By Emma Castleberry
In 2023, the Center for Craft partnered with the University of North Carolina Asheville’s UNC Gillings Master of Public Health (MPH) program to research the community health impacts of craft in Western North Carolina. The Craft and Community Vitality Grant program provided $2,200 grants to six craft projects, and each project was partnered with a student in the UNC Asheville MPH program who studied the projects’ impacts as part of their coursework. “If you care about building and maintaining healthy, equitable and sustainable communities, this research is significant,” says Anna Helgeson, grant program manager – community vitality with the Center for Craft.
“Rooted in relationship building and collaboration, this work has the potential to empower craft artists so that they may in turn empower their own communities to maintain and build resilient, vibrant and healthy futures for us all.”
Students in the MPH program were allowed to choose which of the six craft artists they worked with for the duration of the project. Isla Neel chose Andi Gelsthorpe and her community-built, ephemeral labyrinth project titled Finding Our Way Home. “One goal behind Andi’s labyrinth installation was to provide an opportunity for the community to come together and experience connection,” says Neel. “I, too, felt connected to Andi as our relationship grew throughout this project. This helped me to see how craft and public health overlap and contribute to each other.”
Gelsthorpe, a registered expressive arts consultant and educator with a certificate in Expressive Arts Therapy from Appalachian State University, designed the labyrinth as a way for participants to explore both internal creativity and communal creation. “The makers discovered that creativity can foster resilience and enhance mindfulness in the present moment,” Gelsthorpe says. “Participants were encouraged to engage their senses as they navigated their way through the installation, which featured windchimes, growing plants, stones and barefoot walking.”
Tyler Deal, founder, artist, educator and therapist at Blue Ridge Expressive Arts in Boone, was awarded a grant to explore the community impact of visual narrative medicine in maternal healthcare through two bookmaking groups, one for survivors of traumatic birthing events and one for individuals experiencing perinatal grief. Deal defines Visual Narrative Medicine as an arts- and craft-based method for processing and reauthoring traumatic events using all five senses in visual form. “Engaging in craft alongside others fosters the ability to share and learn skills to cope with events by developing a visual external resource and fostering the internal resource of belonging,” she says. “This grant specifically spoke to my efforts over the past 20 years in utilizing the arts within healthcare, more specifically within maternal healthcare as an alternative resource to support individuals who have survived perinatal trauma and grief.”
The Craft and Community Vitality Grant was a perfect fit for Elizabeth Ivey, founder and director of Sister Soul Sessions. “Sister Soul Sessions focuses on using craft to bring people together, explore the connections between mental health and creative expression through fine art and build a stronger, more connected community with BIPOC adolescents and women,” says Ivey.
With the grant, Ivey was able to expand class offerings, provide more resources and materials for participants, collaborate with local young artists, host and showcase adolescent fine art events and reach a broader audience. “This grant provided opportunities for young people to explore their talents, skills and abilities through art,” says Ivey. “These grants are crucial because they support initiatives that use art and craft to bring people together, fostering a sense of belonging and mutual support. “
The research that comes from these projects is atypical—no charts and tables—but has so far been well-received by many groups, says Dr. Ameena Batada, co-director of the MPH program. “There seems to be a real interest among artists to tell their stories in new ways, including around how their work influences not just individual but community-level health,” she says. “I feel that craft, arts and public health are coming together in ways that both de-construct and honor these different traditions, such that we can co-construct what it means to be either or both an artist and a public health professional. I feel grateful to all involved in this project for trusting in the process, and more importantly, for taking these approaches and ideas into the future of all of our work.”
Follow the grantees on Instagram: @blue_ridge_exa, @soulcrafted1, and @sister_soul_sessons. The Laurel of Asheville will profile the remaining three grantees—Cowee School of Arts & Heritage Center, Luis Alvaro Sahagun Nuño and Jakeli Swimmer—and their projects in the October crafts issue. The Center for Craft is located at 67 Broadway Street, Asheville. Learn more at CenterForCraft.org.