It's snowing outside and bitter cold. I have just come in and am walking up flights of stairs, chatting with Nancy Sweezy, whom I've just met, in her Arlington home. The third floor belongs completely to Nancy and to the left is a spacious open room that spans that side of the house. It is filled with light. In the very center, a chimney and stove give it a country feel and serve to separate the living area from kitchen area behind it. She invites me to sit on a sofa against the wall opposite the stove. Despite the sense of open and uncluttered space, I notice that there is art everywhere. Open shelves near the kitchen are filled with hand thrown pottery pieces in the same glaze. From where I am sitting, I can see a still life oil painting, brimming with color and on the adjacent wall there is a series of watercolor landscapes in purples, blues and violets. Everywhere, in just the right placement, there is another colorful and interesting handmade item. Nancy arrives with my tea. She is a trim woman with graying hair and a deliberate step. She returns with her own cup and our discussion is well under way. Here is some of it for you. A glimpse into the world of the creator and editor of this beautiful book, Armenian Folk Arts, Culture, and Identity:

RC: You mentioned in the book that you first visited Armenia in 1988 with CYSCA. What brought you to CYSCA and how did you happen to go to Armenia with them?

NS: In the spring of that year, I went to an international fair in Cambridge, and, as it happened, I didn't quite know what I was going to do for a vacation. I passed a table with CYSCA literature tended by Ellen Mass, who was then active in the organization. I picked up a flyer about a CYSCA cultural trip to St Petersburg (then Leningrad), Moscow, Kiev and Yerevan later in the summer. After talking with Ellen for a while, I said to myself, yes, this sounds interesting. I signed up. When the group got to Yerevan we connected with YCSCA.

RC: How did you come to know Levon Abrahamian your Armenian co-editor?

NS: As a folklorist, people I knew had referred me to Aram Sharambeyan as a person who could help me spend my time most usefully when I was in Yerevan. His father started the folk art museum there. He was waiting for me at the hotel when we arrived in Armenia full of ideas and connections. It was through him that I met Levon Abrahamian on that first trip. I talked with Levon and others late into the night of our departure, leaving them at 3 am for the airport. When I first thought we might work together, Levon was too busy. We reconnected several times as I was helping to start a crafts marketing program and finally, he asked, "Would you consider working together on a publication involving scholars in several fields of research and expertise?" So, we agreed to look at the cultural history of Armenia through the work of artisans and life among the general populace. I was enthusiastic about this approach.

RC: You wrote about the hierarchy of crafts and the dance at the feast of artisans where the craftsmen all lined up according to their position of importance with, in the end, the line forming a circle joining the highest member of the artist's hierarchy with the lowest.

NS: Yes. Before the European Renaissance, there was no dichotomy between art and craft. Then, with the rise of painting on canvas the individual artist was the focus as opposed to the anonymous artisan creator resulting in the split through which "art" is perceived today. Our book tries to draw attention to the creativeness in ordinary people as well as giving an appropriate nod to those of exceptional talent. Suddenly, here in the US, African-American quilts made in Oakland, CA are thought of as art.

RC: Picasso was certainly aware of African art.

NS: Yes, he was. There are very few crafts that don't involve art and no art at all that doesn't involve craft.

RC: Maybe making pot holders out of those little loops is one of those very few crafts?

NS: (Smiles.) Perhaps.

RC: You worked yourself as a potter. Where was that and in what other traditional handicrafts did you work?

NS: None. I was a potter first and last. I worked for years in New Hampshire, in Cambridge and in North Carolina at the Jugtown pottery where I worked with a team of people making salt glazed and other stoneware. When I came back north I worked at Radcliffe (now Harvard) pottery. But eventually I gave it up.

RC: Why did you give it up?

NS: I was a production potter. I could throw a hundred mugs in a day but at that pace I used up my allotted firing space at Radcliffe too quickly. It just wasn't a place made for that kind of work. Also, I was also getting a little arthritis so I eventually just quit.

RC: Did you throw off of the hump?

NS: You mean Asian style? No. I just worked up a lot of little balls, and turned them one at a time.

RC: You mentioned that Armenian pottery changed when kaolin came in from China. Did that result in the kind of pottery that is from Kyutahya? It seems there is frequently a town in a country that becomes most famous for making pottery for that country, like Deruta for Italy or Iznik for Turkey. Is Kyutahya the most famous Armenian pottery?

NS: It is the most famous but it came much later. Kyutahya is actually in Turkey. Armenian potters went to that city when the invasions of nomads made sophisticated pottery production impossible. There was always a simple earthenware made for general use. In Kyutahya in the 17th-18th centuries, the work of Armenian potters was favored by the Ottoman rulers and was made for their tables. In this pottery there was a mingling of influences, both Armenian and Turkish motifs are present. You can see the Armenian cross or a figure, a medallion with a set of wings or a hanging egg shape. As things became difficult for Armenians in Turkey, some potters left and set up in the Armenian quarter of Jerusalem.

RC: Getting back to the book. Had you known Janet Rabinowitch and John Gallman (who published the book) at Indiana University Press before you wrote it? How did you come to present the book to them?

NS: Well, they were aware of me because I had written a book on Southern pottery. It's called Raised in Clay: The Southern Pottery Tradition, first published by the Smithsonian Press, now by the University of North Carolina Press. Also, I knew Henry Glassie, a well-known folklorist. I ran into him at a meeting of the American Folklore Society when he was doing a book on Turkish crafts. He saw Sam's photographs of Armenia and said, "You have to write about Armenia." The University of Indiana Press publishes his books too. So there was a connection. The book was actually published on Sept 10th 2001, the day before the World Trade Center crash. It had been sent out for review by the New York Review of Books, but the review was pulled -- as were many others -- that had been scheduled. And that was disappointing. So, it's a pleasure to let some more people know about it.