John C Campbell Folk School

This is a great place to visit if you’re anywhere near Brasstown… The staff is extremely friendly, the scenery beautiful, and the craftsmanship incredible.
Great place to take out of town company.
JG
San Antonio, TX

saw ivan stiles (auroharp, musical saw) here a couple weeks ago.
free concert in the mountains
very cool check their music calendar
average age of audience was 70.

Sleep Away Camp for Adults.
My wife came home from a gourd carving/​burning class @ the Chicago Botanic Gardens, & said «Guess where we’re going on our next vacation». This is a great example of why I trust her judgment.
The school has been in existence for 75 years, & is very different than what I’ve been familiar with. They have hundreds of classes ranging from broom making to wood turning/​carving/​working. Classes in music, painting, dance, photography, cooking,. bread making, jewelry, pottery, & blacksmithing.
The day starts off with a morning walk followed by morning song (both optional but worthwhile) and on the first day, the director opened with a bit of history. He then said that you could take a class to learn how to make a banjo one week, another class to learn how to play it the next week. If that didn’t work out, taking a class to make it a planter, or take pictures of it were also available.
She took a class on making kaleidoscopes & came home with 3 very nice ones. I took a class on marquetry & made an oak/​maple/​walnut backgammon board. (most of the class made chess boards, but I have been making them for years & wanted something different).
After breakfast, classes go until lunch. The instructors are very knowledgeable & it’s a non competitive atmosphere. You can go at your own pace, & work as hard or little on your project as pleases you. The facilities are comfortable & very functional. The wood shops have very nice tools & equipment & the blacksmith shop is state of the art.
Classes resume after lunch, & there is a late afternoon activity. It could be a demonstration by one of the instructors, or a visit to the local artist shops. I was so engrossed in my project that I only made in to one of those events.
Dinner is family style, & meals are not carnivore friendly more than once/​day. Don’t go if you insist on good food.
There are no televisions or radios in the rooms, & as a classmate said, they give you some very nice places to sit down, but no time to do it. Again that’s optional, but it’s easy to get swept up in the learning something new swirl that putting the familiar city routine down is pretty easy to do.

Six years ago, I picked up a brochure for this obscure place in my college’s mail room. I carried it with me through a couple moves, determined to eventually check it out with an equally folksy friend of mine.
We decided a Memorial Day weekend course would give us a good taste of the place and booked our reservations for an enameling class. Turns out, Memorial Day weekend was pretty popular (who knew?) and three weeks out a lot of the classes were full. We were a little dejected, but determined we still needed the experience and changed to a bookbinding class.
We spent most of our time at the school in class, which was phenomenal. I was expecting a random camp instructor to teach me some basic bookbinding tricks, but instead I had an artist /​professional bookbinder giving me in-​depth instruction. (For the record, the instructor was Joyce Sievers, who gets five stars all the way. Funny, entertaining, talented, generous, and the most non-​judgmental art instructor ever).
There is not much time to do anything other than take your class if you do the weekend format, so don’t expect a lot of socializing outside of it. The exception is meals, served family-​style, and structured to force you into talking to everyone at your table.
Other important notes:
–Don’t expect Mapquest to give you an accurate depiction of the time it takes to get there; the winding roads will slow you down.
–If you’re not into southern country food, you will not be exited about mealtime. Bring snacks. Also — they think that Vegetarian means you eat only veggies and bread. Bring snacks with protein.
–This place is a lot more country-​folk than hippie-​folk, and aside from the staff, most everyone there is 50+. Don’t let either of those things keep you away, though — it is still a fantastic time.