by Paulette Hackman, Director, Lunenburg Seaside Craft School

“If you had told me then that this is how my life would be,” said a smiling Carol Ann Harvey-Clark, one day last fall, “I would’ve said ‘You’re out of your tree!’”

One would think, after all, that Carol had gotten used to the change in direction her life’s work had taken. It had been 16 years since she’d left her profession as a nurse to become the proprietor of a busy rug hooking studio in scenic Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. Those years had seen her evolve as a rug hooker, earn her certification as a McGowan teacher, provide local hookers the materials and instruction needed for their craft, and offer visitors the largest selection of hooked mats in Atlantic Canada to admire or purchase.

In short she’d created a full life out of her art.

But there was one more major change coming down the road for Carol and her pretty little studio/gallery.

Early summer in 2006, Spruce Top Rug Hooking Studio morphed into a museum. An économusée to be precise. It became a member of the International Économusée Network Society, thus taking a place on a map, from Quebec to the Atlantic provinces, of 40-plus others in the organization. Representing the craft of rug hooking, it joined the growing network of other  économusées created for tourists to meet local artisans, to see how their craft is done, to learn about its heritage within the culture and context its region, to buy its products and even participate in hands-on workshops.

Being selected for the Society bestows honor upon an artisan and his or her reputation and respect for a craft’s heritage. It also serves to heighten awareness of the craft’s practice today. Eligibility is based upon demonstrated business acumen, expert hands-on knowledge of a craft, items for sale of outstanding craftsmanship (in particular emphasizing the craft of the artisan herself), and location on a tourist route. Perhaps most of all, a keen and sincere interest in welcoming and educating visitors is required. In other words, hosting an économusée is no job for a prima donna holed up in her studio.

Of no small matter, either, is the trust placed in the selected business to be self-sustaining. The process of creating an économusée—for Spruce Top, a timeline of 18 months—represents a goodly financial investment from the Society. To maintain consistency in its standards, the Society assigns architects, marketing and advertising specialists, graphic artists and carpenters to each project once approved. Executive Director of the Atlantic Network of the Économusée Society, Thomas Young, oversaw the project at Spruce Top.

Explaining the exhibit planning stage, he said, “Actual storyboards are developed to guide installations and signage in the presentation of interpretive information about the craft. This information will range from its history, its techniques, its economic role in the region, to its modern day profile.”

During this phase, the society hires an independent researcher to write up a narrative covering these subjects. For the rug hooking économusée, the book that came out of this research is titled, From Rags to Riches: The Story of Rug Hooking in Atlantic Canada, a 62-page treatment by Hillary Lindsay.

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So what distinguishes the old Spruce Top Rug Hooking Studio from the new Spruce Top Rug Économusée?  In layout, plenty. In personality, very little. And that is how it’s supposed to be. The wood frame cottage from the 1880s with its blue clapboards, white trim, and red doors matching the colors of the Spruce Top logo, has always been a warm rug hooking studio and gallery. One might sense its development has been organic, very much the making of its owner and an inclusive attitude toward the craft she practices.

This meshes well with the concept behind the économusée idea. As Young explained, “Instead of the way a traditional museum would handle the various perspectives in looking at a craft, we’ve brought it into a craftsperson’s home or work environment. We feel it’s a much better way of presenting it because all of the elements are integrated there into real life.”         

So, for instance, after a visitor has parked under a big tree on the gravelly horseshoe driveway, she would approach Spruce Top from the side door entrance. On a sunny day, she might say hello to Carol as she’s hanging up some wool on the clothes line attached to the house. Otherwise, through the small mud room, she’ll enter the official “welcoming area” and spot her there.

As required in some form for all économusées, the kitchen, of course, is a universally recognized welcoming area and a hub of activity for the rug hooking craft. It is the center for all that’s involved in dyeing as well as numerous functions done at the kitchen table.

So, say our visitor immediately comes in contact with the artisan stirring up a batch of dye or cutting strips from her cutter clamped on the counter. Should the visitor feel she has happened upon work-in-progress…well, that is actually the point. Here is opportunity immediately for the visitor and the artisan to interact over whatever is taking place. She will see signs that address and reassure her curiosity. Where did hooking come from? Is it hard to learn? How are mats priced? Who makes them now? Can they be used on the floor?

She will also notice a few stages of the pattern-making process. On the wall, first, a line drawing of a house; then the drawing enlarged and put on trac-a-pat; and last, the image transferred to linen and placed on the frame ready to be hooked.

After the welcome, our visitor will be encouraged by Carol to roam through the rooms and call her for any questions or help.

Spruce Top’s bottom floor offers two gallery rooms:  one for mats of floral designs; the other, showcasing pictorials and geometrics. Handsome panels serve as “captions” for the type of mat in both of these galleries and silky transparent banners carry the friendly instruction to “please handle” the rugs. As are all économusées, Spruce Top is a bilingual establishment so all signs are in French as well as in English. A tribute to those aforementioned planning professionals, a visitor never feels bombarded by too much signage.    

In addition to contributing sweat labor in the form of painting the interior eight rooms, Carol also contributed the design for hanging her very large stock of hooked mats. On a heavy-duty wall mount, a series of black-painted blocks atop one another. Each once cradles a thick dowel on to which slides several rings clipped on to the edge of a particular mat. This system enables a leisure browse through a sizeable grouping. Mats may also be taken down and viewed on the floor. This system, however, cannot accommodate the total collection per room. Merchandizing experts having pointed out “that items on the floor are devalued”---strange talk in rug hooking circles—additional display space is provided on a bench type construction topped with slanted slats.

Carol has an inclusive philosophy toward her gallery. This means hers is a gallery that is not juried; it is open to all completed rugs with hookers setting their own prices. “This is sometimes why people ask me why a small rug is more expensive than a larger one. But I feel strongly about letting people set their own prices. Only they should set the value of something they’ve created,” she said.

Passing out of the two gallery rooms, our visitor will pass an elegant hallway while heading for the staircase. The hallway is designated for hookings deemed “out of the ordinary,” a revolving showcase of honor.

Upstairs, she will encounter two rooms dedicated to the craft’s heritage. One features a map of Atlantic Canada (the provinces of New Brunswick, PEI, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia) painted in different colors on the ceiling’s cozy pitch. Areas of distinctive hooking styles are numbered and matched with corresponding mats displayed below on a low rail. Here, for instance, a visitor will learn that in Newfoundland mats are hooked with bright colors and in Lunenburg County (Nova Scotia) mats are worked across in straight rows.

The other heritage room houses an antique cabinet for dyes, an interesting display of Carol’s collection of hooks, one of those feed bags from back in the day, an old rug laced on to a large, standing frame, as well as other artifacts of the craft.          

The second floor also offers our visitor an excellent resource center, also in keeping with the specs of all économusées. Spruce Top’s resource center offers many binders filled with magazines, books and newsletters and more. A sitting area welcomes a leisurely browse through the materials.

Back down the stairs, and entering the last room, our visitor runs smack into—what else?—the gift shop of course. Économusées call their gift shops boutique; and for many the rug hooker it would be the first stop. Spruce Top’s shop is loaded with kits for the newly inspired beginner; dozens of patterns, and a rainbow assortment of dyed wools; frames of assorted types and sizes and ditto, hooks; backing materials and wools on the bolt; books, magazines and dye manuals galore; hooked novelties and accessories. In keeping with the nature of a cottage business, many of these items—patterns and swatches, for instance—are created on site or, in the case of some frames, by a local woodworker.

To Carol, the object of becoming an économusée is to heighten awareness of rug hooking and thereby maintain its presence in the continuum of its heritage.

With the making of the museum completed, one of her main priorities is to get the region’s children and seniors there. “There are a lot of people who share this heritage. People are always coming up to me—men and women—saying they remember hooking from when they were children. If more people knew [or remembered] it, more would be doing it.”

According to Tom Young, once in the network artisans experience more traffic. (See sidebar for information about designing your own économusée circuit). In business parlance, the économusée is labeled a “cultural tourism product.”  

Along these lines, Carol and other members pay dues to the Society which go toward collective advertising costs and other promotions. They also participate routinely in phone conferencing to share business ideas. Since only one representative per craft is selected for inclusion into the network, competition is kept to a minimum, thereby encouraging support and cross-promotion. “It’s really like being in a family,” said Carol.

As recent as it is to the network, Carol believes Spruce Top has already attracted more visitors than might normally find her. Visitors, she said, spend most of their time looking at the rugs. For some, it is the fist time they’ve encountered a hooked rug. “Often,” she said, “they have them mixed up with that latch hook project everyone seems to have done at some time or another.” If someone from out of town indicates a strong interest in learning the craft, she will do her best to help people hook up with teaches, guilds, or just others hookers in their area.

“They say every ten years a business ought to re-invent itself,” said Carol. ““This process has been a wonderful adventure.”

Economusee Network — Canada We craft an experience into every product

From such indulgent goodies as chocolate, butter, single malt scotch, bread, and wine to objects of art crafted from fiber, metal, textiles, clay and wood—more than 40 economusees showcase a given craft’s how-to and heritage, and provide marketplaces for their distinctive products throughout Quebec and the Atlantic provinces. Ontario will soon be contributing its list of cottage businesses to this innovative cultural tourism network in Canada.

Capitalizing on the simple pleasure of a good “show and tell”—as well as the natural curiosity inherent in a tourist’s draw to a region, the International Economusee Network Society originated in 1992, the brainchild of Dr. Cyril Simard, the Society’s president and chief executive officer.

Quoting from its brochure, the mission of the Economusee Network “is to make the public aware of the necessity of preserving traditional know-how that bears witness to the past and forges history.”

An unabashed booster myself as the result of visiting several first rate economusees, I strongly recommend going out of your way to visit a few of these gems next time you’re in eastern Canada. Plan ahead and check out the “tourism circuits” outlined on the organization’s website.

For complete information about this interesting way of sightseeing, visit our web site. There you will find a complete list of participating artisans and even suggested travel “circuits.”