Crafts net a quarter of the dollars that shoes do and nearly half of what America spends on magazines. And WNC, home to a large percentage of the nation s crafts artisans, brings home a lot of that money, organizers of Monday's event said. The survey, which the association released Monday, was conducted last year by Appalachian State University s Center for Business Research. It sent the questionnaires to 83,200 craft organizations and artists in the United States and received 7,263 useable responses. That s four times the professional dancers and one-fifth the number of designers.
Many artists hold second jobs.
Two-thirds of them work alone, though statistics show that those with employees make three times as much. Two out of three artists are women. But Huttunen said that on her drives through small towns throughout the area, she s seeing more and more craft shops and galleries. Now the show has space for 1,200 exhibitors, and it turns away about 6,000 more, she said. Interest in crafts has survived slow economic times like the ones the country is experiencing now, Ross said.