ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 29, 1996 TAG: 9612300008
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: FLOYD
SOURCE: SALLY HARRIS SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES
The old is meeting the new once again in Floyd County.
Artisans who create their crafts by hand as has been done for centuries are turning to the most modern of marketing strategies: the World Wide Web.
"The idea was stirring in all our heads at the same time," said Alex Funk, a self-employed graphics artist with "a lot of electronics experience." He met with several others this past summer and launched Floyd's artists into the electronic age.
The group included David Sower of Advanced Business Computer Service, poet and essayist Will Bason, and Ed Gralla, a Floyd County farmer who sells products from his organically fed goats. Sower had the Web space and was willing be host to the pages. Funk designed many of the pages of the individual artists.
They can now be found on line under the humorous slogan: "Floyd's Post-Industrial Park."
"I didn't know anything about doing Web pages," Funk said, "but once I did the first one, I just kept going." He did all the artisans' pages except the ones hosted by the BEV-Net, which were done by Ed Schwartz of the New River Arts Council. The others are on line through Geocities, a company that provides free Web space for individuals and nonprofit groups .
The group decided that people living or active in Floyd County could have a page if they created their own artwork or crafts, did not have their own computer, and did not have their own storefront.
The traditional way of selling crafts at crafts festivals "drains the pocketbook and the time they could be using to create more things to sell," Funk said. "The ones we're doing this for don't have enough money to buy their own computers and no way to get on the Internet. We're making this available because it doesn't cost us anything."
Willow, a Floyd craftswoman who makes up half of the Lizard and Willow mother-daughter team that creates clay totem necklaces and fetishes, said the two of them will still go to crafts festivals, but probably won't have to do as many. "It's a lot of work to pack everything up and set it up and, three days later, take it all down," she said.
That home page of Floyd's Post-Industrial Park includes a list of some 20 artistic ventures, ranging from digital photography, to handcrafted silver jewelry to the Tarot card system based on Hawaiian mythology presented by Honua International's Kalama Becker. The list is continuously being expanded.
In the future, the site will include samples of the works and movies about how the artisans have developed their crafts. The page also includes links to the Arts Council of the Blue Ridge and the Floyd County Chamber of Commerce.
From this list, the visitor can go on to view home pages of many of the artisans. A visit to Starroot's home page, for example, tells the visitor that she is a musician and composer "working as a galactic life artist, inspired by native global artforms, Mayan calendrics and planet art." A native of Germany, Starroot came to this country in 1986 "on a spiritual vision quest" and found her way to Floyd after a street-musician's gig in Boston and a teaching job at an alternative school and spiritual art community in Tennessee.
Starroot has two audiotapes, "Follow the Light: Earth and Heartsongs," and "Yellow Magnetic Sun," which she calls "a musical journey, based on the Mayan Galactic timekeeping system and the cosmic attunement of the planets in our solar system."
A trip to Funk's Web page offers a variety of paths to follow, from a discussion of the historicity of Jesus to computer services ranging from graphics arts and documentation services to World Wide Web services and electronic design.
Sower, who had worked as manager of Necessary Trading Co. of New Castle, is the Webmaster for the on-line Floyd artists. A visit to this former Wisconsonite's home page will lead to topics such as environmental activism, alternative energy, intentional communities, sustainable agriculture and the Internet.
The newest member of the on-line artisans is Monika Van Rest, who creates video documentaries such as her Windows to the World Series "designed to promote the arts and cultural understanding worldwide." The series includes "Blue Ridge Mountain Memories" and "The Voices of Spring: 'Plantin' By the Signs' and other Mountain Customs."
A few of the other offerings on the list include: Woodsong Cottage Herbals by Kathryn Delauney and Rob Yard; custom silversmithing by Salamander Creations of Bink and Aine Hawthorne; Maple Hollow Crafts by "Sun" Ray Jacobs, who makes drums and Shaker lanterns; as well as two women who specialize in massage.
Funk believes the Internet and World Wide Web "are going to be used increasingly, not to find out things on the other side of the world, but to find out things happening in our own neighborhood." An example would be the special of the day at the local restaurant, which can't afford other advertising.
Floyd's Post-Industrial Park is going on line to allow just that kind of exposure for Floyd County artisans and crafts people.
The home page can be reached through:
http://www.geocities.com/
TheTropics/1179/crafts.htm
LENGTH: Medium: 99 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. A visit to Starroot's home page tells the visitorby CNBthat she is a musician and composer "working as a galactic life
artist, inspired by native global artforms, Mayan calendrics and
planet art." 2. The home page of Salamander Creations. color