Anne Freels is a folk artist who first discovered her passion as a restless teenager searching for direction. During her senior year at an alternative high school, she took Appalachian Studies to fulfill a history requirement and was introduced to the traditional art of corn shuck dolls. The experience was transformative–not only did she find an art form that enchanted her, but it also connected her deeply to her East Tennessee roots.

She began selling her work at the Community Craft Co-Op in Norris, Tennessee (now the Appalachian Arts Craft Center) and participated in her first crafts fair in Rugby, Tennessee in 1976. In the winter of 1977, she attended Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, where she furthered her skills under the instruction of Lila Marshall and her daughters, Phyllis Combs and Wana Henry. After earning a BS in Communications from the University of Tennessee in 1988, Freels was accepted into the Southern Highland Craft Guild. Though she continued to work full-time as a Community Relations Representative at Lockheed Martin, it became clear that her true calling was in her craft. In 1997, she left her corporate career behind and has never looked back. When she couldn’t find comprehensive instructional material on corn shuck dolls, Freels decided to write her own book. With Schiffer Publishing, she authored Making Colorful Corn Shuck Dolls, published in December 2011. The book is the first detailed guide to her particular style of corn shuck dolls, featuring step-by-step instructions and over 250 color photographs illustrating everything from dyeing the shucks to embellishing the dolls.

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