One Crafty Destination
Berea offers "cultural tourism" to Kentucky natives and visitors alike

Shuttles were flying with a clack-a clack-a, clack-a clack-a as sprightly feet steadily tapped in memorized rhythms across the sturdy wooden pedals of the massive old looms at Churchill Weavers in Berea. For the first time, I was witnessing "the weaver’s dance," exact in its execution and completely mesmerizing. Gorgeous reams of soft, intricately-patterned afghans-to-be materialized, bound for markets such as Nordstrom’s, Bloomingdale’s and Nieman-Marcus.

For years Berea has been a favorite spot of mine. Often, I’ll drive the 35 miles south from Lexington down I-75 for its annual events, the Kentucky Guild of Artists and Craftsmen Spring Fair in May or Fall Fair in October, or the Berea Craft Festival in July, all at the woodsy Indian Fort Theater three miles outside town. I’ll peruse its 100 or more booths of handmade crafts and art pieces, watch a potter transform a hunk of natural clay into a lovely bowl, listen to an old-time fiddler and hike up to The Pinnacle for a hawk’s-eye view of green hills and valleys far below.

Later, I’ll stop at Papa Leno’s on the College Square for a garlic breadstick, pizza and frozen yogurt, and head back to Lexington, my day satisfying and complete.

But I’d never paused to learn the history of this tiny community and its unusual anchoring college nestled in the Appalachian foothills. And though a soft, green Churchill Weavers’ throw warms my winter evenings, I’d never set foot in its sprawling loom house.

So on a hot August day, I joined Belle Jackson, executive director of the Berea Tourist and Convention Commission, for an enlightening behind-the-looms look at this renowned crafts house and at the town it characterizes.

On the free tour of Churchill Weavers, visitors learn about entrepreneur D.C. Churchill, who built a weaving shed after failing in an attempt to start a technology center at Berea College 75 years ago. A brilliant engineer, he combined those skills with the artistic and marketing abilities of his wife and created Churchill Weavers. More than 90 employees carry on that tradition today at what’s become the nation’s largest and foremost handweaving studio, turning out afghans, throws, baby blankets, ponchos and other exquisite handwoven items.

But Churchill Weavers is only a part of the mystique that draws tourists here from all over the world to "the Folk Arts and Crafts Capital of Kentucky."

Prior to the Civil War, politically-ambitious Cassius Marcellus Clay gave a tract of land known as The Glade to an abolitionist, Reverend John G. Fee, who established a church, Berea College, and a tiny utopian community. By 1890, the thriving town incorporated, separating its affairs from those of the school, which was founded with a commitment to educating male and female, black and white students together, a philosophy unusual in that era.

Perceiving a national market for traditional crafts, college president William Frost then cashed in on the growing national interest in Appalachian culture, and established the first Berea College Fireside Industries. The institution built a loom house and hired a supervisor to train and assure the quality of student work. Frost also began a series of "homespun fairs" where local folks could sell their handmade goods.

When Berea’s wooden chapel burned to the ground in the early 1900s, Mrs. Phelps Stokes offered to build a new one, but only if students would construct it. So they did, with no prior experience making bricks or building large structures. Also student-built, the original library, now the Frost Building, was the first to be given as a gift by the Carnegie Foundation. That’s why today’s chapel and a number of the school’s buildings are significant, Jackson told me, "because they show that if you give young people the opportunity to learn, they will.

"We’re an old school, but we’re a one-generational school, we hope," the Berea grad continued. "Once you graduate, you’ll join the work force and make too much money to send your child here."

The Woodcraft Building is home to all student crafts except weaving. Here -- as in Fireside Industries’ loom house -- you can buy what these skilled craftsmen consider seconds. To most of us, they’re well made, lovely items available at a great price.

Continuing a 60-year family tradition, Lonnie Reed is a woodworker and now teaches at Berea. When I stopped in, he was making brooms, surrounded by sheaves of broom corn dyed red, blue, green and black. "We dye about 1,500 pounds a week for our brooms and for companies around the country," he explained.

The shop can turn out about 450 sturdy, handcrafted brooms a day, often doing piecework, i.e. attaching its broom heads to stylized handles sent in by company customers. Like other student traditional craft industries, the operation here is simple, efficient and impressive.

At the Log House Craft Gallery, Peggy Burgio, one of two coordinators for the Berea College Crafts Program and president of the town’s Tourism Commission, addressed this seeming phenomenon. "People come from all over the world to study this crafts program and labor program, trying to duplicate it, but it’s almost impossible," she said. "It’s unique but we’re not sure why it works. We’ve been doing it since 1893 and I guess we just don’t know any better!"

Entering the Log House, the crafts program’s flagship shop, is like stepping into an expansive, clean, well-appointed mountain log home. Its hand-hewn walls and handmade hutches display such gems as baskets, quilts, rugs, place mats and pottery. All student crafts are represented, though not all items are student-made. Upstairs, I ogled the gorgeous handiworks of master woodworker Wallace Nutting in the small museum of furniture he donated to the college.

The town of Berea boasts more than 50 craftspeople and gallery owners, and handmade treasures for sale in dozens of intriguing craft-filled shops in three main shopping areas -- Old Town, Chestnut Street and the College Square -- all of which lend themselves to easy strolling.

You can grab a fistful of brochures and a town map to plan your touring strategy in Old Town at the Welcome Center, housed in a restored 1917 L & N railroad depot and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Walk over to Honeysuckle Vine Galleries for Bybee pottery and glass lampworked beads by "Hot Flash Bead" artist Jimmy Lou Jackson, to Christmas Collectibles for holiday heirlooms, and to Gastineau Jewelry for exquisite sterling and brass pieces handcrafted by Ken and Sally Gastineau.

Sate your appetite with a barbeque sandwich at Hog Heaven Cafe and Crafts, then fill your minimum daily chocolate requirement at Old Town Fudge.

Oh, go on and indulge. You’re on vacation.

These well-laid-out shops, galleries and restaurants belie the fact that just three years ago Old Town was devastated by a tornado. "It looked like my concept of Bosnia," Belle Jackson says. "There were snapped telephone poles, roofing material, arts and crafts, all lying out in the street. People were wandering around and staring, with a look of ‘What do I do next?’"

Amazingly, most of the neighborhood has been either renovated or totally rebuilt, as was the red brick showroom and studio -- called Simple Gifts Inc. -- of woodworker Charles Harvey and potter Teresa Cole. Now a specialist in Shaker reproductions, Harvey knew as a small-town Illinois teen that he was meant to be a craftsman but had no idea this high-tech world had a place for him until 19 years ago, when he found Berea.

After a year and a half apprenticeship with master woodworker Warren May, Harvey had an epiphany while visiting Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill. There, he was inspired to go on his own and has been crafting sought-after Shaker furniture, chairs and oval boxes ever since.

Having sized me up, Harvey sat me in a #6 (of 15 available rocking chairs), which was so comfortable, I threatened to stay. Had I ordered one on that August 1999 day, I couldn’t have taken delivery until March of 2000. "Every piece is individually turned and the process takes time," he explained. "I don’t own any machines that make duplications and every stick is done one piece at a time. I take full responsibility for a chair from the time I buy the logs and have them sawn." That’s craftsmanship.

Once pried from the chair, I was treated to an impromptu concert several doors down at Morning Glory Bed’n’Breakfast and Weavers Bottom, where 28-year veteran cornshuck dollmaker Mary Colmer, and her husband, Neil, a weaver for 31 years, sat knee-to-knee, singing a lilting ditty while strumming a custom-built Warren May double dulcimer. Mary also makes tiny "elf cottages," one of which is in the White House, and with a bit of prompting, plays a handsome 132-year-old hammered dulcimer, as store dog Splinter -- who responds to 63 commands -- cocks a curious eye at visitors from his behind-the-counter house.

Just up the tracks from Old Town, Chestnut Street offers antique shops and malls, Twice Sold Tales used books, the village public buildings and a few crafts shops and studios, among them the workshop and showroom of renown chairmaker and woodworker Brian Boggs.

A short walk downtown among more galleries, restaurants and craft stores on College Square, another nationally renowned woodworker, Warren May, has been building dulcimers for some 27 years. "My personal objective is to make the very finest traditional Kentucky-style mountain dulcimer," says the man whose workshop has turned out 10,750 of these poplar, walnut, cherry or butternut musical instruments to date, 100 of which filled an order from the Smithsonian Institute.

"I still do a lot of the traditional detail work, which requires a lot of handwork," he says, "like the carved scroll, which is my trademark, carved hummingbirds and sculpturing the actual knotholes."

Like a Zen master, he brings out what’s hidden in the wood, transforming logs and branches into formal furniture, clocks, small "mushroom tables," baby rattles and of course, dulcimers.

For years, these elegant handmade arts and crafts have lured visitors to Berea. But its appeal goes deeper than simply shopping for acquisition’s sake. Every craftsman is a sort of goodwill ambassador who shares a bit of himself. Charley Harvey explains the concept he calls "cultural tourism." "A visitor comes here, buys a piece of art and says, ‘I know a guy. I was in his shop. This object shows a lot more than the fact that I chose to trade my money for it.’

"We talk about what makes Berea unique and I’m convinced that it has to do with people who come through the doors of our shops, who discover that we’re real people and we make real things. And in this age, I think that a few well-made items in our homes are going to be more important than ever." Chuckling, Harvey adds, "At least I hope so!"

Katherine Tandy Brown is a staff writer for The Lane Report.

Back to Tourism Index

Back to September Issue

Copyright 1996-98, by Kentucky Business Online, LLC.  All rights reserved.

Editorial content is copyright 1998, Lane Communications Group
All editorial materials is fully protected and must not be reproduced in any manner without prior permission. 

Buzzword and the Buzzword balloon are registered trademarks of Buzzword, Inc.  The Lane Report is a trademark of Lane Communications Group.  All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.