Handmade-whether it’s quilts, baskets, weavings, whatever-is hot. And getting hotter by the minute.
“This is just the beginning,” says Phyllis George, former Miss America, one-time sportscaster and current advocate for American artisans. “Crafts are the best-kept secret in America. Crafts have been around already for hundreds of years, but a lot of people are just discovering them for the first time. A lot of it is they don’t know how to find them. It’s also important for people to know that you can buy in any price range you want.”
George, national honorary chair for the Year of American Craft 1993, comes to town this week to speak at the 9th Annual American Craft Exposition in Evanston. The indoor professional juried show, which runs from Friday through Aug. 29, will feature contemporary works in metal, clay, paper, fiber, porcelain, glass, wood, leather, ceramics, baskets, furniture and mixed media by 136 craftsmen. Among them: basket-maker Mary A. Jackson of South Carolina, glass artist Josh Simpson of Massachusetts and metalsmith Thomas Mann of New Orleans.
The former first lady of Kentucky, who spearheaded the promotion of Kentucky arts and crafts and established the Kentucky Art & Craft Foundation, will discuss “Craft in America” when she speaks here.
And she’ll speak from 14 years of experience with crafts-traveling the country to discover what craftsmen were creating, researching her first crafts book, “Kentucky Crafts” (Crown Publishers, Inc., $40) and working on television shows that promote and sell American crafts.
Home craft shopping
The cable television shows-a series of shows on QVC, Barry Diller’s upscale home shopping network-are George’s most recent avenue for bringing crafts to the public’s attention. (Upcoming QVC craft shows will be shown at 8 p.m. Sept. 26, 4 p.m. Sept. 27 and mid-November, date and time to be determined.)
“Interactive television is the hot thing right now,” she says.
And George’s role? Well, in addition to showing off a handmade basket, a teddy bear or doll (one collapsible basket she hyped brought a demand for 15,000 of them) “I talk a lot about the craftsmen, because I want them to become heroes,” says George. “The host does the hard sell.
“(Selling crafts) takes people off unemployment lines, which is why I’m doing it. It’s created a whole new market for craftsmen, and we’ve done it very carefully so their quality isn’t affected. I’m very involved in the selection process.”
Beyond this, George says she has another new television project in the offing, one she can’t talk much about yet. But this one would involve her going to the homes of American craftspeople and interviewing them on camera, a kind of “This Old Craftsmen.”
Quilts, baskets, wall hangings
The American Crafts Expo is just one stop of many for George this year, who has been all over the country, looking for things to sell for craftsmen on the air.
And what she’s found on her travels is that while the trends vary in different parts of the country-with country being very popular in Atlanta- “quilts are always popular, along with baskets and wall hangings. Native American weavings are popular. So are colored glass vessels.
“More and more brides are registering for handmade items right now. There is a craving (for handmade things). I myself send crafts out as gifts to people. I gave Maria Shriver a handcrafted music box carousel with little horses, just adorable.”
George became interested in crafts while campaigning with her husband, John Y. Brown, who now heads the Kentucky Fried Chicken empire. “He’d be over giving a speech on the stump and I’d be out chasing quilts and baskets. I was just overwhelmed by the pieces and all the hours and love that went into them,” says George, whose Kentucky home, called Cave Hill, is filled with handmade items, including baskets, carved figures and a collection of more than 100 quilts.
Most of her collections are native Kentuckian, but as national honorary chairman for the Year of American Craft, George recently visited the Navajo and Hopi nations in Arizona and New Mexico and came home with a number of Native American things, including kachinas, baskets, pottery and silver jewelry.
“I’m addicted,” George sighs. And it’s an omnivorous addiction, not to any one special craft-but “to whatever catches my eye and warms my heart.”
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The 9th Annual American Craft Exposition runs from Friday through Aug. 29 at the Henry Crown Sports Pavilion, 2379 Sheridan Rd., Evanston. Phyllis George will speak at 9:30 a.m. Friday at Northwestern University’s Block Gallery, 1967 Sheridan Rd., Evanston; $15. An opening night gala benefiting the Evanston and Glenbrook Hospitals will be from 5 to 9 p.m. Thursday at the Henry Crown Sports Pavilion; $50. Call 708-570-5096.
