Our latest edition of CraftNet Sketches has arrived.  Sketches is our way to keep you up to date on the goings-on of CraftNet, a network of community college’s who are collaborating together to create innovative approaches to using artisan-based strengths as a way to foster economic development.  In this issue of Sketches, we highlight Berea College’s E-Commerce program that is helping student artists find a new marketplace for their work. We also focus on the upcoming Craft Organization Development Association annual meeting in St. Paul, which will feature the public debut of CraftNet’s E-Commerce Curriculum.  We also use this issue of Sketches to welcome CraftNet’s newest member Flathead Valley Community College located in Kalispell, Montana.  You can read all about CraftNet and download past issues of Sketches here.

Stuart Rosenfeld traveled to Denver recently to make a series of presentations relating to our work on Colorado’s creative economy.  Stuart gave the keynote speech at the annual Cultural Forum, which this year was entitled “Avancing Colorado’s Creative Economy.”  Our report to the Arts Council of Colorado that we worked as part of the Alliance for Creative Advantage will be released in January.

Sheridan, Wyoming is the latest place where RTS and its partners in the Alliance for Creative Advantage are exploring the impact of the creative economy.  Among our findings are that the creative economy of Sheridan and Johnson Counties includes an estimated 1,123 people who earn their living from the creative content of what they produce, support and/or sell. Based on the number employed or self-employed in the two counties, the creative economy represents more than one in 20 people employed, which is higher than manufacturing, and about one in 14 enterprises.   Our report offers recommendations on how the community can take the next steps to making sure that the region builds on its reputation as a center for Western art.  You can download our report here.

We recently brought together  more than 80 community leaders, business owners, artists and non-profits in Bentonville and Little Rock, Arkansas to hear  our preliminary recommendations on the next steps that the state can take to enhance its creative economy  Local press featured the meeting as well.  Click here to read their account.

We plan to hold two more of these meeting later this Fall.

You can read more about RTS work in Arkansas, sponsored by the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, with our Year 1 and Year 2 report, plus our series of vignettes on Arkansas’ economy.