November 21, 2003

CADIZ, OH - Marion Frye is an expert in tearing apart blue jeans - Lee Riders, Guess, OshKosh B'Gosh, doesn't matter - and transforming them into something else.

Christmas stockings. Dining-room-chair covers. Patchwork items of light denim, dark denim, deep-blue denim, slightly blue denim, washed denim, frayed denim, you name it.

What got her started was tote bags: 500 of them.

A few years back, Presbyterian Women asked four seamstresses at Harrison Hills Cottage Industries - a volunteer project that markets the wares of mountain artisans hereabouts - to produce 2,000 tote bags for its annual gathering. Other groups of women in Guatemala and Thailand were making them as well.

In Cadiz, it meant that Frye, a retired nurse, was one of four women who turned out 500 denim bags apiece, wearing out even heavy-duty sewing machine needles in record time.

That was a long while ago, but the bags of denim just keep turning up. And what's a seamstress to do but sew?

"We tried not to waste any denim," she says, flashing the pattern for the original 15-inch-square bag with a huge front pocket. She originally drew it on a paper plate. She's revised the pattern for the new-and-improved edition on sale now. "Now, we take the pockets from the denim and add a little pocket to the back of the bag, too," she says, turning the bag over and back.

Nately Ronsheim listens attentively.

It was Ronsheim who dreamed up the idea of cottage industries in Cadiz after touring India with a Presbyterian Church (USA) delegation. She saw how homemade crafts were being sold there to generate income for New Delhi's poorest women. She wondered whether a similar concept might not work here, where unemployment has been rampant since the coal mines shut down in the late 1980s.

Why not focus on the mountain crafts native to the region?

"The tradition in Appalachia is that women didn't work so they were frustrated," Ronsheim says. "What could they do? How could they earn a living?"

She recalls the bad ol' days when unemployment in Harrison County hit 25 percent.

"Women were creating things at home, but they had no market for the products."

The Presbyterian Church (USA)'s Self-Development of People (SDOP) program authorized a start-up grant and The Cottage, as the place is locally known, opened its doors in a historic house on East Warren Street, just off the main drag, the birthplace of Ronsheim's husband, Milton. The program began with crafts from 20 craftspeople, all given six-week trials - still the norm for test runs of new products. They ranged from woven rag rugs, to pottery, to dolls, to carvings.

Nowadays, 60 to 65 craftspeople are selling their work in the shop. Most have substantially increased their incomes by investing about 25 hours a week in developing and marketing their wares.

"I was just so fascinated by this wonderful program in India," Ronsheim says, "and it was working. I just thought, 'Gee, why couldn't we do the same thing here?'"

Ronsheim, at 80, is as involved in day-to-day operations as she was when it opened its doors 10 years ago.

"This isn't all just about money," she says. "There's satisfaction in being recognized for your ability to create."

That's true for Jill Park, who is settled into a chair in the main room of The Cottage, putting the finishing touches on two pillows she has sewn together from bits of antique quilts. Her dog, Darcy, wanders up and down aisles jammed with hand-sewn Raggedy Anns, handmade doll furniture, teddy bears, pottery, human-scale furniture, jewelry, Christmas tree ornaments, hand-stitched bunnies and mice, angels folded into life from the pages of old hymnals. Items made, seemingly, from anything and everything.

"This has been a wonderful jumping-off point for me," says Park, who also keeps The Cottage's books. "The goal here is to get (craftspeople) out there, give them enough confidence to take their things to a craft store. I'd never made anything to sell to anyone till I came here. I always gave things away. Now, I think, 'Hmmmm. People will pay money for this.'"

The Cottage has attracted attention.

Two years after the Cadiz cooperative was organized, the International Trade Department of the Ohio Department of Development turned to it for handcrafted merchandise to be displayed in an arts fair in Japan and hired the artisans to produce gifts for foreign officials visiting Ohio.

SDOP turned to The Cottage when it needed centerpieces for its 25th-anniversary celebration.

The Cottage is an SDOP success story, but it hasn't been easy. In 1992, an arsonist burned down the 150-year-old building that housed the retail operation. Hardly any of the inventory survived - including about 50 of the tote bags Frye had made for the PW gathering.

That must have been a sign.

A few months later, PW authorized $45,000 from its Thank Offering funds to help rebuild the shop on the same site.

The post-9/11 economic slump has been felt at The Cottage. Folks are hoping things will pick up at Christmastime.

Park calls the program "a hidden treasure," a financial boon that also serves as an inspiration to local artisans.

"There are so many creative people," she says. "Everything here is one-of-a-kind. With creative people, you make a certain amount of one thing and that's it; you don't want to keep doing it. You want to branch out."

Andy Hutyera, a furniture-making lawyer who advises the cooperative, agrees, saying, "We didn't get into this to be bored to death."

The Cottage is at 142 East Warren Street, Cadiz, OH 43907; phone (614) 942-2582.

PCUSA News Service