Where: Brasstown, North Carolina
When: year-round
If you like: arts and culture
Why you should go: Learn to weave willow baskets or forge a chef’s knife. Study medicinal herbs to grow your own kitchen apothecary, or build a four-string Appalachian dulcimer. Offering more than eight hundred week- and weekend-long classes across more than fifty disciplines, Brasstown’s John C. Campbell Folk School caters to established artists looking to strengthen existing skills as well as beginners exploring new avenues of creativity.
Set on 270 picturesque acres in the Southern Appalachians, the school was founded in 1925 by Olive Campbell and Marguerite Butler in the style of a Danish folkehøjskole, or “school for life.” But the people of Cherokee and Clay Counties provided much of the materials, labor, and land required to realize their vision. One hundred years later, “our format has adapted to changing needs over the decades, but we remain true to our core values and have never lost sight of our role in honoring and supporting the local community that helped build and sustain us,” says executive director Bethany Chaney. Centennial celebrations kick off during the school’s annual fall festival in early October and run through its Appalachian Heritage Week the following summer.
G&G tip: With its scenic pastures, wooded trails, and quiet creek banks, the landscape around the school provides creative inspiration but also, often, the physical materials of the craft. Check the schedule for season-driven classes in such disciplines as basketry, cooking, and natural dyeing.
