The Shadow
CLIFTON FORGE, Va. (VR) – The Alleghany Highlands Arts and Crafts Center is the first business to be featured in a new “Business Spotlight” series, a collaborative effort between the Virginian Review and the Town of Clifton Forge to highlight the town’s distinctive local businesses and cultural assets.
The series aims to introduce residents and visitors alike to the people, places, and programs that help define Clifton Forge. The inaugural installment turns the focus on the Alleghany Highlands Arts and Crafts Center, a longtime cultural hub in downtown Clifton Forge that has been promoting visual arts through education, exhibits, and regional marketing since 1984.
Located at 439 East Ridgeway Street, the center attracts more than 10,000 visitors a year from over 45 states and roughly 30 international locations. It represents more than 260 working artists and craftspeople across a wide range of media, offering both a professional gallery experience and a bustling fine craft shop.
The center operates as a nonprofit organization with a small professional staff, supported by a dedicated corps of knowledgeable volunteers. Staff and volunteers greet visitors, share information about the artists, and often help guide guests to other points of interest in the Highlands. Their efforts, center representatives say, are a key reason the doors can stay open and the programs continue to grow.
Connie Baker serves as executive director, overseeing the center’s operations, community partnerships, and major events, including American Craft Week. Curator and education coordinator Nancy Newhard manages the selection and arrangement of gallery exhibits and leads the center’s robust slate of educational programs. Shop manager Helen Hepler is responsible for the center’s juried retail shop, where all items are handmade and selected for originality, good design, and fine craftsmanship.
The main gallery presents new exhibits every four to six weeks, ensuring repeat visitors have something fresh to see throughout the year. The gallery, which is free to the public, features a wide variety of styles, techniques, and mediums, from traditional painting and sculpture to contemporary mixed media.
Education is central to the center’s mission. Classes and workshops are offered for all ages and skill levels, including painting, drawing, needle felting, and a monthly story-and-craft hour geared toward elementary-age children. Multiple sessions of kids’ summer art camp introduce young artists to painting, sculpting, papermaking, and other forms of creative expression.
The center also plays an active role in local schools through initiatives such as its artisan residency program. Each year, a professional artist is sponsored to work with students over a couple of semesters, teaching specialized techniques and helping them prepare work for an end-of-year art show. Students have the opportunity to exhibit alongside the resident artist and compete for cash prizes, an experience center leaders say can be transformative for young creatives.
Inside the center’s shop, visitors find a constantly changing selection of regional artwork and fine crafts. Offerings include pottery, jewelry, stained glass, turned wood bowls, baskets, quilts, wearable fiber art, cards, prints, collage, photography, glass, and sculpture. Fine art sales feature original watercolors, oil paintings, and various types of prints, all carefully juried before being accepted.
Accessibility and affordability are also priorities. The facility offers a wheelchair-accessible entrance and parking, and admission to the gallery is free. The center is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and is closed on Sundays and Mondays. For those who want to support the organization more directly, annual memberships are available for $20 for individuals and $30 for families, which include a 10% discount on shop and gallery purchases and early registration for select events.
The Alleghany Highlands Arts and Crafts Center was founded with the help of early leaders such as Bari Ballou, an artist and educator who worked to expand arts opportunities in the region. In its four decades of operation, the center has hosted more than 540 exhibits and built an inventory of nearly 10,000 pieces of art by over 280 artists.
Organizers of the Business Spotlight series agree that the center exemplifies what they hope to showcase in future installments. Local institutions that blend creativity, community service, and economic impact. As the series continues, the Virginian Review and the Town of Clifton Forge plan to feature other businesses that contribute to the town’s character and vitality.
For now, they say there may be no better place to start than a gallery and shop where nearly everything is made by hand, and where art, education, and community come together under one roof in the heart of Clifton Forge.
