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John C. Campbell Folk School Tag

08 Nov

Posted at 14:27h in Giving, Stories: Weaving

Having grown up just 12 miles down the road from Brasstown, many of Tommye Scanlin’s earliest scanlin photoFolk School memories date back to her youth. In the mid-1960s, she and her boyfriend would often catch a glimpse of campus on their way to the drive-in movie theater in Peachtree. Since those drive-in, drive by days, Tommye’s Folk School story has come full circle.

Tommye was officially introduced to Folk School classes by Bob Owens, a potter who also happened to be the head of the Art Department at North Georgia College where Tommye taught art and textiles. “I was learning about weaving at the time,” Tommye says, “trying very hard to figure it out on my own. In the summer of 1974, I had the chance to take a weaving class.” During her week as a student, she learned to read weaving drafts and added to her growing love of the craft. “With my newly gained knowledge, I doubled down on my weaving and within a year or so began to show and sell my woven works.”

09 Apr

Posted at 21:28h in Instructor Voices, Stories: Dance, Stories: Music
[caption id="attachment_10345" align="aligncenter" width="480"]DMW-DiningHall Dance Musicians Week students serenade folks as they enter the Dining Hall for lunch.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_10346" align="alignright" width="256"]DMW-Class1 Student learn to play together as a dance band.[/caption] In 2001, I received a message from Bob Dalsemer asking if I would join the instructor team for Dance Musicians Week at the John C. Campbell Folk School. Lifelong mentor, fiddler, caller and instructor extraordinaire David Kaynor had thrown my name out to Bob, the music and dance coordinator at the school at the time. At that point I was living in Western Massachusetts playing with David and the Greenfield Dance Band and had been devoting much of my time to being a touring singer songwriter. I had been in the contra dance scene picking tunes for about a decade. My musical influences were a woven patchwork of the folks that had surrounded me growing up in New York—Jay Unger, Lyn Hardy, Molly Mason, Sonny Ochs, Pete Seeger. Being born into a family of activists and labor organizers, community was most important and music was (and is) the vehicle and the glue that tied it all together. We were raised to believe that music and dance for music and dance’s sake is not enough. Community first. [caption id="attachment_10347" align="alignleft" width="195"]DMW-Dance2 A band of DMW students takes the stage for one of the nightly contra dances.[/caption] “Sing behind the plow!” is one of the great mottos of the John C. Campbell Folk School. Upon first look into the Folk School it seemed to be a kind of Brigadoon, a place stuck in time. Of course, I mean that in the best way. At that point in my life I was lamenting the waning of “community” in “community dance” and was excited to see a place nestled in the far west mountains of North Carolina, founded in the 1920s by the grandmother of the twentieth-century folk music revival, Olive Dame Campbell. Mrs. Campbell based the philosophy of the Folk School on the Danish tradition of folkenhojskolen which aims to foster culture and tradition through noncompetitive adult education—metalwork, quilting, woodwork, photography, cooking—happening alongside a rich tradition of music and dance, with folks from the surrounding Brasstown community invited to weekly concerts and dances and given special admittance into classes. I heard a student once comment “This place is like a kind of Whoville!” referencing the idealistic village from How the Grinch Stole Christmas. This is exemplified best by the very fact that each dance ends with a short goodnight song, sung with hands joined in a circle. The facilities are surrounded by hills, rivers, lush gardens, outdoor folky sculptures and paths through the woods. Best of all, the dancers are not contra “dancers”—they are mostly just folks from the community. Their gauge of a great experience is more based on who they got to see that night, not how slick the floor was or what tempo the band had played. I had found my place, or maybe the place found me!

15 Sep

Posted at 21:18h in Instructor Voices, Stories: Glass
[caption id="attachment_8858" align="aligncenter" width="450"]Karen Karen teaches "Classical Stained Glass Panels" in the Jewelry Studio at the Folk School.[/caption]

CP: Why do you like glass?

KR: Glass is a magical, magical, magical medium. Never a liquid or a solid, glass is always in between those two states of matter. Through heat, you can control its characteristics. I believe that there are endless possibilities in glass as a creative medium. It is a wonderful combination of "science meets art." The way you see glass is all about the light.

CP: What made made you want to be a glass artist?

[caption id="attachment_8864" align="alignleft" width="184"]Bargello-inspired piece Bargello-inspired piece[/caption]

KR: I was into many crafts and I especially loved quilting - piecing things together. For Valentine's Day in 1981, my husband gave me a pair of grozing pliers and a glass cutter and encouraged me to try glass. Working with glass filled my soul, so I started my love affair with cold glass techniques (like stained glass) etched under 1000 degrees.

From there I wanted to try it all, so I learned warm glass techniques (like fusing, fritting, and ground glass) and plastic glass which is glass at a temperature above 1650 degrees (like beading). Now I have been working and teaching glass for over 30 years. My studio out of Huntsville, AL is Earthstar Glass.

CP: What inspires you?

[caption id="attachment_8866" align="alignright" width="192"]An example of Powder Painting by Karen Reed. An example of Powder Painting achieving a watercolor look by Karen Reed.[/caption]

KR: Creative challenges. I take inspiration from other media, like oil painting, watercolor, pastels, quilting, and think: "I would like to figure that out in glass."

I also take technique driven inspiration from different cultures around the world, I get lost in a subject. For example, I look at Balinese Folk Art and wonder "how can I make that in glass?"

CP: Functional or Decorative?

KR: It's a balance. As an independent studio we need to do functional work and custom pieces to fund our other more conceptual and creative pieces. My creative work is what goes in the galleries, the functional and smaller-sized work pays the bills. Small will sell better, but I love doing the big pieces.

CP: Who is your favorite glass artist?

KR: Harry Clarke (1889 -1931) a master of stained glass from Ireland.

CP: What’s the most meaningful piece you’ve ever made?

Reed-Chapel

KR: The 57 fused glass panels for the chapel in Madison, AL. In 2012, I was commissioned by three siblings to create an installation piece in a hospital chapel to commemorate their parents. Because of a lead ban, you cannot put lead in a hospital, so the siblings had a hard time finding an artist to hire. I have been fusing glass over 25 years and was honored and delighted to be able to work on such a commission. I loved every second of it! They wanted something soothing, non-denominational and artistic with nature as a theme - a place of retreat for everyone to enjoy.

02 Jul

Posted at 08:32h in Instructor Voices, Stories: Dance, Stories: Music
Atwater_BIOUsing clogging, music and storytelling to charm Folk School audiences since 1996, Aubrey exudes a talent, grace, and humor unique to only the most tenured and talented of performers. Aubrey returns to the Folk School this September to teach two dynamite classes: Singing with Clawhammer Banjo (Sept. 8-13) and Clogging (Sept. 13-15 - Weekend). She is also scheduled to perform in special Thursday night concert, Sept. 12, 7 p.m. Don't miss out on this opportunity to learn to play, laugh, sing, and dance with Aubrey this fall! I recently checked in with Aubrey to talk to her about her upcoming classes, the Folk School, tunes, heroes, dance moves, folk music, the Phoebe, and more! Here's what we talked about: CP: You teach quite regularly at the Folk School. How did you find the Folk School? When did you teach your first class? AA: I got the idea to apply to the folk school in the mid-90s when I saw that one of my dulcimer player mentors, Lorraine Hammond, from Boston, was working there. I got in touch, sent materials, and was invited to teach my first class in 1996. I thought I had died and gone to heaven-what a unique, beautiful, nurturing, and exciting place! Teaching a 30+ hour dulcimer class felt daunting back then for my younger self. I was nearly quivering on the plane as I travelled to the Folk School. I have learned a lot over the years teaching at the Folk School. The luxury of time in the week-long class has been a great opportunity to refine and expand my teaching. CP: Do you think anyone can learn to sing? Do you have to know how sing well to take your classes? AA: YES to first question - I think anyone can learn to sing. Absolutely NO to second question - you do not need to know how to sing well to take my classes. This question reminds me of college when I took a few drawing classes at the Rhode Island School of Design. I realized that maybe I didn't have a deeply inherent gift, but I learned the skill quite well. Some people can easily SING and it is beautiful, like when they are three years old. Some people don't have the gift quite as well, but I have never ever denied someone who wanted to sing or learn to control the pitch of their voice better. I think of two students in particular over the years who considered themselves "tone deaf" and we worked together, trained, and over time, I heard each of them sing on pitch. There were tears. It was quite a moment, very moving! [caption id="attachment_8338" align="alignleft" width="234"]Aubrey charms audiences of all ages! Aubrey charms audiences of all ages![/caption] CP: What came first for you, playing music or dancing? How did you learn clawhammer banjo? How did you learn to clog? AA: I started playing piano by ear at about 5 years old, then my parents started me on piano lessons. I quit at 13 and then picked up the guitar at age 15. I had a defining moment that summer in 1979. I figured out how to play two simple chords to a Beatles song and then I sang along and voila! I could play a song and then I was off and running and have never looked back. It was a major turning point in my life. From there I learned to play the tin whistle, mountain dulcimer and in my late 20's, I went to Eastern Kentucky and started to learn clawhammer banjo and to dance. My friend Cari Norris taught me. She is the granddaughter of the legendary Lily May Ledford, leader of the first all-female string band, The Coon Creek Girls, in the early radio days, so I got to learn from a wonderful lineage of women. When I wasn't with Cari in Kentucky, I'd commission her to send instructional recordings (cassettes!), and she walked me through tunes by ear that way. That same time frame, I learned a few clogging steps (aka Flatfooting) and then over time, I learned traditional freestyle clogging by imitating and collecting steps from percussive dancers I would meet on the road. It was a wondrous and quite traditional way to learn. More than ten years later, somewhere in my 40's, I said to my husband Elwood, with some surprise, "I'm a dancer!" I had never taken dance as a child. CP: Do you have a favorite tune right now? AA: Yes, always. It is often whatever song I am learning at the moment. I am always having some kind of a love affair with a song. Two right now are: "The Jamestown Homeward Bound," a 19th century seafaring song and "Mornin's Come, Mariah's Gone," a Jean Ritchie song. Another song I have sung to myself all year is the beautiful hymn "Resignation" written in 1719 by Isaac Watts. Pete Seeger is famous for saying a song can change the world and I believe that songs help heal our broken hearts. My father died last year and we lost a bunch of other old friends and family members nearly all at once. That one quiet and beautiful song has rescued me over and over again in the last year. CP: As a musician who has performed multiple times at the Folk School, do you have a tune you always include in your set? How many times have you performed at the Folk School? AA: I have performed at the Folk School about every year since 1996. It is one of my absolute utter favorite places in the world to play, teach and visit. When I am on that stage and looking at that roomful of smiling, warm, and, now, many familiar faces, I am in one of my happiest places. I often, but not always, play "The Devil and the Farmer's Wife" at the end of my shows. It's a silly, centuries-old song about the devil who comes up from Hell to talk to a dimwitted farmer about taking one of his family members back with him. The farmer says, "Don't take my son, I need him on the farm. But you can have my wife."  Then we see how things turn out for the DEVIL. It's a very funny song, still, to this day!  Someone captured in on video last time I was there: