A new mold; College polishing up crafts center comeback.

COLUMN: IN OUR OPINION

Six months ago, the Worcester Center for Crafts was in a "strategic pause," its creative hum in serious danger of being silenced for good.

The rescue came from Worcester State College, which had long dealt with a shortage of studio space and which was working on a new degree program in the visual and performing arts.

The college found a way to help pick up the shards of the 153-year-old craft center's finances, mold an alliance and shape a new future.

The pieces have been fitting together nicely.

At a time of fiscal cracks and cutbacks, this cooperative, forward-thinking solution is commendable. Losing those old studios at 25 Sagamore Road, where many residents and artisans have rolled up their sleeves and tried their hand at an ancient art or newfangled technique, would have created a disheartening void for many in the city.

The college also breathed new life into the craft center's New Street Glass Works, at 35B New St. In fact, that facility will be open for glass-working classes next month. Instruction in clay, metal and other media will likely resume at the craft center's Sagamore Road headquarters in January, after the building has been given some needed attention.

The reconfigured crafts organization is now headed by the college's Carol B. Donnelly as interim director. She takes over from Barbara Walzer, hired as executive director last summer. Ms. Donnelly, a professor of education at Worcester State since 1997, served on the craft center's previous board for 12 years.

With personnel decisions to make, a new degree program to launch in the wake of the state's recent approval, and idle spaces and machinery itching to be up and running again, the new crafts center team has its work cut out for it.

The more boring side to this bright new future is undoubtedly the most important piece: keeping the bills paid.

The craft center's financial history could put a business major's head into a potter's wheel spin. Despite attempts to find sounder footing and stay there, crippling debt had dogged the center in recent years. Trustees closed the doors in January because of a $700,000 shortfall. The new agreement includes $250,000 a year to rent studio space for college students at the center and a $412,000 loan from the Worcester State Foundation, a private entity that acts much like a college endowment fund.

For the new arrangement to go smoothly, the new management must study the past mistakes and be shrewd about the bottom line.

Ms. Donnelly described the situation well when she said, "... one of the reasons that we have this marvelous opportunity of collegiality is because the studios weren't paying the rent. So we're really going to be looking very hard at all of the programs and make sure that when we come back it's as a vital, sustainable, independent organization."

Imagining and accomplishing the craft center's revival is a delicate undertaking that appears to have been handled well so far. We wish the partnership luck, prosperity and good, strong glue.