In the Cooking Studio. From left: Chocolate Making Instructor Robert Reeb, Governor Beverly Perdue, and Jan Davidson

Today, Governor Beverly Perdue came to Cherokee County. In downtown Murphy, she visited the Cherokee County Court House and The Cherokee Scout newspaper, and then it was on to Brasstown.

The Governor asked me to ride with her so we got a chance to talk about the Folk School. I told her how we contribute to the local economy, providing income for our staff, 650 instructors, and hundreds of craftspeople in the shop and the Fall Festival. I wanted her to know that we are teaching people skills that add value to raw materials and create home businesses. I wanted her to know about our local involvement, our young folks’ programs, our free concerts, dance community, and our plans for a “greener” Folk School. I had an opportunity also to say thanks for the North Carolina Arts Council, which is a great supporter of our programs.

By the time we reached the Folk School, I had offered the Governor several options. Decisively, she chose to go straight to the chocolate class, where Robert Reeb and Chris Carroll and a roomful of students from all over the country were dipping coconut macaroons in dark ganache.

The macaroons were really good, and the Governor ordered all the troopers to try some. Everybody tried some and nobody wanted to leave.

The party proceeded to the Clay Spencer Blacksmith Shop, in only its second week of operation, where Tom McElfresh demonstrated for Governor Perdue a forge weld on a basket-handled poker. As we left the blacksmith shop, the Governor jumped almost into Brendle Branch to pick some forget-me-nots and to select a flat rock for her collection of rocks from cool places in North Carolina.

Resident potter Mike Lalone gave her a bowl which she likes very much, and we fixed her up with “the Full Folk School” with caps, tshirts, DVD, CD, apron and a jar of Folk School Sourwood Honey.

I found out afterward that the Cherokee County Chamber of Commerce gave her a jar of honey, too.

Then I found out she’s a beekeeper and put up 170 pounds this year. So The Governor’s got honey.

According to the Cherokee Scout, the last time a sitting governor came to Cherokee County was when Governor Jim Hunt landed his helicopter on the Folk School maypole field, and dedicated the Folk School’s new classroom building. It is now Davidson Hall, home of the chocolatiers.

Governor Perdue wore a white jacket that remained spotless through ganache, forging, flower picking, rock collecting and hugging chocolate makers and blacksmiths. It was a quick, but pleasant visit with someone who would be fun to have as a classmate at the Folk School. She’s hoping to take a weekend class, maybe in pottery.

Blacksmithing Instructor Tom McElfresh demonstrates a forge weld for Governor Perdue

Gathering forget-me-nots and rocks from Brendle Branch

Governor Perdue and Jan in front of the Francis Whitaker Blacksmith Shop

Governor Beverly Perdue at left visits Robert Reeb's chocolate making class.

The Folk School recently completed Little Folk School and Middle Folk School–“Little Middle” or “L/M” as it looms on our planning calendars.  There were 284 students: 156 Little (age 7-12) and 128 Middle (age 13-17), mostly locals, in 26 classes with 30 amazing teachers and a 37-member volunteer crew.

The whole local community participated in Little Middle.  There is a special feeling during the week.  The local community was especially involved this year through the presence of a speed monitor placed  by the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department between Harshaw Road and Davidson Lane.  It helped to slow down even the log trucks and gravel haulers, and gave our local commuters, staff (your Director included), and neighbors a reminder of how slow 25 mph really is.

There was a lot of music and laughing in Morningsong.  There were hilarious and amazing classes.  Flowers, mountains, dinosaurs and snakes were executed in every imaginable medium.  There were whimsical flights of fancy were made, and underneath it, if you looked close, you could see people discovering what will become a lifelong fascination with the challenges and joys of clay, wood, metal, fiber, narrative, movement and performance.

Some of them performed miracles (especially the magic class) and many of these young folks made objects never seen before on the earth.  Some made things that we human types have made and loved for a long time, and they were taught to make them faithfully, and with respect.  The borderland of tradition and creativity is where we dwell.   We all saw in the young students a sense of pride in their own accomplishments, and delight at being a part of what was obviously a grand opportunity for fun.

Life-long friendships were started, mentors were identified.  People of many ages found themselves transformed by the experience.  The Brasstown Fire Department arrived Wednesday and sprayed all who wanted to get sprayed with a fire hose.

Little/Middle is one week out of our 49, but in importance, it may equal all the others.  It’s a seed bed for our future.  After 19 years, it’s a pleasure to see so many teachers and assistants in this program who grew up in it and have sort of grown up, and have assumed their place in the continuity of Little/Middle and of the larger Folk School world.

Looking at the program now, it is hard to imagine that in 1976, the entire attendance was 25, and the staff was two:  Phillip Merrill and an 18-year-old work/study, Miss Nanette Buchen.  About six years after that, Nanette and I got married in the Open House, and in time became parents of three L/Ms.  Sam just entered his M years with woodturning and blacksmithing and provided for his family dibbles and barbeque forks.

At the end of Little Middle week, we had the John Neil Davidson Dance, which supports a scholarship fund for young folks.  There was a silent auction organized by Chloe Davidson, and supported by a stellar cast of makers and bidders.  There was a memorable dance, and an unbeatable snack and drink sale.  It represented the work of many dear friends and raised over $1,800.

Thanks for being part of the Folk School.  There’s nothing remotely like it.

By Jan Davidson

Great old rooms have their own personalities. The Living Room at Keith House is one of the pleasantest places at the Folk School. It is cozy, informal, and timeless. Sometimes it is boisterous and sometimes it is contemplative. It has dignity, but it enjoys a good laugh. It is made of wood and books. You can sit in chairs that arrived in September, 1927. You can stumble across odd old books that people have wondered at for eight decades and more. You can feel the patina of a thousand months of conversations, singing, learning and hanging out. On its door, a sign says

“In honor of William B. “Brad” Coolidge.”

One of the great Folk School friends of all time, he passed away on February 9, 2010. He died peacefully in his sleep at his home in Bethesda, Maryland, age 92.

Brad Coolidge as a child

He was Olive Dame Campbell’s nephew, the son of Olive’s sister Ruth Dame Coolidge. His father, Richard, served on the Folk School board from its inception in 1925 into the fifies. Brad himself served on the Folk School Board for over twenty years. He was a member of the Board at the time I was hired as Director, and I appreciate his trust and support. He was a great source of inspiration, wisdom and knowledge to the School for all these years.

Brad was born in Medford, Massachusetts in 1916, and graduated from Tufts University in 1937. He was a journalist in Japan from 1937 to 1939 during the rise of militarism, the invasion of Manchuria, and the last days before World War II. As a United Press correspondent, he went into Japanese-occupied Manchuria and China. On his return, he earned a Harvard master’s degree in International Affairs. He joined the Army and served as an intelligence officer, using his knowledge of Japanese and other oriental languages in his work as an analyst. After the war, he was asked to join the State Department, where he became a Foreign Service Officer, serving in Japan, Thailand and Turkey. In retirement, he divided his time between Bethesda and Nantucket, with trips to Brasstown at least annually. He was an avid sailor, a fine photographer, and a stellar Folk School student. He was the quintessential Yankee: self-effacing, solid, capable. He was certain of his anchors, and kept his eyes on the stars. He loved to hike in these mountains with his cameras on a hunt for flowers and birds. He enjoyed listening to people and learning about their lives, which is why he was a fine representative of America in other lands, and why he was, as we say in Brasstown, “folk school all the way.”

“Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.”

Brad in Madaket Harbor

You meet the most interesting people here.  Over the years, I’ve learned from and enjoyed talking to some of the world’s great characters right here in Brasstown.  Shortly after I became the Director of the Folk School, I asked some of my musical and crafts friends to tell me great people we should try to get to teach at the Folk School.  A trusted musical advisor, Beth Ross Johnson, said “Get the great ballad singer Norman Kennedy.”  My weaving advisor (spouse Nanette) said, “Get the great weaver Norman Kennedy.”  These two turned out to be the very same ponytailed Scotsman.  So for the last eighteen years or so, he has made visits to Brasstown which are always memorable for us here, jazzing up weavers and spinners, slamming tweed on the table to the beat of the ancient waulking music, where the singing and the weaving come together, as the song propels the cloth sunwise around the table while all the hands of the people lift it up and slam it down and pass it on to the next waulker.  In this way, the wool is preshrunk, softened, bonded and unified.  The people likewise, except they are not preshrunk.

Born in Aberdeen, he was gifted with a lovely singing voice and a prodigious memory.  At an early age he began to learn ballads with hundreds if not thousands of verses, in both Scots and Gaelic.  He could even sing in English.  He even claims to speak it, but sometimes it is hard to tell.  Whatever English he is speaking, it’s way down deep within thick layers of Norse and Pict and Braid Scots and the cosmopolitan sounds of a seaport town.  Forty years in Vermont have not influenced his accent because the people there do not speak.  Remember what Calvin Coolidge said?  Neither do I.  He was from Vermont.

Norman can rare back and close his eyes and sing you off to castles, mysterious rides through the wood, long sea voyages, back to the old cattle stealing days, the sailing times, the rhythms of long evenings sitting by the hearth.  He can break your heart with songs of lost loves and tragic ends.  He can tell you how his sailor father went roond the world seven times wi never a passport, and how if somebody told his mither she was getting auld, she’d say, “I’ll knock ye doon and dance on ye!”  At an early age, Norman fell in with the Scottish Traveller singers like Jeannie Robertson and Davie Stewart who handed on to him riches of song.  This was in days and places where there were not many audio recorders, but fortunately, Norman was there instead.  He could listen one time to some ancient song with about 147 verses, and remember the whole thing.  He also became fascinated with spinning and weaving, and he sat and spun and sung with old ladies who were the last of their ilk.  He has never forgotten a detail of his long life and it has all been profoundly funny, to hear him tell about it.  He was taught by great masters and he has become their legacy to us now.

It never works to stereotype Folk School people.  Norman can sing the heck out of Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” and he loves Hank Williams.  He first came to this country in 1965, to represent Scotland at the Newport Folk Festival.  Norman had just finished singing on the famous day when Bob Dylan went electric, to the dismay of his folkie fans.  With his typical open-mindedness, (and working-class musical roots which included Scottish country and western bars—think Texas oilfields, only tough) Norman liked Bob’s new sound and thought the audience would come around.

It was great to see him again.  He’s still way Scottish, but he’s been a great American singer and craftsman for a long time now.  A few years ago, he was presented with the National Heritage Fellowship, our nation’s highest honor for keepers of tradition.

We got snow! On Monday the sun was shining bright in a clear blue sky, but by Friday the weather reports were in, and sure enough the flakes began to fall.  It had been below-freezing for a couple of days, with night temperatures dipping down to nine degrees, so the snow stuck.

 As the sun began to set, I took a walk around campus and saw the beauty brought out by the wintery landscape.  The trees, the round hay bales in the field, the icicles in the goldfish pond, the red iron railing, the rocking chairs on the porch were all outlined in white.  Some one (probably the Snow Queen) had left snow angels in the parking lot. 

Thank you Tammy Godfrey for the nice photos!

There are treasures in the Folk School archives that help us get perspective for understanding the days we live in. Anna Shearouse, who works in our archives, found this item. It is one of the “Monday Morning Messages” of William H. Danforth, who founded the Purina company.  He wrote these to his employees for forty years. This one is dated May 23, 1932:

“Last week I visited the John C. Campbell Folk School at Brasstown, North Carolina.  There the community is taught singing games to bring more joy into the work of each day. It seemed to me that the birds were bursting their little throats, that the cows were more contented, that the roosters crowed louder, that the people were happier than in any other neighborhood that I had been in for a long time.  Why not, when they are living out their slogan: I SING BEHIND THE PLOUGH. An economist writes that we are in the thirty-seventh month of the depression and that if we haven’t already turned upward, we soon will.  Depressions take songs out of our hearts.  While we are all doing our level best to make things better, don’t you think it will help a lot if we can get a bit of song back into our lives?  We can’t sing good times back, but a song of courage on our lips will make our days more fruitful and help brighten the lives of those around us.  I’m not much for Pollyanna stuff, but I’m going to begin each day with a song; and I’m going to try to continue that song all the day long.  I’m going to sing behind my plough. How many of you will join me?”

If you’re interested in helping out on the New Forge timber frame project, get your application in to the Timber Framers Guild soon!

Applications are now available for timber framers, blacksmiths, and other interested workers for the new New Forge Building Project. The project will happen at the end of spring, from May 29 – June 13, 2009.

There are many ways to participate in this event from being a full participant in the timber frame workshop to providing your blacksmithing skills for building hardware or toting lumber around the construction site. The Timber Framers Guild is processing all applications for participation in this 2-week event. Please visit their website to read about the opportunities and to get an application.

Applications for all categories of participation are due no later than May 15, 2009. We encourage you to apply early, as space is limited.

Read more and get an application.