BURRITT FOLK SCHOOL: Burritt on the Mountain offers modern day refuge in time-honored activities

STORY BY MARIA RAKOCZY | PHOTOS BY JOSHUA BERRY

Enter a time portal at Burritt Folk School on Burritt on the Mountain.

In the setting of the Burritt complex, with its grand 1930s mansion, mountain nature trails, and the nineteenth-century structures of the historic park, Burritt Folk School immerses students in an older way of life and older ways of doing things.

Since 2016, the Burritt Folk School has fulfilled Burritt on the Mountain’s mission to “enhance lives and build community through educational, artistic and recreational experiences, while preserving our heritage, land and historic structures” through its classes that teach time-honored crafts to a modern audience.

What started as just a few classes nine years ago has now grown to 10-12 workshops a month with a dedicated following of students and a team of expert instructors.

The school is known for teaching classic crafts like blacksmithing, basket making, and quilting. Burritt Folk School’s emphasis on traditional crafts like these is what makes it a folk school and a unique educational program in the North Alabama area.

“We try to offer ones that reflect the traditional culture of this region, of southern Appalachia, the Tennessee Valley,” said Burritt Folk School Program Manager Jana Parris. “We offer a good bit of those here in one place, and most of our instructors are from this area or currently live here.”

Chair caning, for example, is one of those special crafts that the folk school teaches and is extra special even among the school’s typical crafts for its local family ties to North Alabama.

Chair caning is the traditional craft of weaving material, often rattan cane, to form the backs or seats of chairs, and the Chafin family in Arab, Alabama has been practicing chair caning for generations. Owner of Chafin’s Chair Caning, Gwen Chafin has continued to pass on the skill to new generations and new families through Burritt Folk School classes.

“It’s a small business, but it’s a craft that family has passed down through their family for several generations. Teaching it here has helped them preserve that,” said Parris.

The chair caning classes have not only preserved a cherished, family tradition but have had practical impacts on others and allowed them to, in turn, preserve cherished items.

“I’ve also had people just call up like, ‘I have this old antique chair, and the seat is worn out. I don’t know what to do about it,’” said Parris. “There’s something fulfilling about being able to take a workshop and then learn how to do it because you can bring your chair to the workshop and fix it there.”

Like the chair caning classes, all Burritt Folk School classes make age-old skills accessible to a modern audience. Most classes are offered at the beginner level and are project based, meaning students take home a completed project and knowledge of a craft from start to finish.

The classes often apply modern tools and materials to age-old methods, such as sewing machines for quilting, so that students can continue practicing their craft at home. The school has also seen many students return to learn other disciplines and take classes at advanced skill levels.

Some students have even been so inspired by their classes at Burritt that they pursued mastery of a craft and returned to the school as instructors.

In fact, Parris credits the knowledgeable instructors at Burritt Folk School for the dedicated following the school has gathered over the years.

“I like to tell people about our instructors,” she said. “It’s not lost on me that our instructors is one of the reasons we have so many people come back.”

Burritt Folk School instructors are masters of their crafts. Many are from the Huntsville area and teach at other renowned folk schools in Appalachia, such as John C. Campbell Folk School in North Carolina. Some are like Gwen Chafin whose families have practiced a certain craft for multiple generations.

Most classes are offered on the weekends but certain blacksmithing, stained glass, and ceramics classes are also offered as part of a weekday series on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Thanks to the enthusiasm of the community, the school has been able to expand its quantity of classes and add new disciplines to its repertoire over the years.

“We have certain classes that just are really popular, like stained glass and blacksmithing are two of the more popular examples. So, we’ve been able to add more of those and then add also new disciplines like dancing. We’ve had some music, and we’ve added food ways workshops, and we’re offering a good bit of fiber arts right now as well,” explained Parris.

Starting this spring, the school will be adding Historic Hands workshops to its lineup which will place students in the historic setting of one of the nineteenth-century buildings in Burritt’s historic park while doing a traditional craft.

“This is going to be classes that we offer that are traditional and then we offer them in our historic park at various locations to get kind of an opportunity for people to experience a traditional craft in a space that is similar to where people would have been doing it in the past,” said Parris.

The first of this series will be a wreath making class that will fully immerse students in historic practices, inviting them to forage on Burritt’s nature trails and make natural wreaths in the historic park.

The Historic Hands wreath making class is just one of many classes Burritt Folk School has to offer for people of all ages and interests to take a step into an older way of life.

Visit burrittonthemountain.com for a calendar of their upcoming spring and summer classes.