In 2013 Paducah, Kentucky was named the 7th Creative City of Crafts and Folk Art. Now there are 20 cities around the world with the Crafts and Folk Art designation. The other U.S. city with that designation is Santa Fe, NM.
The Creative Cities Network is comprised of 116 cities in 54 countries. Ambassadors from more than 100 cities met in Sweden. Ostersund is a Creative City of Gastronomy so they laid out food of all kinds for our meals. We ate reindeer - the Sami people who herd and care for the reindeer in the north part of Sweden have a museum in Ostenburg that we visited.
The speakers discussed:
- Maximizing urban-rural connections through interventions based on culture and creativity
- Fostering partnerships and exchanges intended to support the mobility of artists and cultural professionals within the Network
- Revitalizing cities through culture and creativity
- Fostering the role of research and locally-generated data to assess and monitor the impact of creativity for sustainable urban development.
We were greeted at the Ostersund Airport by local musicians.
Östersund is located at the shores of Sweden's fifth largest lake, Storsjön
A photo of the delegations to the UNESCO Creative Cities meeting in Ostersund, Sweden.
The Mayors of the Creative Cities of Crafts and Folk Arts, taken during our section meeting.
- Aswan, Egypt (2005)
- Icheon, South Korea (2010)
- Kanazawa, Japan (2009)
- Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA (2005)
- Fabriano, Italy (2013)
- Paducah, Kentucky, USA (2013)
- Jacmel (2014)
- Jingdezhen, China (2014)
- Nassau, Bahamas (2014)
- Pekalongan (2014)
- Suzhou, China (2014)
- Al-Ahsa (Saudi Arabia) (2015)
- Bamiyan (Afghanistan) (2015)
- Durán (Ecuador) – Crafts and Folk Art (2015)
- Isfahan (Iran [Islamic Republic of]) (2015)
- Jaipur (India) – Crafts and Folk Art (2015)
- Lubumbashi (Democratic Republic of the Congo) (2015)
- San Cristóbal de las Casas (Mexico) (2015)
- Sasayama (Japan) – Crafts and Folk Art (2015)
Many times our food was served on these wooden planks. They could made up ahead and they were east to serve the whole group in a short amount of time.
See how they cut slots in a birch tree to insert the wooden plates. We just walked by and took one.
At their museum, I snapped some photos of textiles.
I was intrigued with this wallhanging made from foiled cloth that was displayed in their museum.
At another event, I was thrilled to meet the young artist who had made that foiled wallhanging. It was fun to learn how she had done the foiling.
Traveling by bus from the refugee camp, we went around some round-a-bouts in the highway. I don't remember ever seeing these in a highway like this before.
We passed by this beautiful old church. Our driver told us they have many weddings in this church. Sorry for the poor quality of the photo -- we were moving pretty fast when we spotted it.
We also had lunch prepared for us at a refugee camp, where more than 300 refugees from various countries wait for papers to stay and work in Sweden. The native dishes they served were mostly rice or beans and they were very tasty. They have a choir at the camp that helps them to learn the Swedish language. We sang with some of the choir in Swedish. It is hard to imagine being driven from your home country for the safety of your family.
One evening we needed transportation to their folk museum. This was my chariot. They had a variety of old classic cars and even some really old buses.
Mary Hammond and I had a very busy six days... and enjoyed every minute of it... once our luggage arrived. This is my first international flight that my luggage did not make it at the same time as I did. It arrived a day late - was sitting in Chicago. Lesson learned: be sure to pack an extra top too.
Paducah will be hosting the first ever UNESCO Creative Cities meeting in the United States for the Creative Cities of Crafts and Folk Art section. It will be held in September 2017. Can't wait to host the many international friends we have made at the Creative Cities Network meetings.
All for now..... Bonnie
