It's hard to believe I've been in Georgia's arts-centric community for over 30 years!

My husband, Bill Ronay, and I did festivals for 14 years back in the '70s and '80s. We were at Stone Mountain Park's Yellow Daisy Festival when it was in the horse barns and at the Arts Festival of Atlanta when grilling was allowed behind our booths.  We spent a lot of time on Piedmont Park's grass that now seems off limits to festival exhibitors.

In the "good old days" booth display and marketing wasn't all that important.  We artfully arranged our work, then enjoyed talking to visitors as they oohed and aahed.  It was a lot easier to impress people before there were so many shows.

Somewhere in the '80s, computers were inexpensive enough that we could afford to buy one.  Our first was a Kaypro, with two floppy disk drives and lots of software bundled with it. One of the programs was a rudimentary database.  Looking around my desk, I picked up a bunch of festival applications, then sat down and made some categories so I could enter show info, thus learning how to work on a computer.

Next thing I knew, we were printing guides listing festivals all over the Southeast.  For 21 years, we printed The Ronay Guides.  We stopped doing festivals in 1989 so that we could dedicate our time to helping exhibitors, concessionaires, and entertainers find the right shows for their products.  In 2008, we became internet based only.  If you want to take a look at what happened to the Guides, go to www.events2000.com.  They didn't go away; they just changed to keep up with the times.

In 2005, Bill Ronay & I started hosting Festival Networking Conferences.  Artists, craft makers, festival directors and entertainers came together to learn about each other and how to brand and market their work. We had Bruce Baker the marketing guru from Vermont; and Becky Anderson, then the Executive Director of Western North Carolina's Handmade in America; and Fran Redmon, then the Director of the Kentucky Craft Marketing Program, as well as other experts, lead sessions for the attendees at three Festival Networking Conferences.

We'd joined the Craft Organization Development Association (codacraft.org) already, and had been thrilled by what was happening nationally with branding and marketing local art and craft. Our conferences made what we'd seen at CODA seem possible in Georgia.

And then Anni Moller filled my head with ideas.  Anni, the great artist originally from Denmark, now living in Kennesaw, told me that Georgia's artists and craft makers needed an organization to strengthen their brand and to market their work. She told me that I could make that happen.

Anni's a sharp negotiator.  She tells you enough to whet your appetite and make you believe you can do something, then she backs off and let's you work up a plan, or in my case, a dozen plans!  Anni gave me some time, then came back with a logo design for the organization.

Bingo!  Anni had me, hook line & sinker… then God took over.  At our third Festival Networking Conference, Kathy Chappelle and I started talking.  Tina McCullough joined the conversations.  We made two plans - one to create a grassroots arts council for artists to market and promote their work and another to take that work and present it to the world.

I met Bruce Green, Product Development Manager at the Georgia Department of Economic Development, at a Georgia Assembly of Community Arts Agencies conference in Statesboro.

Bruce put Economic Development, Tourism Product and ART together in his mind as he had traveled around Georgia seeing humble local people creating stunning products.  Jerry Chappelle of Happy Valley Pottery had long been telling him there was huge cultural heritage tourism product in Georgia.  Then, Bruce was in touch with Cynthia Smith in Greensboro as she organized a shop downtown called Genuine Georgia.

At GACAA, Jay Dick from Americans for the Arts did a presentation about the economic impact of art and brought it home to everyone in the room, giving us a rundown on our representatives and senators in DC and telling us who among them supported The Arts most… John Lewis.

From that meeting, Bruce brought in Fay Tripp and Becky Basset, the current and retired Managers of the Regional Tourism Representatives.  Fay, Becky, Bruce, Kathy, Tina and I started talking to each other, then to others.

Kathy & Jerry Chappelle ALWAYS "got" the connection between economic development, tourism and craft.  They have always networked and taught business basics - cash flow, time management, business plans and keeping on trend.  Kathy introduced me to Jim Luken, the mayor of Watkinsville; Chuck Jones, the director of the Athens CVB; and others who she'd been working with.

Watkinsville is branded as the Artland of Georgia.  The Chappelles and Mayor Luken worked with others tirelessly to make that happen.  Chuck Jones realized the huge art base in Athens, and knew marketing it would enhance visitors' experiences. To this day Chuck Jones is one of the Creative Economies' biggest  supporters.  Art is alive and well in Watkinsville and in Athens as a tourism product!

In Spring 2007, Bruce Green of the Georgia Department of Economic Development invited Tina, Kathy & me to meet with Gilda Watters, the newly appointed Managing Director of the Georgia Tourism Foundation.  It was a wonderful meeting.  Fay, Becky, Bruce, Gilda, Leslie Breland (also with the Tourism Foundation) and Kathy and I fed off each other's excitement.  What shortly turned into the Creative Economies Initiative was born that day.

Tina and Kathy had such demands in their already-established businesses that soon I was the only one who had the time to give to what Kathy & I had recently named Georgia Made Georgia Grown LLC.  I became a consultant to the Tourism Foundation as they created the Creative Economies Initiative.

In Summer 2007, the Creative Economies team started making plans.  We visited the experts in Berea Kentucky and at the South Carolina Artisan Center in Walterboro. We set up town hall-style meetings in Georgia's nine tourism regions to listen to what artists, craft makers, entertainers, food products creators and agritourism venue owners needed to thrive.

At the Governor's Conference on Tourism in Tifton in September 2007, Governor Sonny Perdue named Creative Economies as an official state initiative!

In November, the Georgia Tourism Foundation and other entities hosted Georgia's first AgriTourism Symposium.  130+ attended.  From that was born the Georgia AgriTourism Association.

I've been traveling all over Georgia for about 18 months now, exploring the cities and rural areas, and meeting such wonderful people. I even told Melvene Day of A Southern Day Company in Uvalda that we'd be selling her Clear Seed Peach Cookie™ on QVC in 2009! And almost every time I talk to her, we talk about taking Georgia Made Georgia Grown art, craft and food products to QVC.

For now, though, one way to buy Melvene's Clear Seed Peach Cookies™ is on our Online Store.  Take a look at them; you'll love them.  They just scream GEORGIA!  And they are delicious.  Order some today; then take a look at all of our other products.  Pull out your Holiday gift list.  We've got something for each one of your friends and family.

Happy Shopping!  And if you have something you'd like me to see, email me with some images and your story.

Contact Camille Ronay

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