John C. Campbell Folk School celebrates 100 years with group show
Celebrating the centennial of the John C. Campbell Folk School, We Still Make Things: 100 Years of Craft and Culture offers a richly layered portrait of a school founded on collaboration, community, and the belief that making by hand is essential to daily life. On view at the Folk Art Center from January 31 through April 29, 2026, the exhibition “will outline the origins of the school and its evolution over time,” says Susanna Pyatt, collections and archives manager at the Folk School. The exhibition features 50 objects created by students, instructors, and community members across the school’s 100-year history, drawn primarily from the collections of the Folk School and the Southern Highland Craft Guild. Media represented include blacksmithing, weaving, woodcarving, woodworking, pottery, basketry, enameling, instrument making, dance, and paper arts. Objects range from works by the school’s founders and earliest students to pieces created in 2025, illustrating what Pyatt describes as “the breadth of craft and traditional culture still taught at the Folk School today.” Founded in 1925 and inspired by Scandinavian folk school traditions, the John C. Campbell Folk School has long emphasized hands-on, noncompetitive learning. We Still Make Things underscores that enduring philosophy — one rooted not in nostalgia, but in living practice.
We Still Make Things: 100 Years of Craft and Culture at the John C. Campbell Folk School: January 31-April 29, 2026
Folk Art Center / Blue Ridge Parkway, Milepost 382 / southernhighlandguild.org