Kicking it in the Ashe!

In 1930 the guild started coming together durring the depresion. The guild would make and teach different types of crafts to try and make money durring this time. The guild started in the Appalachian are and started to spread all over the south east region around the mountains. Today the guild is made up of over 1000 members within 9 states. From The Fold Art Center, Joe Frank Mckee was one of the artist that intregued me the most. He was a pottery maker from Sylva North Carolina who was one of the co-founders of Tree House Pottery in NC. In his work he makes Raku and Horse hair pottery. Raku pottery is a type of of burn technique done to the pot and Horse hair is a technique of burning hair in the pottery. I had already known a lot about the two techniques so i caught my eye when i saw his work.

In Handmade In America we were shown how crafts made from human, not machine, can also be used in interior design, for instince rugs, dressers, lamps, ect. Within the Handmade In America, Bill Brown made this lamp, and others, as an interior decor piece.

At the Oriole Mill we learned the technique to create one of a kind rugs, blankets, and others. It starts out with putting all the string on a giant spindle and thn a giant computer operated sewing machine creates the pattern that is desired into the rug or blanket or whatever is being made.

The last place we visited was The River Arts District. Here one of the craftsmen was M. H. Libman, he was a woodturner and had many great pieces of work. He makes all kind of wood products like bowls, salt holders, cups, vases, chairs, ect. It was a process where he would actually sometimes go down to Florida and get his own wood and then he would design a piece out of the trees he obtained. Depending on how thick the bowls were some would actually take up to an entire year to dry.