Come gain proficiency in an art form of your choice, and enjoy the community of other artists during a fall week in the mountains. This is a great opportunity for individuals or groups. Bring a group from your church, community, family, or come alone. We can help you figure out the details!
The Fall Craft Week is our quest here at Montreat Conference Center to celebrate the profound idea of “craft” in a world where technology dominates and where people mainly use their hands to operate smartphones and computers. Our goal is to bring people together as a community of artists working with our hands with natural materials, led by skilled leaders, offering time for creating, worship, singing, and quiet contemplation of these beautiful mountains, and building relationships through the arts, as we learn about ourselves and each other through the power of craft. Join us as we explore our creative, artistic spirits through writing, pottery, jewelry, fabric arts, Appalachian basketry, dulcimers, photography and stained glass!
Years ago M. C. Richards, renowned potter, came to Black Mountain College to teach poetry but ended up with her hands in clay. In her book Centering she defines the word craft as “…Craft, as you may know, comes from the German word Kraft, meaning power or strength. We can’t fake craft. It lies in the act.”¹
The idea wasn’t totally new. In fact, the Arts and Crafts Movement, which found real fruition in these mountains, had already introduced the idea of “craft” into an increasingly industrialized culture. “They sought to provide an alternative code to the harshness of late nineteenth-century industrialism, to foster spiritual harmony through the work process…(by encouraging) individualism, the creation of hand-made goods in place of machine uniformity, and a reappraisal of design materials.”²
Mark your calendars now, and plan to join this community of artists as we create our own craft! See more details below, including class offerings, instructors, registration, accommodations, and daily schedule. Fall Craft week is an excellent continuing education opportunity, as well!
Click here to view a video created by participants of the 2021 photography class.
Click here to see photos from the 2021 event.
¹ M.C. Richards, Centering in Pottery, Poetry and the Person (Wesleyan University Press: Middleton, Connecticut, 1969) p. 12.
² Elizabeth Coming and Wendy Kaplan, The Arts and Crafts Movement (Thames and Hudson: London, 2004) p. 9.
