CCCD Hosts and Evening of Film, Music, and Stories From Local Factory Town Historians and former employees to reflect on Swannanoa's Beacon Manufacturing Company, once renowned as the largest producers of blankets in the world The Center for Craft, Creativity & Design's (CCCD) Benchspace Gallery & Workshop invites you to attend Beacon Blankets: Portrait of a Swannanoa Textile Mill, an evening of film, music, and stories about the rise and fall of the Beacon Manufacturing Company on Friday, November 20 from 5:30 - 7:30 pm.
East of Asheville, North Carolina, Swannanoa is a small community and the former home of Beacon Blankets, at one time the largest manufacturer of blankets in the world. In it's hey-day during the 1940's, Beacon was the largest employer in the Swannanoa Valley with more than 2,200 workers. Beacon closed its Swannanoa plant in 2002. The factory was burned to the ground in 2003. Beacon Blankets was at the heart of cultural life for the Swannanoa community. It historically sponsored recreation and activities for its workers. The company's most prominent owner, Charles D. Owen, was recognized for his community service through the naming of the Charles D. Owen High School in 1955. But like many mill towns, Beacon Blankets also struggled with issues of unsafe working conditions, segregation, and opposition to organized labor. When the textile industry continued to decline in the 70's and 80's and NAFTA was introduced in the 90's, small mill towns, like Swannanoa, began to disappear. "With the original Beacon site up for sale and growing interest in revitalizing the area, rebuilding the community today should take careful consideration of the history of Swannanoa and the Beacon story," said Marilyn Zapf, Assistant Director of CCCD. Beacon Blankets: Portrait of a Swannanoa Textile Mill will begin with a reception featuring mill-inspired music by Robert (Bert) Brown, a native of Swannanoa whose grandparents worked at Beacon. From 6 - 6:30 pm, filmmaker Rebecca Williams will be showing clips from her ongoing documentary project Blanket Town: The Rise and Fall of an American Mill Town, which examines the migration of the textile industry from England, to New England to the American South, and, with the advent of globalization, overseas. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with previous Beacon Blanket mill employees led by acclaimed Appalachian historian Dr. David Whisnant from 6:30 - 7:30 pm. The event is presented in collaboration with CCCD's current exhibition, Made in WNC, which examines the legacy of craft-based industry (textiles, pottery, and furniture) in Western North Carolina and its influence on artists and designer-makers working in the region today. EVENT DETAILS: Location: Benchspace Gallery & Workshop at The Center for Craft, Creativity & Design, 67 Broadway Street, Asheville, NC 28801 Admission: Free and open to the public. Date: Friday, November 20, 2015 Time: 5:30 - 7:30 pm For more information about Made in WNC and other CCCD programs, call 828-785-1357 or visit www.craftcreativitydesign.org/made-in-wnc. This project was supported by the NC Arts Council, a division of the Department of Cultural Resources. Beacon Blankets: Portrait of a Swannanoa Textile Mill receives media sponsorship from the Swannanoa Valley Museum and the Asheville History Center.
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Yesterday I heard Willow Allen, author of the Appalachian Trail memoir, Summoning the Mountains, speak at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Swannanoa Valley about life “On the Path.” She spoke about lessons learned from her experience through-hiking the AT and how they can be applied to all of us, as we journey through the world. Hearing her speak reminded me of the collaborative process that we shared when I made the video trailer for Willow’s book. There are 3 stages to video production. Pre-production, production, and post-production. And like so much of everything in life, the planning that goes into the pre-production ensures that the other stages go much more smoothly. In today’s blog post, I will talk about the work that goes into the pre-production process. Pre-production First, I start with a brainstorming session where I listen to the client to get a sense of the overall message, emotional tone, and arc of the digital story they want to tell. This is where we list some of the elements that might be included- possible images, sounds, music, quotes, and feelings that we want to evoke. Willow knew she wanted specific things like the sound of chimes and pictures of cairns, rough stacks of stones that are often found along the AT. We looked at video book trailers of other women hikers and discussed what we liked and how we wanted hers to be different. We agreed to use passages directly from her memoir to give people a sense of both her writing and her journey. I wanted the video to take viewers on the full hike, from the sublime to the deeply uncomfortable. I especially remembered the passages where she wrote about the discomfort of hiking for days in the rain. I suggested that we frame the video with the rhythm of the day- depicting scenes from the trail in the early morning, afternoon and night, which would echo the different stages of her journey. Brainstorming leads to the next part of the pre-production process, script creation. When I work with a client to create a digital story, we work together to create a video script. The script will usually change during production but I’ve found that it is vitally important to put specific concepts on paper. It’s one way to ensure that we have a shared vision. It’s also a powerful tool to help clients uncover what it is they want to say. After our initial meeting, Willow selected passages from her book that we could use as the voice-over narration for the story. After editing her selections, I created a script which included the proposed voice-over and suggested images that might accompany it. Video scripts typically consist of two columns with the audio on one side of the page and the images on the other. Once approved by the client, I use the script to create a shot list of the footage we need to capture when we go out to film. Willow and I knew we needed lots of different shots of her hiking and climbing but also doing the other types of activities that life on the trail entails, like setting up her tent, cooking food, reading at night, and writing in her journal. We also knew that we wanted to capture her doing these things at different times of the day. We’d need to schedule shoots for early morning, afternoon and night. Plus try to get the all important rain shots. With our script, shot list, and production calendar in hand we were ready for phase 2- Production. In next week’s blog post, I’ll write about the Production process. Hard to believe that it was a year ago when I had the pleasure of filming the Bring Back the Monarchs art awareness events, created by Libba Tracey at the Black Mountain Center for the Arts. Bring Back the Monarchs was designed to raise awareness about the threat of species collapse in the Monarch butterfly population and the simple steps that people can take to help the Monarchs survive. It was great fun to capture children from three different schools trying on their butterfly wings, migrating from the Town Square to the arts center, and learning about the Monarch butterfly life cycle. Happy that the video I made was shown at the Black Mountain Board of Alderman meeting and helped convince town leaders to make Black Mountain a butterfly corridor, increasing the types of plants Monarchs' need to survive. You can see the video on my sample work page.
This fall's program looks at the role of bees in our lives and the ways in which their existence is also in danger. A month-long bee awareness event, What's the Buzz about Bees? began last week with an art exhibit showcasing more than 25 artists working in a wide range of mediums from water color to oil and glass, all featuring one or more of the worlds 20,000 bee species. It is a gorgeous show. I hope you can check it out. The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, in Durham NC is a kind of documentary heaven for those of us who want to spend sunny spring days inside a darkened theater from morning till night. The event usually hosts over 100 films and filmmakers, giving viewers their first chance to see next year's most talked about new doc films that are making the festival rounds. That's where I first saw some of my favorite documentary films including The Queen of Versailles, Detropia, Chasing Ice and others. As if that weren't enough, there are usually panel discussions with filmmakers after each screening and open discussions with industry folks who wrestle with questions like ethics in documentary film making or the shifting sands of distribution rights. Plus this is a festival that shows older films via theme and guest curator slots- so there is a chance to see important older doc films that might not be available otherwise. And did I mention that it is just plain fun? It's coming up soon- April 10th- so grab some popcorn and go!
More info about Full Frame here. Proud that the video I made, "Bring Back the Monarchs" was shown at the Black Mountain Board of Alderman meeting on Monday and helped to demonstrate the need for everyone to take action to save the Monarch butterfly population. The town voted to support the "Bring Back the Monarchs" community arts and awareness project in the future and to plant milkweed corridors in order to make Black Mountain even more butterfly friendly and a place where Monarchs can get needed nutrition for their long journey. Here is a screen shot from the video, showing the children trying out their butterfly wings before they "migrate" through downtown.
It wasn't until I began documenting "Bring Back the Monarchs," a series of events put on by the Black Mountain Center for the Arts that I understood how perilously close Monarch butterflies are to extinction. 10 years ago a billion Monarchs would roost in the forests of Mexico. In 2014 the numbers dropped to 33.5 million. Artist Libba Tracy and the Black Mountain Center for the Arts responded to this threat with an art exhibit, public education programs, farm tours, and the "migration" of school children dressed in butterfly wings through downtown Black Mountain. I'm making a video to raise awareness of the butterfly's plight as well as what can be done to "Bring Back the Monarchs." Back from my second trip to Durham and the Center for Documentary Studies this summer, this time to attend the Digging In artists retreat. Led by the media gurus from The Big Shed documentary producers from all over the country gathered to make the time to work on their own projects. One of the highlights for me was our morning small group meetings where we presented our raw work for feedback and left with a plan for the rest of the day. What a pleasure to see and hear people's stories being shaped. It occurs to me that unlike theater, so much of this documentary work is a solo process. Bearing witness to the stages of development that every story or project goes through, is a truly valuable thing. Here's a picture of notes about the Beacon doc I've been working on, Blanket Town, after a fruitful meeting with NPR producer, Lisa Morehouse. Just back from one of my favorite places, Durham N.C. and the innovative Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. Took another one of their Summer Institutes- an intense and exhilarating six days of wall to wall classes, talks, viewings and general documentary fun.
If you're not familiar with CDS, they are the first institution in the United States dedicated to the preservation and practice of the American documentary tradition. And the gathering place for deep, rich conversation between students, artists, faculty and everyone else who wanders through, is the porch, seen here. Complete with rocking chairs. I don't get a lot of sleep when I am there, but I learn a lot. For more information on the Center for Documentary Studies, see the link below. http://documentarystudies.duke.edu/abou |
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