LOGAN, Ohio — Artisans in an area known for its natural beauty want to make the Hocking Valley also known for man-made beauty.

        The Hocking Valley Decorative Arts Consortium will begin a $50,000 marketing campaign in June to promote arts-related tourism in the area, whose rolling hills have long been an inspiration for painters, quilters, glass blowers and other artisans.

        About 100 of the region's estimated 300 artisans have agreed to pay a fee so that links to their individual Web sites can be included in the consortium's planned Web site and brochure.

        “This is probably how Taos and Santa Fe started,” said painter Aaron Smith, who directs the Foothills School of American Crafts in Nelsonville.

        Those two New Mexico communities, along with western North Carolina and New York's Hudson River Valley, are some of the nation's best-known arts colonies. The commission hopes to add the Hocking Valley to that list.

        “We have the beautiful ecology and the historic buildings and the artists. Eco-heritage and art tourism, they go hand in hand,” Smith said.

        Area travel industry groups say tourism already brings in a combined $466 million annually to Athens, Fairfield and Hocking counties and supports approximately 10,000 full- and part-time jobs. Hocking Hills State Park alone brings in 1.5 million visitors each year.

        Promoting arts trails as vigorously as hiking trails can only bring in more tourism, said Carol Mackey, a community development specialist with the Ohio State University extension office in Fairfield County.

        “There's a natural draw to this scenic area, and we'll capitalize on that by drawing the arts into it,” Mackey said.

        The thought of a consortium and marketing campaign struck Mackey and Logan Mayor Paula Tucker last year after they attended a workshop on linking economic development with heritage arts and crafts.

        “We pulled together people in the arts and talked about it,” Mackey said. “What we heard was: Do cooperative marketing, and do it on a regional basis.”

        A grant from the Foundation for Appalachian Ohio and contributions from a variety of state, local and private institutions are helping pay the costs of the campaign.

        Tucker hopes a planned U.S. 33 bypass around Lancaster will help lure people to the area.

        She predicted that when the bypass opens in 2005, more than ever, “We'll be the weekend R-and-R destination” for much of northern and central Ohio.

        State transportation planners say the new route is expected to reduce evening rush-hour travel time from Columbus to the Hocking Hills by as much as 30 minutes. On busy days, that trip can take as long as two hours from the city's northern suburbs.

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