In the quiet hours of the evening, as most students and faculty are finishing up their school and work days, NC State’s Crafts Center comes alive. Humming with the sounds of creativity in the making, the Crafts Center welcomes artists of all skill levels to make time for their creative passion. Whether it be jewelry making, photography or woodworking, the center is well-equipped with materials, an inviting atmosphere and experienced artists — all of which work to help one’s long-held arts dreams come true. Technician had the pleasure of sitting down with Carol Fountain Nix, who became the director of the Crafts Center last March, to talk about all the Crafts Center has to offer.

Tell me about your background with the arts.

Really, I started as a business owner. I did my graduate work here at the College of Design, and I started a design company called Nix Design. I grew it to 15 people, and we were downtown before anybody was downtown. It was a great, great company and we did really well. We had huge clients — Quintiles, Logics, The Body Shop. … We even did some work for an event planner in New York named Robert Isabel, who was a big deal then. But then the economy crashed. And when 2008 happened it really sunk our clients, and people were pulling back on a lot of things. I downsized and downsized, and that led me to teaching. I taught at the College of Design as an associate professor of the practice, and I taught a professional practices class. But working as the Director of the Crafts Center brings together the perfect combination of business and art experience, and pure passion for handmade objects. It takes a lot of work to keep everything running, but I love it.

Do you have any specific goals you’re trying to achieve here at the Crafts Center? 

Yes, I do. The Crafts Center has been around awhile, and it’s an endearing part of our campus. A lot of things have been in repair, and have needed a good update all around. We’re just making sure everything is in operating order. Beyond some of the baseline updates, we’re really trying to be a vital part of campus life and to do that, our students and our patrons have to know about us. So many students don’t know we’re here. And I’ll admit, when I was in school, I’d park right in the Coliseum Deck and I didn’t know about the Crafts Center either. I understand that. Marketing and design is in my blood, so that’s been the way I’ve really been working hard to get the word out and have more presence. I think the biggest thing I can say about our goals is that, beyond craft, we really are a resource for students to explore their creative side openly. It’s infinite what you can make here. That’s why we’ve adopted the tagline “Make it Here.” We’re trying to help students be creative and healthy. Creativity is health, and if there’s one place on campus to destress this is it.

What upcoming exhibits should students keep an eye out for?

Right now we have an exhibit by artist in residence Sam Johns of the Arts Village, who we partnered with to put on the exhibit. Sam has worked with Arts Village students to put on the exhibit, called “Everything We Have Ever Known.” It’s very cool. … I couldn’t believe I was at NC State when I first saw it. It’s very cutting edge. Also, art studies will have their Fluxus, and it’s very experimental, very improvisational and performance-based. That will be up soon, and we also have the Quilters Guild coming, and their work is very dynamic, going back to traditional ways but they’re also very modernistic in the way they approach weaving. And then we’ll start Post Secret, which will probably be the installation up until September.

Tell me about the classes at the Crafts Center.

Our classes have been doing really well. We have our mainstay classes, our woodshop classes, and all the wood classes fill really fast. That’s been great, because we want to fill classes. But on the other hand the public and a lot of our patrons, and even faculty and staff, say ‘I can never get in to the Crafts Center classes’ so I’ve put in a lot of new classes and have also added many more classes during the daytime. This place is crazy at night, because everyone’s here, but the daytime classes have been doing really great. We have the biggest dark room on the East Coast, and now we’re repurposing part of the dark room and using it as the screen printing and paper making lab. I’m very excited about that. We’re also starting to offer more progressive classes, where you can move from medium to medium. That’s one of our strengths, that we really have everything from lapidary to wood. 

Visit https://crafts.arts.ncsu.edu/ for more information on the Crafts Center, including class times, hours of operation and exhibit dates.

This Q&A has been edited for clarity.