Appalachian Artistry

Editor's Note: This article updates a feature that originally appeared in the May/June 1997 issue of Rural Cooperatives.

        They're tucked away among the hills and hollows of West Virginia's rural coal mining country: 300 rural artisans preserving part of America’s cultural heritage through the country quilts they produce for the Cabin Creek Quilters Cooperative.
        The quilters maintain their cooperative headquarters in the small community of Malden, just east of the state capitol of Charleston, in south central West Virginia. Interstate highways crisscross the state at that junction.
        Ninety percent of the craft cooperative members are women, and 50 to 150 are active at one time, depending upon the season. With the coming of spring, the attention of members turns to gardening, but as winter approaches the craft projects again stir their interest as a way to generate supplemental income for their families.

Velma Cardwell puts the finishing touches on a quilt that will be marketed through Cabin Creek. the co-op has 300 members, about half of whom are actively producing quilts at any one time.

Vivian Gillespie, who chairs the 11-member board of directors, has about 20 years' experience with the cooperative. Like many other members, her husband is a coal miner. The extra income from quilts have kept many families alive in the community, both during the heydays of the mines and later when the coal supply played out. When Cabin Creek was formed in the early 1970s, the state had 75,000 people working in the mines, but today employment in the mines has dwindled to 25,000.

        A profile of the cooperative's typical member is a woman in her late 50s, living in a rural area, and has income that places her close to the poverty level. Many of the older members receive Social Security. Some of the younger ones are either unemployed or marginally employed.
        Since the bylaw change in 1991, the coop's board has been comprised of six seamstresses and five professional members, explained James Thiebeault, the cooperative's representative and manager. While it keeps the voting majority in the hands of the stitchers, the professionals - including an accountant, lawyer, and educator - bring valuable perspectives from their experiences to the board," he said.
        Thiebeault came to West Virginia in 1970 from Massachusetts, assigned by Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) to survey air and water pollution in the small mining town of Cabin Creek, where acid from the strip mines had seeped into the water of home wells.
        As he made the rounds from home to home, the older women began to show him the quilts they and their ancestors had made. The meager income they earned from the quilts helped make ends meet when checks from coal mining were lean.
        Seeing the beauty of their work and yet the low prices prompted him to search for a business structure for a quilting enterprise. Instead of a needle and thimble, he contributed business and marketing skills. It seemed that a quilter-owned cooperative, complete with member-governance structure, would fill the need to invigorate the incomes of these rural Americans.
        "The ladies broke all the rules in forming the cooperative," he said. 'They understood the need to produce the highest quality crafts and they were hard on themselves in doing so," Thiebeault recalled.
        'With only a few television sets in the community at the time, much of the time was spent spinning verbal yams of the early quilting days. These people impressed me. They had an historical connection to pioneer life. Their fascinating oral traditions were woven into their quilts," he said.

      Thiebeault became the cooperative's representative and stayed on until 1976, when he left to pursue other uses of his graduate degree in education. He re-entered the picture in 1991 while he was involved in historical preservation in West Virginia. He soon was working with the cooperative to help them find a new headquarters that would befit such a vital link to West Virginia's past.
        "We identified a local historical house that would fit the cooperative's needs, although it was beyond the cooperative's financial ability to purchase," he recalled. Thiebeault coupled his local historical society interests with a Pittsburgh foundation grant to secure sufficient financing to cover the purchase.
        The pink house with blue teal decorations became the cooperative's headquarters and retail shop. "The move to our new historic setting complimented our efforts to draw more tourist business."
     Membership in the Cabin Creek Quilts cooperative is open to West Virginia residents. To join, the stitcher must provide a sample of her work and then supply the cooperative with at least $100 of saleable crafts per year.

James Thiebault, manager of the Cabin Creek Quilters Cooperative, displays some of the co-op's latest additions outside the co-op headquarters in Charleston, West Virginia. (USDA Photos by Ken Hammond.)

       "Our older directors, like Mrs. Gillespie, provide a different perspective from having seen the fluctuations in the cooperative's business-been there, done that and know what it takes to keep going in down cycles like we have now," Thiebeault said. 'The market is basically soft for textile crafts produced by home stitchers because of the flood of cheaper imports.
        "To counter that," said Thiebeault, "we emphasize our rural American tradition and heritage found in these quilts and other craft items we produce. And in recent years, that heritage has been tied to tourism in the state."
        Thiebeault adds, "Our 1840-vintage house that serves as the cooperative's headquarters is itself a historic attraction. The cooperative uses six of the eight rooms. The house has large porches on which women can sit in rocking chairs and demonstrate their craft while stitching on the quilts. We display 60 full-size quilts and 100 baby quilts in our showroom and also offer exhibit space to a local glass factory.

        Tourists are just beginning to find the co-op thanks to an interstate highway sign installed earlier this year by the state department of transportation. It directs tourists to the small community and cooperative site. We applied for it five years ago and they had to check us out for a variety of features such as being wheel-chair accessible.
        "We're seeing a daily trickle of people and can handle busloads if notified in advance," Thiebeault said. "What we have to offer is therapeutic - a break from people's busy lives and the intensity of interstate highway travel. We show life as a stitch at a time. Visitors develop an unexpected interest in the rural tradition being preserved by the cooperative.
        "While cheaper imports are available, the tourists sense the quality, personal time, and heritage woven into these quilts and the $800 price becomes a cultural thing that means something to people. We put it in a white drawstring bag to protect it rather than a plastic bag in which it can rot.
        "While we're interested in selling the quilts, we don't use a hard-sell approach with the tourists because we're also interested in providing information about our tradition and heritage handed down from one generation to another," he said.

        The co-op doesn't have the staff capability to produce a newsletter right now, but is trying to maintain member interest with training. In addition to conducting training at its Malden headquarters, it also takes training sessions to rural communities. In one instance, the co-op rented a hall in a county seat town and sent in an instructor to work with people on a current project.
        "It's expensive to do that but we want to provide employment to low-income people and preserve the traditional art that's part of their heritage. We can bring 125 people up to our standards, even though some might later drift away from us. We have helped preserve part of their heritage," he said.
        In another attempt to maintain member interest, the cooperative encourages members to read magazines to see what's happening on national and international markets and bring in new ideas at weekly sessions conducted at the headquarters for the cooperative to adapt on new projects. A group of about eight members bring a lunch and make samples for use by the cooperative in developing new products.
        Periodically, the co-op brings in new equipment so members can be more productive and efficient. "We combine a social atmosphere with home sewing and although we can't provide huge volumes right now, we need to consider what home sewing will look like in 10 years," he said.