UNC Asheville Receives $2 Million Grant for Wood Studio at Craft Campus;
New Studio to Provide Expanded Opportunities for Students, Craft Economy

Dramatically improved craft facilities for UNC Asheville students are a step closer to reality thanks to a recent $2 million grant for the design and construction of a wood sculpture studio at the University’s new Craft Campus. The grant comes from an anonymous national foundation that has a special interest in the modern craft movement, which is especially strong in Western North Carolina. The grant is the second and largest the UNC Asheville Foundation has received for the Craft Campus since UNC Asheville and Buncombe County launched the project in April 2004.

The wood sculpture studio is one of several interconnected studios to be built on the new campus. When fully realized, the Craft Campus will also feature studios for metal, ceramics and hot glass and a center where visitors will learn about the cultural heritage and economic impact of craft in Western North Carolina.

The new grant will provide $1.8 million for the wood studio and $200,000 toward infrastructure and shared costs of common areas of the planned campus. Buncombe County is leasing a 153-acre site adjacent to the former county landfill to UNC Asheville for $1 per year for 99 years for the Craft Campus. The site is located near Woodfin along the French Broad River.

“This $2 million grant will allow us to take a significant step in the development of the Craft Campus, which will be a national model of successful partnership between local government and higher education. The Craft Campus will move UNC Asheville to the forefront of studio craft education among America’s colleges and universities,” said UNC Asheville Chancellor Anne Ponder.

The Craft Campus will ease UNC Asheville’s cramped studio space and allow the University to significantly expand its craft education offerings, said UNC Asheville Art Professor Dan Millspaugh, the Craft Campus director.

“We’ve seen a tremendous increase in the number of students who want to pursue three-dimensional art -- ceramics, iron and wood sculpture, and hot glass. Our current craft curriculum offers ceramics and metal sculpture, but even in those disciplines we’re turning students away because we lack adequate studio space. Our current Art Department was designed when we had 20 art majors. Now there are more than 100 majors, and we have some 500 students taking art classes every semester.” Millspaugh said. “The new wood sculpture studio is a wonderful opportunity for our students to work and explore and expand their abilities, to build upon the long and distinguished heritage of wood craft in our region, and to explore new opportunities in the medium.”

When completed, the Craft Campus will be an integral part of Western North Carolina’s current and emerging craft economy, which generates some $144 million a year in the region, noted William P. Massey, UNC Asheville vice chancellor for alumni and development. “We expect many of our program graduates to pursue craft careers in our region and nationally, while others will develop a much richer appreciation of the creation and value of the work of handmade object. More broadly, the Craft Campus will draw visitors interested in craft and in the green building techniques used to create and operate the campus.”           

The Craft Campus will be a “green” facility, including its energy sources, building materials and studio operations. Methane from Buncombe County’s former landfill will provide the primary energy source for studios, kilns, glass furnaces and the visitors’ center.

In August 2004, UNC Asheville received a $100,000 grant from the Kresge Foundation of Troy, Mich. to aid with planning costs for green building design. The Kresge grant allowed UNC Asheville to move through the initial planning stage leading to the design of the facility. The $100,000 Kresge grant is the maximum planning grant that the foundation awards through its Green Building Initiative.

UNC Asheville has completed its initial planning stage and has selected a design team for the project: Brown & Jones Architects Inc. and Frank Harmon Architect, both based in Raleigh.

Harmon, an award-winning architect, has designed a number of arts and education-related projects, including the iron studio at Penland School of Crafts, for which he received one of only 10 Honor Awards given internationally in 2004 by the Architectural Record and Business Week magazines. Harmon’s projects include North Carolina Pottery Center in Seagrove, the North Carolina Botanical Garden at UNC-Chapel Hill, the Prairie Ridge Project for the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences and Duke University’s Ocean Science Teaching Center in Beaufort, N.C.

The Craft Campus is expected to open in four to five years.

Media Contact:

• Merianne Epstein, UNC Asheville Public Information Director, 828/251-6676;
  pager 828/257-5501