New Artisan Group Website

Today, Lisa Nortz, Silver Bench Jewelry, emailed me about the following website that she and nine others, from the Tug Hill region, have created as a group marketing tool.

Nice job! Great photos of their works! These are well-established, reliable artisans and artists, with either and/or established wholesale accounts and loyal retail customers.

Welcome to the www.AdirondackArtisansGuild.com.

The following product descriptions are taken directly from their Adirondack Artisans Guild website:

The Basket Lady
Marcia Waligory
Every basket is hand crafted by The Basket Lady herself, putting her experience, personal attention, and the best quality materials in each and every basket.

The Silver Bench
Lisa Nortz
Hand constructed and personally designed sterling silver and 18K gold jewelry.
Specializing in handmade chains, at least 30 styles offered as well as cuff bracelets, pendants & earrings, all with an artists attention to detail.

Harmony All Natural Soaps & Oils
Carrie Sweredoski
The Harmony Collection includes premium handcrafted soaps & aromatherapy products for bath, beauty and the home environment. Our products are created with the finest all natural ingredients available.

Stonehouse Silversmiths
Pat & Butch Bramhall
Our baskets are made using sterling, pure silver and solid high karat gold.
They are inspired by Northeast Native American and New England Shaker baskets of black ash splints.

The Wild Inside
Karan Marie Cross
Fun and funky to upscale and traditional, designs from The Wild Inside are always a personal statement.
Don't be a "Plain Chain" ... Express Yourself!

HEIRLOOMS
Michael Barsuglia &
Lis Barsuglia-Madsen
Gifts from Nature
Woven or Knitted
Just for You!
Hand bags, hats, scarves, shawls, sweaters, table runners, rugs and more.

Gallery 812
Casandra Lyndaker
Fine Art Originals & Giclee Prints
Capturing the spirit of nature & expressing images of rural Adirondack life with watercolors.

Paradise Found
Susan O'Keefe
Created from pure beeswax harvested from a local apiary, these one-of-a-kind candles will light your kingly halls and provide the only all natural air purification system known to mankind.
Enter the wisdom of the bee. Nature's Bounty. Sensible Luxury.

Garden Thyme Herbs
Sharon Stewart
Wonderful natural, handcrafted herbal products. Our products are all "tried and true" since we have been making and selling them for over 20 years.
It is our hope that you will join us in our journey by trying to live as simply and naturally as possible.

Soft Maple Designs
Mary Ellen Tyner
Unique and distinctive product designs by a Fashion Institute of Technology graduate, including decoupage plates and other decorative items.

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Nonprofit Retail Stores/Gallery Sales Survey Due 20th

Hello CODA members and friends,

This is a final reminder/plea to ask for your help in analyzing nonprofit retail stores/galleries. We will close the survey one week from today, July 20, 2006. Please take a few minutes to fill in your information. THANKS

Nonprofit Retail Store Profile Survey link: http://www.codacraft.org/pages/news/retail_survey/retail_survey.asp

Dear Colleagues,

How are your retail sales these days? Feeling the pinch of higher gas prices, changes in institution traffic, or big box competition? Do you really know how your operation compares to its peers?

So much research and reference material exists about for profit gallery and gift shop retail sales, but there is little comparison of nonprofit gallery, gift and museum shops. Here is an opportunity to benchmark your craft focused organization’s retail operation against collegial groups around the country.

The Retail Store Profile developed by Society for Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh and facilitated by the Craft Organization Development Association will let you know where you stand among your nonprofit peers.

The information collected will be shared in spreadsheet style with the survey participants and released publicly only in aggregate with no organization information. This way you can immediately do the math to retrieve information in the survey that is of interest to you, or you can wait for the aggregate results of our industry to be released by CODA.

I encourage you to take a few moments to complete the nonprofit store survey so that we may all improve our knowledge about retail operations in our sector and continue to build flourishing enterprises in support of our missions.

Wishing us all the best success,

Julie Farr

Executive Director

Society for Contemporary Craft



Linda Van Trump
Managing Director
Craft Organization Development Association