendly travel guide Homegrown Handmade Art Roads and Farm Trails on Wednesday, Aug. 27, at the Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill. The event featured remarks by local artists and other trail participants, a display of artwork and craft items, an ice cream tasting, and the unveiling of a geocache featuring items from the “Potters’ Wheels and Organic Fields” trail, which covers Alamance, Chatham, Guilford, Lee, Orange, Randolph and Wake counties.
The 400-page book of 16 self-directed driving trails with ideas for affordable travel includes almost 1,300 sites in 76 North Carolina counties. The trails are examples of what is now popularly called “agri-cultural tourism.”
In remarks, artist and Orange County Studio Tour director Gordon Jameson underscored one of the aims of the book, “People want to go see where the art is made and the context in which it is made, and meet the artist.” Jeweler Melissa Booth continued, “The release of this Homegrown Handmade book is another fine example of the opportunities available in North Carolina for artists.”
A new twist for the Piedmont kickoff was the unveiling of a geocache, which will be placed somewhere on the grounds of the Carolina Inn. Geocaches have been described as a “high-tech Easter Egg hunt.” Typically, after viewing latitude and longitude coordinates on the Internet, geocachers go on the hunt using handheld Global Positioning Satellite receivers. If they find the geocache, they sign a log to record their visit. The cache contains contain items from the book trail and from the Department of Cultural Resources.
Future geocaches will be found at studios participating in November’s Orange County Studio Tour, and also at other Homegrown Handmade sites.
Each trail tells a story of its unique place, such as “Lights…Waves…Action” and “Rock Stew Ramble” in the east or “Foothills, Vineyards, and Old-Time Music” in the foothills. Recreational farms, artist studios, organic foods, museums, festivals, and restaurants that serve North Carolina produce or serve up local recipes with a dash of art, music or history are included.
Many sites on the trails are carrying the guidebook. Joy Bryde, manager of Womancraft Fine Handcrafting of Chapel Hill, said, “We are already selling the book in our shop. Parents from out of state who are dropping off their kids at the University are interested, and are also buying locally handcrafted art.”
The Homegrown Handmade project began as a collaboration among several public organizations, mainly the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, the North Carolina Arts Council and the North Carolina Cooperative Extension service, supported by the Golden LEAF Foundation. Maryanne Friend, director of development and marketing at Cultural Resources, brought John F. Blair, Publisher, into the mix in an effort to reach more people, marking the beginning of a relationship between private enterprise and government agencies that will become a new method for promoting North Carolina’s tourism economy.
The Department of Cultural Resources, a state agency dedicated to the promotion and protection of North Carolina’s arts, history and culture, is observing the 2008 theme of “Telling Our Stories.” The agency now has podcasts available 24/7 with information about Cultural Resources at www.ncculture.com.
Homegrown Handmade:
Art Roads and Farm Trails
NC Department of Cultural Resources &
NC Cooperative Extension
May 2008 • Travel
5 x 8 ½ • 400 pages
Paperback • $19.95 • 978-89587-355-2