Live craft displays come to the Parkway

chantalle@theheraldnewspapers.com Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts and the Arrowcraft Shop are bringing artists to the Parkway in Gatlinburg, this weekend to demonstrate their talents. Arrowmont starts it up on Friday. From noon to 7p.m., Artists-in-Residence and summer studio assistants will demonstrate their crafts on Arrowmont Plaza, located at traffic light #6, on the Parkway next to the Arrowcraft Shop. Some of the demonstrations include the potter’s wheel, hand building with clay, woodturning, life drawing, raising and forming metal, knotting, weaving, knitting, screen-printing, and printmaking. Arrowmont will wrap up the day with a concert by Nashville’s Steve Forbert. This will be the second concert in the inaugural series, “Inspired by Appalachia”. Forbert is a singer songwriter who performs music with “clear-eyed insight and plain spoken eloquence”. The concert series is the product of a partnership with the Arrowmont School, The University of Texas at Austin Performing Arts Center, and the Haslam Family Foundation. Concert tickets are $15 and still available by calling 865-436-5860 or at the door prior to the concert. The Arrowcraft Shop, on the Parkway in Gatlinburg is showcasing live craft demonstrations during the summer, from 10a.m. to 4p.m. July 1-3rd, Randy Ogle, Gatlinburg furniture maker, will be demonstrating some of his wood turning techniques. He has woodworked all of his life and uses the same tools and designs his father and grandfather used. His furniture and decorative items can be found all over the country. Frank Kalbing, a jeweler from Waynesville, NC, will demonstrate techniques in jewelry making. For over 40 years, Kalbing has used model making, stone cutting and setting, wax carving, and lost wax casting to create his nature inspired line of jewelry. The Arrowcraft Shop is a part of the Southern Highland Craft Guild. The shop showcases the work of more than 300 craft members. The Craft Guild represents over 900 Southern Appalachian craftspeople that work to preserve the traditional heritage of the Appalachian region.