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by LAURA TABOR
Lifestyles Reporter
Editor’s note: This is the first of a two part series featuring the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown.
Where can you learn how to make handmade furniture one week, how to play traditional Old-Time music the next, and how to make Kaleidoscopes during a third session?
 Photo by The Appalachian.
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Only at the
John C. Campbell Folk School are these and many other skills and arts
taught within a rural campus surrounded by mountains.
The Folk School is located in Brasstown, a tiny town in the southwestern end of the state near Murphy.
The school hosts
students for week-long or weekend-long non-competitive classes in a
residential atmosphere designed to be inviting and inclusive.
Patrick D. Heavner spent six months living in this community after he graduated from Appalachian State University in May 2008.
“I told
people that I was ready to begin my real education,” Heavner said. “The
skills I learned were very real and very useful.”
Heavner focused on blacksmithing and woodworking, but also took other classes, like weaving and bonsai-tree growing.
“This gives you a more holistic approach to education,” Heavner said. “These are the kind of skills that really live with you.”
A long-term community in Brasstown consists of the staff and people who live in the area.
However, the community tends to change every week, as new students come and go, often only taking one class at a time.
Tuition for the classes can be steep, but there are ways to make the experience affordable for students.
“I was a
student-host, one of two,” Heavner said. “That means that you work for
six months, setting up studios and serving meals, and take classes
while you are there.”
The
student-host position is one way that the school caters to a younger
crowd that might otherwise not have the opportunity to attend.
Another way students can become involved with the school is through the work-study program.
Connie
E. Carringer, a graduate student in community counseling, spent 15
weeks in the work study program before becoming a student host.
The work-study program consists of working for two weeks, then taking classes for a week, and then working for two weeks.
In this way, students “work off” the cost of their classes and room and board.
“I took
classes in weaving and music,” Carringer said. “But there are so many
opportunities to learn out of class… I learned how to knit outside of
class from one of the instructors.”
Much of the community focus of the school comes from the roots of its heritage.
Olive
Dame Campbell founded the school in honor of her deceased husband to
eliminate some of the incorrect stereotypes about Appalachian culture.
She and
her husband spent years studying the skills of Appalachian people, and
then studied the Danish folk schools to establish their own school,
which has grown and evolved since 1925.
“They
saw that the men and the women had an amazing tradition of
self-sufficiency, and also creativity,” Carringer said. “The school has
changed a lot, in some ways, but it is still a magical place.”
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