It was raining buckets outside but inside was as dry as cornstalks in an autumn field. I was at Heritage Weekend at the Folk Art Center, milepost 382 on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Asheville, where friends and I had decided to take a vacation to see the mountains of western North Carolina.
I had never been to Asheville, had heard a lot about it (during the year or so I lived in Raleigh at the other end of the state) and finally took the time to pay it a visit. I also wanted to drive the parkway, which my friends Kristin, Valorie and I did on our way to Charlotte after spending a few days in the quiet town of Asheville.
On the parkway, traffic was light, the mountain views were majestic, the leaves were barely starting to turn but I was certain that by next month the scenery would be breathtaking.
Today, though, we were mixing it up with the locals, listening to blue grass music – the group apparently was the Southern Crescent Bluegrass band, which was set to go on at the hour we arrived. The band sounded kind of good to my ears, although I’m not much of a bluegrass or country-music person (except for the old Kenny Rogers tunes, that is).
But bluegrass isn’t country, I learned; it’s more Appalachian folk music, although it is said to be a derivative of country. In fact, while in Asheville, we walked into a restaurant touting unusual tastes of potato chips when I heard a bluegrass song I recognized from the 2000 George Clooney movie “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”.
At the festival, crafts people handily made all sorts of items – from birdhouses to brooms to earrings and necklaces made by tatting to butter carriers made in a technique called coopering to rocking chairs. The event was sponsored by the Southern Highland Craft Guild, which had an excellent tapestry exhibit on display in its gallery.
Coming later in the afternoon – we had long gone by then – was the “World Gee Haw Whimmy Diddle Competition.” It seems that the gee haw is an Appalachian toy made with two sticks. Here’s a YouTube video of how one is made.
The buckets of rain had forced the event inside – which was too bad since the grounds appeared to be lovely – but the atmosphere was festive. Here’s a sprinkling of the crafts people and their wares:
Marlow Gates, Friendswood Brooms, Leicester, NC
Gates’ brooms have elegantly twisted and gnarled handles that reminded me of the coils of a snake, but tamed. His brooms were made by hand using a technique dating to the 1790s, according to his business card. His wife Diana makes the handles, according to their website, and he uses a Shaker-style design to tie the head to them.
He told me that he made a wedding broom when he and his wife got married, and showed me a photo of it. On his display wall hung a short history of brooms in the wedding ceremony of enslaved Africans. It said in part: “Enslaved African couples were denied all rights, including the right to be formally married and live together. Because slaves could not legally marry, they created their own rituals to honor their union. So to make a public declaration of their love and commitment, a man and woman would literally jump over a broom into matrimony.”
I’ve known and seen African American couples in the past who jumped the broom at their wedding.
Jim McGie, Buckhorn Ridge Studios, Athens, TN
Several of us stood watching as McGie pulled a wide piece of material through the seat of a stool that looked to be almost finished. On the legs, I noticed that he had carved his name inside a clean disk nearly hidden away. A finished rocking chair bore the face of a man that he had carved into the surface.
I was just as transfixed, though, by the table of antique carving tools that he had laid out. I had seen many like them at auction and always thought they were amazing. He uses these antique tools in his work.
Walt Cottingham, Hawk Ridge Farm, Zirconia, NC
Simply stated, Cottingham makes birdhouses, but his structures are far from simplistic. He uses various types of wood, he says on his craft-guild member website, along with recycled materials for his birdhouses. Even the stands are artistically designed and crafted.
He was working on a machine that looked antiquated, with its heavy metal frame and smooth but worn wooden top. In fact, it was an antique, which he had retrieved from storage – as I recalled him saying – at the craft guild. “I got it working,” he said.
Lyle Wheeler, Wheeler’s Chairs, Millers Creek, NC
I seemed to be the only one around as Wheeler shaved red oak into what would become one of his beautiful handmade rocking chairs like the ones sitting patiently waiting for buyers or offering a place to rest the buns. In fact, Wheeler said, he made the shaving devices he uses. His ladder-back chairs and rockers, he noted in his handout, are made using traditional mountain techniques in Shaker styles. The seats are rattan reeds.
The pieces are functional and meant to be handed down as heirlooms.
Barbara Miller, Pisgah Forest, NC
Miller was working so intently on her loom that I didn’t want to disturb her, but I wanted to know what she was making. So I asked. She pointed toward several beautiful scarves hanging over a rack, but when I looked, someone else’s name were on them. Then I saw some colorful fabric purses, and on a card was her name. I’m not much into fabric purses – I like the look and feel of leather – but my friend Valorie is. Looking at Miller’s purses, I understood why.
Some years ago, Miller and weaver Marjorie Warren of Lake Junaluska, NC, traveled to Scotland where they found books containing weaving patterns from the 19th century. They recreated those patterns, which were hand-woven into fabric by more than 75 artists and exhibited at the craft guild in 2002.
Ann Gleason, Ann Gleason Pottery, Tryon, NC
Gleason’s handiwork had drawn a large crowd, including some children who were as much in awe as us adults as she turned messy unformed clay into a piece of pottery. We stood there mesmerized – and didn’t much mind being flecked by tiny spots of wet clay – as she adeptly and smoothly handled the material with her bare hands.
She started out making 2-D drawing, painting and printmaking, and then discovered clay, she said on her craft-guild member website. And she’s “never looked back,” she said.
Other blog posts from my North Carolina trip:
Discovering grits, black history & the ‘big house’ in NC
A Gideons Bible in my hotel nightstand
