The living word: John C. Campbell Folk School at 100
Celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2025, the storied John C. Campbell Folk School — located in Brasstown amid the rural landscape of Clay County — remains a cultural bastion for the arts, music and dance in Western North Carolina.
“[The school] had an effect of kind of changing what traditional music and dance was in the region,” said T-Claw Crawford, music and dance coordinator for JCCFS.
Located on 300 acres of vast fields and rolling hills surrounded by the bucolic Blue Ridge Mountains, the institution is the oldest and largest school of its kind in the country. In seemingly every corner of the property are jovial faces — instructors and pupils alike — coming together to let their minds and bodies go with the flow of the creative spirit.
“We promise ‘joy’ in our mission statement,” said Annie Fain Barralon, programs development manager for JCCFS. “And sometimes when you’re trying something new, it’s not always comfortable. So, there’s this discomfort we need to be open to supporting. Here, the teacher learns as much as the student and vice versa — it’s this feedback loop instead of a hierarchy.”
The idea for, and eventual creation of, the JCCFS came from Campbell’s widow, Olive Dame Campbell, and her colleague, Marguerite Butler. The duo headed to Europe to cultivate and bring back the teachings and traditions they found to WNC to share and complement the mountain culture that was already established.
“And Olive was a connector of people,” Barralon said. “She knew — from traveling to folk schools in Scandinavia — that song, music and dance was a part of the glue and of the community feeling.”
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In the 1920s, when the school was coming to fruition, young folks were leaving Western North Carolina in droves, in search of a better life, with many heading for the cotton mills outside of the area.
“[The school] started off as an agricultural setting,” said Martha Owen, who is the creative programming assistant at JCCFS. “They were trying to help young people stay in place — there was a desire to keep people on the land here.”
From its earliest days, JCCFS looked at its programming as a way to mitigate the brain drain on the rural communities by offering people other possible avenues of revenue.
“The impetus of this place was to find something [people could learn] that they could sell,” Owen said. “And then also find a way to help people feed and take care of themselves.”
Nowadays, the campus offers hundreds of classes throughout the year, with a seemingly endless selection of artistic mediums and musical opportunities available to locals and visitors — woodcarving, blacksmithing, gardening, writing, cooking, etc.
“You’re not just coming to a class, you’re coming to a place,” Owen said in a matter-of-fact tone. “It’s not an industrial setting; it’s more of a homestead kind of setting. And you have people who come here to improve their calligraphy or how to write their first novel or learn photography — [JCCFS] is anything that anybody can imagine.”
Martha Owen.
For Owen, whose expertise resides in “spinning, knitting, crochet, felt making, dyeing and surface design,” her journey to JCCFS began in 1978. Back then, she was a young adult eager to find her passion in life.
“A lot of what’s going on is the exchange of ideas across the campus,” Owen said. “And it’s like you push pause on your life — your busy life — and you have a chance to be still, be creative, learning something new, meet other people. For a lot of folks, it’s paradise.”
As a teenager, Owen was given a family heirloom, an antique spinning wheel. It sparked her curiosity, to which her grandmother saw an advertisement one day in the local newspaper for spinning and dyeing class at JCCFS. Owen took the two-week course and, suddenly, everything clicked.
“And it just kind of went on from there,” Owen chuckled. “I’ve never gotten bored. There’s no way to get bored, there are so many aspects of [spinning].”
Celebrating its 100th anniversary, the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown is the largest institution of its kind in the country. Donated photos
Come Tuesday night, like clockwork, Crawford runs a community dance, one where contra styles are featured alongside a bevy of live music ranging from bluegrass to folk, Americana to blues.
“Those are a way to overlap the community and the students,” Crawford noted. “And it’s the music, dance and singing element that’s one thing that [separates us] from a craft school.”
When it comes to music and dance, Crawford estimates that he alone books upward of 300 events each year for just those aspects of the JCCFS programming, the culmination of which being the annual Fall Festival (Oct. 4-5). With two stages, dozens of local and regional acts perform to an estimated 20,000 folks who attend the event and wander the hundreds of artisan vendor booths and live craft demonstrations.
“My lens on life is just trying to include everyone,” Crawford said. “So, what type of programs, events, gatherings and spaces can we create a shared culture that’s more harmonious?”
That genuine sense of togetherness is what lies at the foundation of JCCFS. It’s this steadfast ethos of connecting people, places and things within this storied space of creativity and cultivation.
“People move here because there are not many small communities with such a robust music and dance culture,” Crawford said. “And everyone [around here] has their own little side trade, too.”
With the 100th anniversary celebration now underway at JCCFS, Barralon has taken time to pause and reflect on just what this property means to human beings in the fast-paced 21st century.
“We’re all humans and we know this feels good,” Barralon said of JCCFS’s intersection of art, nature and community. “But, modern life pulls us away from this good feeling — our folk school is about togetherness.”
“It’s excitement. It’s joy. It’s really refreshing for people who come here,” Crawford added. “They get caught up in another energetic state than they would be in their regular day-to-day. So, it’s important for people to have an experience like this if at all possible.”
T-Claw Crawford.
When asked what she sees when looking at the next possible 100 years of JCCFS, Owen lights up in a sincere, confident voice, especially when you take the query and place it against a modern, digital world where more and more people are seeking those traditional trades and skillsets — this campus where tranquility and using your hands come together.
“It’s been a long, long road, but I’m extremely optimistic right now for the future [of the school],” Owen said. “There were a lot of good parts to that old life [before the age of convenience].”
(The story was created in partnership between The Smoky Mountain News and the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area and its annual “Down the Road” and “Craft Trails” magazines. For more information, visit
blueridgenationalheritagearea.com.)
Want to go?
The 49th annual Fall Festival and 100th anniversary of the John C. Campbell Folk School will be held Oct. 4-5 at the institution, which is located in Brasstown.
Featuring over 200 artisan vendors and a slew of craft demonstrations, the gathering will also showcase an array of live music and dance, as well as food onsite and other activities for any and all.
Admission is $12 for adults, $10 for ages 65 and over and veterans. Children ages 12 and under are free.
For more information about the festival and/or a full schedule of upcoming events and classes at the school, visit folkschool.org.
