Mountain arts and crafts offer ultimate creative getaways

The Smokies are home to a myriad of artists and craftsmen, many of whom opened their studios after having been trained at local institutions, which just so happen to be among the prestigious, exciting, and accessible arts and craft schools in the world.

The culture of craft is thereby self-sustaining, as students become teachers, passing on skills to new generations that contribute to the growing body of work.

Fortunately, those who want to add an artisan’s skill set to their own have numerous opportunities for hands on training. There is something for everyone, whether he or she is a passer-by, longtime resident, serious artist, dabbler, parent wanting to share activity with the kids, or kid looking for artistic time away from the parents.

Dillsboro, N.C., draws artists and tourists alike to the tiny riverside town where the Jackson County Green Energy Park (GEP) has turned the methane gas generated by a closed landfill into the fuel for glass-blowing studios, blacksmithing forges and a metal foundry.

“We’ve built these studios so artists can rent them for a nominal fee and not have to build their own $150,000 studio,” said Timm Muth, who helped design the facility and now directs its activities. “The artists don’t have to pay for fuel because it’s free for us. It helps them create businesses.”

Back in 2005, county officials were concerned about the explosive, flammable methane gasses building up in the former county landfill. At the time, it would have cost $400,000 to simply remediate the problem. Instead the county put that money toward converting the landfill site into a green energy project, following in the footsteps of a similar project at a landfill near Burnsville, N.C. The GEP also has a set of greenhouses that are heated with landfill gas, and last year, the GEP added a wood-fired pottery kiln, operated using waste wood and waste vegetable oil.

The artists in residence teach public classes with one-on-one instruction, which allows an opportunity to give educational tours about the unique facility. In glass blowing, the objects that people make vary from goblets, tumblers, ornaments and Easter-egg paperweights. Each class lasts about 45 minutes, and classes are taught one-on-one for reasons of safety and skill. The blacksmithing classes can allow as many as six people at a time, and participants start off making a wrought iron cheese knife, moving on to make items such as hooks and barbeque forks. Children as young as thirteen can participate, as long as a parent is with them the whole time.

Muth recalls a parent/child blacksmithing class where a father commented that he would have paid a million dollars for the class because it was the first time he had successfully made a connection with his teenage son. Fortunately, at the GEP, classes are never expensive, ranging from $35 to $50, because the GEP is committed to keeping the classes affordable.

Just a few hours away, at milepost 382 on the Blue Ridge Parkway near Asheville, N.C., the Southern Highlands Craft Guild’s Folk Art Center welcomes a steady stream of travelers, school children, and area residents. Founded in 1930, the Southern Highlands Craft Guild is comprised of artists who have been juried in by fellow members, all of whom are scattered across the southern mountain region including parts of nine states. The Folk Art Center is the Guild’s headquarters; however, the Guild operates five shops in total—Cumberland Craft in Middlesboro, Ky., Arrowcraft in Gatlinburg, Tenn., the Parkway Craft Center in Blowing Rock, N.C., Guild Crafts in Asheville, and the Allanstand shop at the Folk Art Center, which is the oldest continuously operating craft shop in the United States.

Visitors routinely can find craft demonstrations and free educational community events at the various Guild shops, and an extensive public library located at the headquarters. The Folk Art Center offers classes in traditional crafts such as making brooms or fashioning cornshuck dolls, whittling and jewelry-making. Half-day workshops cost $55 and full-day workshops are $110, plus material fees.

“We’ve always had an educational component to help the community understand what our artists are doing and the heritage they represent,” says Deb Schillo, librarian and archivist at the Folk Art Center. “We feel like these shorter workshops are a good introduction to a craft for people to put their toe in the water before committing more time and expense to an art or craft.”

Those looking for a more intensive artistic experience may wish to head to Penland School of Crafts. The school offers one-, two-, and eight-week long intensive workshops in books and paper, clay, drawing, glass, iron, metals, photography, printmaking and letterpress, textiles, and wood. Simply put, Penland’s goal is to help people live creative lives. Its world-class instruction and studios, combined with its total-immersion workshop program creates a vibrant learning experience for all who attend, whether novice or advanced professional. The beauty of the pastoral setting gives Penland a retreat-like atmosphere, which complements the creative work that people are there to do.

Guest instructors and Penland’s program director determine the content of each course, but there is no set curriculum or set instructors each year. The first thing that Penland taught was weaving, and it has been taught in one form or another since the school’s inception in 1929. Today, the most popular classes are in glass and iron, which include blacksmithing and welding.

Attendees must be at least eighteen years of age, but otherwise most classes are open to any skill level, although some are specifically for beginners, intermediate and advanced. In the summers, kids can attend half-day camps and a few full-day camps built around art activities such as pottery, painting, or photography.

“Each year, each session, each class is filled with encounters among the most creative people in the world,” said Jean McLaughlin, Penland’s executive director. “They are young people just graduating from college with fresh ideas, optimism, and eagerness to absorb everything in sight.”

Certainly that is true of former Penland student Kelly O’Briant, whose Penland experience was integral to her life as an artist. She had already spent ten summers at Penland learning a variety of arts and crafts when, fresh from a BFA, she entered Penland again to primarily study clay. After three clay concentrations, each lasting two months, she practiced as a fulltime potter for eight years, and is now a Ceramics student at Arizona State University where she’s getting her MFA.

“Each separate time I was there served a very particular purpose for me,” says O’Briant. “I returned whenever there was something I needed to learn, think about or figure out, when I needed feedback, when I needed to take a break from the pressures of being a fulltime solo studio potter.”

O’Briant met her husband Matthew Thomason at Penland, and although he is not working as an artist/craftsperson, he learned from his time there.

“I am grateful for the experience because it was a time when I truly felt like an artist and that anything was possible,” he says. “In a way, Penland is an anomaly where the ‘social norm’ does not exert the same force/influence that it does in the greater world.”

John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, N.C. is similarly renowned. Established in 1925, John C. Campbell is a school with no credits and no grades where the lessons learned are focused on blacksmithing, woodturning, fiber arts, pottery, cooking, music, painting, enameling, glass, clay, carving, chair-making, and more.

“There are many areas for which the Folk School is known as the best place to start and continue to the highest levels of work,” says executive director, Jan Davidson. Everyone over 18 is invited for the adult classes, and the school reaches out to retirees, working folks on vacation, young folks before, during after or instead of college.

The school’s rural setting on a 300-acre campus, and its historic buildings, green fields, oak forests and paths along Little Brasstown Creek (which is part of the North Carolina Birding Trail), as well as its flower, herb and organic vegetable gardens, all give it a sense of place and a serene quality that enhances the creative experience.

The school recognizes the importance of fostering a sense of community for all who attend its workshops, and that’s what makes it stand out from some of the other schools in the region, Davidson says. “It’s a community of music, dance, food, gardening and crafts, where traditions and creativity live easily together,” he says. “Friendships may be our most important product.”

The school also offers summer programs for kids, including Little Folk School for a week in June for rising second-graders through rising sixth-graders, and Middle Folk School for rising seventh through rising twelfth-graders, and many parents volunteer to help. Then, in July, the school hosts Intergenerational Week, in which a parent or guardian takes a course with a person twelve to seventeen years old.

For Maryville, Tenn., farmer Sheri Liles, who has attended the Folk School three times for hand spinning, the experience was just what she needed to get away from the distractions that kept her from learning the craft while at home. Liles, who owns five llamas, wanted to use the fiber the animal generate to create a value-added product to sell at a local yarn store and at the farmer’s market, as well as on her own. For her, the cost of tuition plus room and board was an investment in the future earnings of her farm. Liles also knew that the addition of yarn to her farm would be an enhancement for the farm tours she was already conducting for local schools.

“I do enjoy making things out of yarn that I have spun myself, but it’s especially impressive to show people a finished product and also show them the raw material it came from,” she says.

Each time she went to John C. Campbell, she built on the lessons already learned, and now she knows how to hand spin exotic fibers such as Alpaca, silk, mohair, and even dog hair from her own shelties.

“Every fiber has its own qualities that you have to learn, and each time I go, I’m expanding my knowledge base,” Liles said.

In addition to the somewhat more formal school experiences, there are community arts education experiences for kids and adults throughout the region via local arts councils and in artists’ own studios. Such classes typically do not require the commitment or cost that a retreat-style class often entails.

One such example is the newly opened Studio 212 in downtown Maryville, Tenn., nestled between Knoxville and Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Owner Leanne Moe received her BFA from the University of Tennessee in 2009 and has been a fulltime potter ever since. In July of 2012, the studio space next to hers opened up and she decided to make the leap and open a larger space for arts instruction. The studio offers a variety of courses in everything from clay to painting. The clay classes focus on throwing on the wheel and learning the basics to become successful in making aesthetically pleasing pots, while the painting courses range from one- night classes to six-week oil classes.

Moe is excited to be able to offer a variety of kids’ classes that complement the instruction in local schools, especially where arts education has been cut. One such class is the family painting class, in which parents and their children create a project together. All of the kids’ classes are getting a great response from parents so far.

“We are an outlet for further instruction outside of the school system to hone in on the creativity within the child,” Moe says. “Most of the kids that come to the studio end up taking a variety of classes from clay to painting, so they are getting a well-rounded introduction to the arts.” Classes are affordable for families, ranging in price from $35 for a two-hour class to $220 for a six-week class in clay. Instructor Stacey Austin-Heil says that participants enjoy the classes because they are set up to succeed.

“Often, people will come in for fun, but they end up loving the environment and being around other creatives,” Austin-Heil said.

More information about the schools mentioned here can be found online at the following sites:

• Green Energy Park: JCGEP.org

• The Folk Art Center: southernhighlandguild.org

• Penland School of Crafts: penland.org

• John C. Campbell Folk School: folkschool.org

• Studio 212: studio212arts.com

Qualla Arts and Crafts keeps Cherokee traditions alive

Founded in 1946, Qualla Arts and Crafts in Cherokee, N.C., is the oldest Native American Cooperative, and it is renowned for teaching and strengthening Cherokee arts and craft. In addition to showcasing the works of more than 250 members, the cooperative also offers classes to the community. In an effort to preserve and promote the traditional arts and crafts, classes are currently only open to enrolled tribal members, and include how to make river cane baskets, river cane mats, white oak baskets, pottery, beadwork, wood, stone and shell carving.

“We try to cover all the styles of Cherokee arts and crafts that have been handed down through generations,” says manager Vicki Cruz.

Classes are not just focused on the creation of the craft but also on the art of gathering and preparing raw material such as identifying river cane, white oak, maple and honeysuckle vines and making native dyes used for color in the basketry.

To bring the crafts into the community, the Cooperative members go into the schools to teach workshops with clay, honeysuckle vine weaving, beadwork and lectures. Many area teachers acquire skills through taking classes on their own and then in turn teach their students.

“Some kids love it, and some struggle, but each one takes home with them a knowledge of the Cherokee people and this Native American Instructor that took the time to teach them patience and importance of this craft,” Cruz said.