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25th National Arts & Crafts Conference at the Grove Park Inn

by Bruce Johnson, Director, Arts & Crafts Conference

Arts & Crafts Conference

Contemporary Craftsfirms Show at the Arts & Crafts Conference | Photography by Bill Murphy, Asheville, NC

You might say it was an idea conceived in the parking lot at Skinner.

The year was 1987 and I was in Boston for both the Skinner fall Arts & Crafts auction and for the opening of the long-awaited “The Art That Is Life” Arts & Crafts exhibit at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

A few months earlier, I had attended the final Arts & Crafts conference held at the aging Roycroft Inn. When word circulated among the dealers and collectors gathered there that the Roycroft Inn would be closed for what turned out to be a nine-year restoration, my first reaction was: we should host the conference at the Grove Park Inn.

Built overlooking Asheville, NC in 1913, the Grove Park Inn had been hailed as “the finest resort hotel in the world.” Furnished with Roycroft hammered copper lights, Roycroft furniture and Heywood-Wakefield wicker rockers, it was an Arts & Crafts mecca. The original gift shop in the lobby sold Newcomb College vases, Roseville pottery, Roycroft books and metalware, and Cherokee hand-woven baskets and rugs.

As I stood that day in the parking lot at Skinner, urging Arts & Crafts collectors and dealers to come to Asheville the third weekend in February, most must have wondered, “Arts & Crafts in the South? Not Boston, Syracuse or East Aurora?”

But they came, and they discovered what was a hidden Arts & Crafts treasure at the time. They sat in Stickley Morris chairs, warmed themselves in front of a fireplace large enough to park a car, attended seminars, and bought Arts & Crafts antiques from 29 dealers. We decided that weekend to return the following year, and the year after that, and the year after that, until today we are preparing for our 25th Arts & Crafts Conference at the Grove Park Inn on February 17-19.

But now it’s more than just a few seminars and a handful of antiques dealers. This year’s conference will draw more than 2,000 collectors, antiques dealers, contemporary crafts firms, magazine editors, book publishers, and authors. They will choose from ten daily small group discussions, take both walking tours and house tours, watch demonstrations, participate in hands-on workshops, and learn about what they collect through six major seminar presentations and a film documentary.

And just to keep it lively, they will sip champagne, listen to music in the Great Hall, and dance until midnight on the Sunset Terrace to live bands.

Who says antiques collectors don’t know how to have fun?

If you would like to learn more, take a look at www.Arts-CraftsConference.com. The Slide Show will give you a great feel for what will be happening next month at what today is being called “the finest Arts & Crafts resort in the world.”

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