This year at Hope Springs we have opened an Artisan Center and Gift Shop, both online and on-site. The goal of this Center & Shop is to honor art in the Appalachian region and allow more people to engage with the region around Hope Springs. Being both Appalachian and a jewelry artist, I am excited by the possibilities of this effort to build relationships with our local community and display parts of our culture.
Truthfully, I connect my artist's eye with my Appalachian heritage. There is beauty here, everywhere you go. When I see a split-rail fence woven to line farmland I see an artist who was taught to know how to survive. Nearly everything in our culture had to serve a purpose, but it is also crafted so that we have art everywhere you turn on our rural roads.
I hope that when you look at the work in our Center & Shop, you see the parts of our culture that show the duality of beauty and utility. I hope you see it in our knitting and quilting which keeps us warm and in the baskets that held our harvests. I hope you see the hardiness of our ancestry and the beauty in our survival. I also hope that you are inspired to support these artists and Hope Springs by purchasing items, sharing with your friends, and visiting us on-site. You can also make a donation to Hope Springs so that work like this happens in the future. Now, maybe more than ever, community is the heartbeat sustaining us all. I am proud of how Hope Springs is working to honor ours!
-Conni Thorpe, Artisan Center & Gift Shop Manager
Please Click https://www.hopespringsinstitute.org/shop to Shop!
or
Click https://www.hopespringsinstitute.org/support-us to Donate!
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