As I walked through the doorway into the office to register for this week’s class at the John C. Campbell Folk School, I thought I heard someone call my name. I turned around to see my dear friend Lynne walking towards me, arms outstretched.
“Can you believe we’re here like this?” Lynne asked. “It is a little surreal,” I replied.
You see, Lynne and I had met here just two years earlier. We were classmates in Glenda Beall’s “Your Life, Your Stories” memoir writing class. At the time, I was nervous that as a thirty one year old, I would be in a class of eighty year olds who looked at me saying, “What on earth do you have to write about? You’ve hardly lived yet!” Thankfully, that was not the case at all. My classmates ranged from their twenties to their seventies, both male and female, and everyone had stories to tell – stories that we all enjoyed hearing, stories that were birthed onto the page thanks to the guidance and encouragement of our instructor.
In that class two years ago, Lynne and I also met Pat and Lois – neighbors from Ohio. Upon our return to our respective homes, we all kept in touch. A year later, we started an on-line writing group. On the first of the month, each of us sends out one of our pieces to the others for their feedback and critique. During one exchange, Lynne said she wanted to take another writing class at the Folk School and invited the rest of us to join her. The response was almost immediate. And a few months later, here we all are – our very own mini-reunion. This week, we join a different instructor and four other students for the “Beyond Memoir” class. We join a little more confident in our writing skills since first we met, and ever eager to learn more.
by Emolyn Liden, Programming Operations Assistant on March 8, 2010
in Featured Teacher
By Glenda Beall:
What is it about the John C. Campbell Folk School that seduces us into coming back again and again, either as student or teacher? Like so many others, I was hooked after the first class. In 1995, I moved to the mountains of western North Carolina and found the folk school through Nancy Simpson, Writer in Residence at John Campbell. My first class with her, a poet, changed my life. Although I’d been writing since I was old enough to hold a pencil, I would not ever have called myself a writer. I told Nancy I was not a poet, but after her class my poetry was published in slick and in literary magazines. I won a couple of awards from poetry contests.
Glenda Beall: Photo taken by Valorie Luhr
I’ll never forget my first class in the Orchard House, an old farmhouse turned dormitory for students. Our poetry class met in the living room which looks out through a window wall on a wide meadow bordered by dark trees. In the distance the Blue Ridge Mountains ride above the layered landscape. For that special week, my dream of writing and publishing began to come to fruition. Since then my poetry chapbook, Now Might As Well Be Then, has been published by Finishing Line press.
The greatest thrill of all was the day I turned the key in the lock to open the room where I would teach writing for the first time at the Folk School. I remembered all the writing classes, the outstanding teachers like Maureen Ryan Griffin, Darnell Arnoult, Ruth Zehfuss, and Elizabeth Hunter. I also thought about R.T. Smith, Gene Hirsch, Steven Harvey and so many others who educated me a week at the time in a comfortable atmosphere, the safety of a non-competitive group of adults who were eager, like me to write their stories and poems. My goal was to give my students that same experience. I hoped my students would leave the class room wishing the week would go on and on, just as I had done.
Writing Students: Chigger, Kay Lee, Teresa, Toni
Happily, I tell you, my students seem to have that same unique experience. I hear them say, “I don’t want to go home. I don’t want this week to end.”
I take great pleasure in the bonding and trust developed between my students as we talk and write about memories from childhood or from recent happenings. Women and men over sixty develop closeness with younger students. They form online writing groups with those in the same class.
One man told me at the end of the week, “You dragged me kicking and screaming into this class, but I am so glad I stayed.”
Others have said to me, “My week here in this class changed my life.”
Through participating in classes at the John C. Campbell Folk School, I learned what the students want and what the best teachers do to bring about the kind of experience that brings people from all over the United States to this tiny little place in western NC. I also learned that helping others to reach their writing goals, even if it is only to give a writer confidence to send out a manuscript, lifts my spirits, makes me proud, and fills my heart to overflowing with joy.
by Emolyn Liden, Programming Operations Assistant on March 3, 2010
in Music! Dancing!
Music and dancing is the heartbeat of the Folk School. While students, instructors, and staff work during the week, it is at the dances and concerts when the community comes together to have fun. Free concerts are held almost every Friday night at the school and this Friday Paul and Jerry Wilson and their family will perform. Groups who play here often travel from afar to share their music, but this week the band will be coming from just down the road. Tipper Wilson writes about her memories at the Folk School:
My name is Tipper, I spend my days writing about all things Appalachian over at the Blind Pig & The Acorn. Fortunately for me-my writing abode is just down the road from the John C. Campbell Folk School.
The first time I remember being at the Folk School, I was six years old. My 2nd grade class had planned a field trip to the Folk School. My grandmother, Marie Wilson, worked in the craft shop, instead of taking the bus with the other kids I rode to work with her that morning.
Woodcarving from the Folk School (Photo by Tipper Wilson)
Even though the years have passed quickly since then, I still vividly recall the day as the beginning of my fascination with the Folk School. First there were the wood carvings-dozens of little animal figures-any child would have been spell bound by them, there was the sliding door refrigerator with more fruit in it than I’d ever seen before, and as I wandered around and lost my way-there was the nice housekeeper who let me follow her back to my Grandmother-never scolding me for nosing around and getting lost.
Through the years the Folk School has continued to weave its way through my life. My father, Jerry Wilson, has performed at many a Fall Festival and Friday night concert. The Folk School even aided in one of the greatest achievements of his musical career-when they assisted the North Carolina Arts Council in awarding Dad and his brother the North Carolina Folk Heritage Award for their music.
The Wilson Brothers
The Folk School continues to be a part of my life today. For the past four years my daughters have clogged on the John C. Campbell Folk School Clogging Team and we all enjoy attending Contra Dances held at the school.
On March the 5th, this Friday night at 7:30, three generations of the Wilson family will perform on the Keith House Stage.
When Olive Dame Campbell opened her beloved Folk School it was primarily to help our little community of Brasstown and the surrounding area. To be sure, people from all over the world have benefited from the John C. Campbell Folk School. However, as we take our places on the stage Friday night I know Mrs. Campbell will be proud because four generations of the Wilson family, who live just down the road, have intertwined their lives with her dream.
Tipper
Visit www.blindpigandtheacorn.com where Tipper writes about the history and culture of Appalachia.
by Emolyn Liden, Programming Operations Assistant on February 25, 2010
in Featured Teacher
I’m Pam East, and my first experience with the Folk School was teaching an enamel bead making class in 2003. From that very first time I knew I had stumbled upon a truly special place. Since then the John C. Campbell Folk School has become my home away from home. Even though I’m usually there to teach, it feels like a vacation. I can feel my soul relax the minute I drive onto the campus.
I now have the good fortune to teach a variety of jewelry making and enameling classes, and once in a blue moon, I get to teach in wood-turning. No, I’m not also a wood-turner. How that happened is a great illustration of the supportive and collaborative spirit that embodies the Folk School. One February I was teaching a silver class and happened to be staying in the same house as Frank Penta, the wood-turning teacher that week. We started talking in the evenings and ended up exploring the idea of using my silver clay to embellish his boxes and platters. As luck would have it, we were both due back to teach again the same week in April. We agreed that I’d make up some medallions and finials, and he’d bring materials for boxes, and we’d see what we could put together then. When April rolled around, we were both as good as our word and some really lovely little boxes were created.
Metal inlay by Pam East, box by Frank Penta
Franks class was captivated by our joint project and immediately began asking when we were going to teach it. We approached Doug Barnes, the resident wood-turner at that time, with our proposal for a joint class and the rest, as they say, is history.
Last week I had the pleasure of co-teaching the Silver Embellished Wood-Turned Boxes class for the second time. Frank and I had eight terrific students. It’s amazing to me how much they can absorb in just a few days! They made a variety of medallions and finials AND got them set in boxes by the end of the week. The silver elements were all made using Art Clay Silver, a media that can be worked like clay, but fires up to pure fine silver. It’s amazing what can be accomplished without expensive silver-smithing equipment and in just a few short days!
Medallion by Pam East, woodturned box by Frank Penta
Whatever your interests, I hope you’ll give the Folk School a try. I promise you won’t regret it!
Pam East will be teaching at the Folk School again in May 28 – 30 (weekend) and May 30 – June 5 (week.) See more of her work and learn more about her at www.pameast.net
by Emolyn Liden, Programming Operations Assistant on February 18, 2010
in Featured Teacher
Kaleidoscope class with David Baker
This week is a time of celebration for David Baker’s Kaleidoscope Class. It all started Sunday night with Valentine’s Day when the students arrived at the studio and the walls were covered in red heart fabric. Everyone was invited to take a treat from under the white Valentine’s tree covered in Cupid’s feathers decorated with heart-shaped ornaments.
In a normal celebratory week Monday is Moo-Moo Monday, then Tu-tu Tuesday, Wacko Wednesday, and Tip the Hat Thursday. But, different plans were in order for Fat Tuesday! The students started by making mardi gras party scopes by putting mardi gras beads inside the end of the kaleidoscopes. “We celebrate in order to better remember the moment,” David said. After class, the students dressed up in green and purple robes with masks and beads and paraded through the dining hall to “When the Saints go Marching in.” It’s all about sharing the laughter.
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