Bill Crabtree
Upgrades to Virginia’s artisan center will improve interactiveness and story-telling.
Southwest Virginia’s headquarters for crafts, cuisine and The Crooked Road: Virginia’s Heritage Music Trail shut its doors in January for its first major makeover since opening in 2011.
It is slated to reopen March 15.
Heartwood: Southwest Virginia’s Artisan Gateway is a barn-shaped information station, event space, restaurant and craft shop off I-81’s Exit 14 in Abingdon. The facility serves 19 counties and four cities. And, after eight years, it needed an update—with new exhibits—to reflect major new entities like the Spearhead Trails system, breweries, outfitters and an explosion of festivals, many of which are rooted in roots music.
“The creative economy is evolving in southwest Virginia,” says Jenna Wagner, the marketing director for the Southwest Virginia Cultural Heritage Foundation.
“We’re evolving to better serve southwest Virginia,” Wagner says. “It’s really about enhanced storytelling and programming.”
Heartwood will retain its size and shape, Wagner says. Yet new additions will allow the facility “a lot more opportunities to tell the stories of the region in some really cool interactive ways and put special emphasis on our artists and our musicians.” myswva.org/heartwood.
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