CROSS VILLAGE — It’s hard not to feel optimistic after speaking to Audrey Atkinson.

With sincere eyes and a warm smile, the 56-year-old Cross Village Rug Works weaver and dyer is focused on making choices and taking actions to create positive change — not just for herself but wherever she is involved.

“We really need to build community in our lives and focus on creating a positive outcome in everything we do,” Atkinson said. “We need to intend to make something of each day.”

The Harbor Springs mother and grandmother said one of the things she prays for daily is the will to do the work that is placed before her.

“Some days are not as good as others and life hands you all types of things,” she said. “I pray that I’m willing to do what needs to be done. We are really very powerful people when we make those choices for ourselves and how we expend our energy.”

While Atkinson has practiced professionally as a massage therapist and has also worked in tribal government for 27 years, she said weaving is truly her career. The Native American traditional weaver initially become involved with Rug Works a year ago, after having heard about it through classes at North Central Michigan College in Petoskey. She said the organization now “consumes” her life “in a good way.”

“It was a great experience working for the tribes all those years but I got to a point in my life where I wanted something for me,” she said. “I had always wanted to go back to school to study art. Last year I thought, ‘I’m 55 and if I’m going to do this I need to take it seriously.’ So, I became a full-time starving artist, student.”

With both agricultural and educational components, Rug Works offers an apprenticeship program, of which Atkinson is a part, to unemployed or underemployed members of the community. The organization has also partnered with North Central Michigan College to offer a certificate of art degree, something Atkinson couldn’t be more excited about.

“The certificate really gives more validity to what we are doing with a formal educational component,” she said. “Students not only learn an art and craft that they can do wherever they are, different forms of the art can still be creating things and generating income through those means.”

One of the added benefits of her affiliation with the organization has been developing new relationships with people of all ages.

“I learn something from everybody. It’s interesting to have these kinds of relationships at this point in my life,” she said.

While she’s most proud of her family, Atkinson is also proud of something else — not being afraid to try something new.

“I like to try new things because I see myself gaining so much. I don’t know if proud is the right word but good is — that is my attitude about life now,” she said.

Looking forward, Atkinson is excited not just to help build the Cross Village Rug Works organization, but also about building a community by helping people who didn’t have jobs or the skill set to get a job in Northern Michigan.

“People really need to come and see what we are doing because they will be surprised at the quality of work both creatively and artistically,” she said. “This organization is really important to the community — a community where there’s very little economic base — by employing people in a part of the state that is very economically challenged. We are making beautiful things that will not only last a lifetime but will support members of our community. We are growing something together and it’s really wonderful.”

For more information about Cross Village Rug Works, visit www.crossvillagerugworks.com or call (231) 526-7849.

Marci Singer439-9348 – msinger@petoskeynews.com