Travels on a Tank
Highway 64 - Brasstown and the John C. Campbell Folk School
By Chris Wise

Someone who wants to brag about their familiarity with North Carolina will say they’ve been from Murphy to Manteo, Murphy being just about as far west as you can go in the state and Manteo just about as far east. If you live in the Triangle region it isn’t very hard to find a reason to visit Manteo: the beaches of the Outer Banks, lighthouses, the site of the Wright Brothers’ famous first flight, an aquarium, a summer outdoor drama, an old ship (sort of), and more. All in all, good reasons to take a trek to the far eastern reaches of North Carolina on US 64.

Brasstown’s near the other end of Highway 64, just this side of Murphy. Unless you’re planning on running for Governor, there doesn’t seem to be a good reason to go there. But there is. Brasstown is where the John C. Campbell Folk School has been located for the past 80 years.

The name is perhaps a bit deceptive, since the “folk” in the title is a translation of the Danish “volk” and refers to all adults, and the “school” in the title does not refer to a collection of rooms filled with desks. Instead, think of the folk school as a place where grownups acquire skills to enrich their lives. It can be a week spent learning how to turn a bowl on a lathe, play a hammered dulcimer, dance a jig, throw a pot, hammer out iron on a blacksmith’s anvil, build a bamboo fly rod from raw materials, weave a rug or basket, or any of dozens of skills and crafts. In any given year, the school offers something like 800 week-long and weekend classes.

The setting could not be more pleasant. Students stay in a collection of renovated buildings and work in studios dedicated to particular crafts. Accommodations are neither Spartan nor luxurious. Private baths, no room service, phones, TV or radios, exchange your towels on Wednesday. Most folks walk everywhere. The day can begin with a walk led by a member of the staff or birding expert followed by morning song — usually music and/or story telling.

Spinning and blacksmithing are just two of the many skills one can learn at the John C. Campbell Folk School.

Meals are family style and the heart of the experience. Students and instructors sit eight to a table and pass the excellent food around. Conversations are filled with what we are learning and who we are and the scope is fascinating. A pair of ladies from Jacksonville, Florida taking a “crazy quilt” class; a Foreign Service Officer from the DC area making jewelry; two sisters from New Jersey, one in quilting, the other in basketry; a father and daughter, he in woodturning, she in papermaking; a fellow from the Atlanta area taking a blacksmithing course and complaining about the heat (to the great amusement and joshing from the rest of the table); a retired soldier learning how to weave; a teacher of the folk harp from Kentucky; a lady from Alabama taking her eighth course in the various forms of basketry taught (one starts with an oak tree and several days later—after one heck of a lot of splitting—ends up with a couple of baskets). About six hours of the day are spent in the studios. In the evenings after supper, there are demonstrations and entertainment from story tellers to Celtic harpists to banjo and mandolin players (there are classes on story telling, harp playing, and banjos, and you can make your own banjo from scratch in one of the courses— the instructor provides the groundhog skin).

This last 4th of July was celebrated with an “anvil shoot.” An anvil shoot is a blacksmith’s substitute for firing a canon in celebration. One anvil is set on the ground with a layer of black powder on the face of it. Another anvil is placed upside down on top of the powder. Fuse is then touched by a well-lit cigar, a quick step away, and one heck of a bang. The anvil flies a hundred feet or so up into the air making an odd ringing sound. The audience claps and cheers and watches the great cloud of smoke drift away. The blacksmith takes a bow.

The loom that takes up all the space in our living room is the result of a weekend visit five years ago. We gained an understanding of weaving in those few days, acquired a loom, and have been working at it ever since. In another corner is a Celtic harp that one of us is just beginning to get the hang of, thanks to a week at the Campbell Folk School. And then there are the baskets scattered about that represent another visit up there.

The key to this experience is the extraordinary collection of instructors the school assembles each week. Masters of their craft or discipline they are without exception, in my experience, and the experience of those at our table at every meal, superb teachers.

Take a look at their web site, www.folkschool.org. Better yet, the next time you go out west, go on out to Brasstown and take a walk around the campus. Or visit Brasstown itself, a small collection of antique stores and high-quality craft shops. Lastly, of course, go a few miles further west so that you too can say you’ve been from Murphy to Manteo.

For the past 15 years, Chris Wise has lived in the Raleigh area where he pursues his weaving and writing. He can be found at the DBAP whenever the Bulls are in town.

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