MINOR

A Location for Craft

Our location near Asheville, a city with enormous creative and artistic energy, has led to an integration of craft throughout the Warren Wilson experience. You will have opportunities to engage with some of the country’s craft leaders, deepening your own knowledge and experience. And many of our craft students develop their sense of entrepreneurship by selling their work in downtown Asheville, a hotbed of creative craftspeople.

But don’t underestimate the impact of our campus on your craft. Our Fiber Arts Crew cultivates a dye garden on campus and uses wool from the sheep to make yarn. Our Forestry Crew partners with our Blacksmith Crew to provide charcoal sustainably created from our 600-acre forest. And forged work from our Blacksmith Crew often highlights the natural beauty of campus.

Craft Crews

You’ll take advantage of our rich location, both on and off campus, to study and create craft in a purposeful, directed way. Coursework will be enhanced through your work on one of our Craft Crews:

Explore Classes in This Program

ART 2907

Hand Tool Woodworking Concepts

Learn hand tool operations by completing several joinery exercises and a project using your new skills. The course covers sharpening techniques and explores cutting traditional wood joints. You’ll learn to use a marking gauge, hand saw, chisel, mallet, hand plane, and finishing for wooden objects.

ART 2909

Hammer & Anvil: Flame & Matter

This experimental laboratory explores conceptual frameworks and applied techniques for practicing metallurgy. You will learn a variety of forging techniques in order to create a small collection of instruments and artifacts. Through guided projects & assigned readings, you’ll consider the connections between material practice and material culture.

ART 2913

Storytelling Through Cloth

This course will explore ways that histories and action are told through cloth, from mythology to contemporary craft practices. What narratives exist within the stitched thread? How does text and textile connect? Learn how to tell your own stories through cloth through hands-on making in the techniques of sewing and stitching, through embroideries, story quilts and other fiber construction.

Still curious? See the Curriculum
Meet Our Faculty

Teaching at Warren Wilson College has given me the opportunity to see first hand what a unique educational atmosphere the campus, people and students involved have to offer. This community has an abundance of cross-disciplinary resources that support and enhance the educational experience.

James Darr, MFA
Meet James Darr See all Fine Arts Faculty
James Darr
James Darr, MFA
Leah Leitson

I particularly love teaching at Warren Wilson with its unique blend of rigor, respect and encouragement and our students who value their opportunity to be a part of our community.

Leah Leitson, MFA
Meet Leah Leitson See all Fine Arts Faculty
Leah Leitson
Leah Leitson, MFA

Working as a studio artist made me a better artist; teaching at Warren Wilson has made me a better person.

Jessica C. White, MFA
Meet Jessica C. White See all Fine Arts Faculty
Jessica C. White, MFA

Our department is a community where, through art, we create moments of deep connection and genuine learning, and where, together, we are building a future we all want to be part of.

Charlotte Taylor, MFA
Meet Charlotte Taylor See all Fine Arts Faculty
Charlotte Taylor, MFA
James Darr

Hands-on, All-in

Holden Arts Crew 
Help support and maintain the Elizabeth Holden Gallery
Expanding Our Craft 
$948,750 to strengthen our craft programming
Empty Bowls 
Handmade bowls contribute to fundraiser for food security
dyes
The Dye Garden 
Crafting from our campus landscape
Fieldwork Profile

Craft Talk

In 2013, Warren Wilson College was awarded a three-year grant from the Windgate Foundation in support of the continued renaissance of craft on campus. Through the Windgate grant the craft-oriented work crews, including blacksmithing and fiber arts, have hosted a number of talented visiting artists. Working together, the crews and artists have designed, built and installed artworks on campus.

We also launched a Craft Talk Series, where regional artists shared their inspirations, techniques and lessons learned as professional makers and business owners. The Craft Talk Series provides the campus with an opportunity to interact with local makers. The Series emphasizes the presenter’s body of work, where they studied and worked, and the entrepreneurial lessons they have learned as a small business owner.

(Photo: work by Jess Self ’14)

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