Each year as Spring rolls around, members of the Southern Highland Craft Guild launch their Educational Events programming at the Folk Art Center with Glass & Metal Day on the first Saturday of April. This year, the event will be combined with the annual Summer event, Clay Day, incorporating clay craft-making techniques. As the nation’s second oldest craft organization, the Guild brings awareness to the process of handmade craft through their free & educational events for the community. This is the first of four special events hosted throughout the year in the Folk Art Center’s auditorium. For a full list of events, visit craft guild.org/events.

On Saturday April 6, more than a dozen Guild members will showcase their skills and techniques of glass, metal, and clay in the auditorium of the Folk Art Center. From 10am to 4pm, these master craftsmen will be blacksmithing, glass blowing, piercing and annealing metals, knife making, bezeling, repoussé, soldering stained glass, forging, raku-firing, wheel-turning and hand-building clay, and many other processes.

The Guild’s educational event series is a significant outlet that members use to share their process. Often, consumers are not informed of the stories behind their purchased goods. The Guild advocates and cultivates spaces to connect buyers with sellers to foster upward mobility for makers.

Education Director, Janet Wiseman states, “Members of the Southern Highland Craft Guild share their knowledge and skillset at these events with the hope of inspiring visitors to be more creative in their own lives. We are honored to have such generous members who volunteer their time to encourage the appreciation of handmade crafts and to teach the value of learning a new skill. The Folk Art Center is a beautiful oasis of craft on the Blue Ridge Parkway and was designed to be family and group friendly. One of the Southern Highland Craft Guild’s driving missions is to share this gift of craft education with the Asheville community and to the many travelers here in our beautiful mountains.”

For more information on Glass, Metal, and Clay Day, visit our website craftguild.org/events, our Facebook Events page https://www.facebook.com/shcraftguild/events, or contact the Folk Art Center, [email protected], 828-298-7928. Participants will be announced closer to date.

The Folk Art Center is located at Milepost 382 on the Blue Ridge Parkway in east Asheville. Headquarters to the Southern Highland Craft Guild, the Folk Art Center also houses three galleries, a library, a craft shop and a Blue Ridge Parkway information desk and bookstore. The Center is handicap accessible and open daily from 10am-5pm. Admission is free.