Busy Hands, Open Hearts

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UNC Asheville Public Health Graduate Students Complete Novel Research With Craft and Communities in WNC

Craft can, in many ways, be a vehicle for community building. It happens when a group of people settle into easy conversation, their hands busy with a knitting project. Or when the knowledge of basket weaving is passed from generation to generation. In a class of pottery students, they share ideas and in doing so, form a community.

Local artist Andi Gelsthorpe grew up snapping beans and shucking corn with her family, seated in a circle, connecting with each other over a shared task. So, when she hosted fabric tearing sessions for the community to help create her Ephemeral Labyrinth installation, she made sure participants were seated together in a circle.

The structure may be familiar to anyone who has attended a quilting bee, or a knitting circle, a pottery class, or even a paint n' sip event. But in what ways does this impact our health, both on an individual and community level?

UNC Asheville public health graduate student Isla Neel reports the way Gelsthorpe's tearing sessions allow participants to "get back into their bodies" by providing an interactive and inviting community space as an alternative tool to talk therapy.

Neel wrote in her artist portrait of Gelsthorpe as part of the Craft and Community Health, Wellbeing and Vitality report:

"Andi feels strongly that creativity is a human birthright. People need open access to beautiful spaces, and the labyrinth installation was intentionally built by the community, for the community."

To create this report, six graduate students in the UNC Asheville-UNC Gillings Master of Public Health (MPH) program were paired with six Community Vitality Fellows, artists with fellowships from the Center for Craft, to study alongside them for a semester.

During this exploratory research partnership between the MPH program and Center for Craft, students Isla Neel, Claire Rice, Juhi Barot, Michael Ratliff, Kerstan Nealy and Caralee Sadler Farr studied the ways craft benefits community health, under the tutelage of Ameena Batada, co-director of the MPH program and professor of health and wellness.

Each student completed interviews with the Fellow they were paired with to write an Artist Portrait of them, documenting the work they do and the specific ways it connects to their community's wellbeing. Together, the class created a collective framework of the patterns and connections among the craft artists, processes, and outcomes related to individual and community wellbeing.

Anna Helgeson, grant program manager, Community Vitality at the Center for Craft, said this report can act as a measure of proof to the impact of craft, something the artists can use to promote their work and garner further funding and support.

"Having this study is a resource for artists to be able to sustain and maintain a healthy practice," Helgeson said. "It was really fun to see the selected artists and the applicants for the program shift their thinking around what their practice means and what their practice does. Some weren't necessarily doing community-based health work, and they were able to fold that into the vocabulary that they use to describe their work and be able to contextualize their work in a different way. While sometimes they are making aesthetically pleasing objects, there's more to it than that."

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One of the commonalities between public health and craft, particularly as it relates to community, is that it is often tied to place. Where you live often informs the type of community you belong to, and gives context to the issues faced by the people within it and the approaches for improving and sustaining quality of life.

The UNC Asheville-UNC Gillings MPH program, concentrates on place-based health, centering people and their communities as the catalyst for transforming systems to promote wellbeing for all. It features small cohorts of students that learn from interdisciplinary faculty and real-world experience to develop strong relationships among their community, and with those from other sectors, political ideologies, and disciplines.

In keeping with the core principles of the program, the class utilized "a humanistic way of engaging together, centering people and process over "objective" measurement. This approach is consistent with elements of participatory action research (par) and community-based participatory research and action (cbrpr-a)," according to the Craft and Community report.

"I really appreciate Ameena bringing us this concept of community-based participatory research methods where the community itself are the people who are creating a research question, designing the research, conducting the research, analyzing it, and then disseminating it," said MPH student Caralee Sadler Farr. "I think it's powerful and currently the most ethical way for research to be done."

Some other elements of the place-based program include participating in community-based projects and attending symposiums like Rooted in the Mountains, where students learn about health benefits tied to indigenous culture and spirituality.

"This public health program in particular offers a really unique perspective into public health and community health. I really enjoyed this project and partnership. It's something I never would have expected out of getting a master's in public health," Neel said.

Both Sadler Farr and Neel said the place-based concentration with location in Asheville was a big draw of the program

"I was planning to do the public health program in Chapel Hill, but really didn't want to move. I've lived here for many years, I grew up in this area," Neel said. "It's been really easy for me to identify with the idea of place-based health. I'm comfortable thinking about public health here because it's a community that I'm a part of. The things that we do [in the MPH program] don't feel abstract or random. It's very much part of my life."

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The popularity or tradition of certain crafts can also be determined regionally. Quilting, for example, has extensive roots in the Appalachian region, as do pottery and basket weaving.

"A lot of crafts are very material focused and all the historic craft mediums are earthbound. If you think about pottery, there is an attention to where that clay comes from," Helgeson said. "The materials are very important and frequently contribute to reasons why a certain tradition exists in a certain place."

Craft can also be about creating functional items for everyday use: mugs, clothes, even brooms. The Cowee School Arts & Heritage Center, one of the fellows, endeavors to preserve the crafting heritage functional crafting in the Southern Appalachian region by providing a learning community.

"One of the most beautiful things about craft is it is inescapable. We have the choice of either having objects that tether us to other people and to histories," said Helgeson.

"They become these anchors for storytelling as well, crafted objects, these reminders of either the creation process, the community or the people that the objects connect you to."

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Several of the artist fellows find connection to their culture and history through craft. Luis Alvaro Sahagun Nuño creates art that "seeks to disrupt colonial and white supremacist frameworks, cultivating community healing and supporting those who sit at the intersections of worlds" according to MPH student Kerstan Nealy. Jakeli Swimmer creates satirical cartoons that capture facets of native life and language, connecting generations and preserving cultural identity. Elizabeth Ivey explores black life, love and spirituality through her art, while creating safe spaces for other BIPOC women to craft together.

"There is something inherent to craft and creation that gives a sense of belonging, peace, place, nostalgia," said MPH student Claire Rice.

That sense of belonging, of cultural affirmation, and connection can translate to improvements in individual and community health.

Many of the artists found craft to be channels for vulnerability, where occupied hands and the relaxation that comes with creating allowed people to open up and access emotions they may not otherwise, Sadler Farr said.

It may also be a method to process painful experiences. Tyler Deal, one of the fellows and a licensed clinical mental health clinician (LCMHC), utilizes visual journaling to help people who have experienced perinatal loss and trauma. Additionally, it allows for the sharing of experience and connection. Sadler Farr, who was paired with Deal for the project, experienced perinatal loss herself during her research.

"It's comforting to not feel alone in it. The silence around it almost makes it feel like it should be shameful and I think speaking up about it helps remove that stigma," Sadler Farr said. "That's one reason I've decided to be very open about it. If you remove stigma, people may be more likely to reach out for help and community."

Sadler Farr said she too turned to craft as a way of processing grief, starting to knit a blanket intended for a "rainbow baby."

"Since taking the class I feel like making space for craft in my life is no longer optional," Sadler Farr said. "It's something I need to do, similar to exercise or eating well."

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The MPH program is preparing interdisciplinary, conscientious public health professionals who understand that health, especially community vitality, is a holistic, interconnected thing.

"That's being human," Sadler Farr said, "We are fluid, multidimensional creative human beings and we should encourage those parts of us."

The hope is that this research, and this program at large, will create a positive ripple effect through the communities that the participants, both students and artists, are part of.

"The ways that craft is connected to health and wellbeing is a very deep and broad tapestry. That's what makes it really exciting, and a rich area for exploration and further research," Helgeson said. "It seems like just a small collaboration between six students and six artists, but the ripples this has had is really incredible."

"Moving forward, it'll be in their mindset thinking about craft. And for the makers, it'll be in their mindset thinking about public health and wellness. Those are going to have unfolding impacts as they all go on to do their future work."

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