At a recent open house at Adirondack Folk School in Lake Luzerne, several novice blacksmiths were able to refine their skills.
By Barbara Brewer La Mere
Have you ever wandered through a gift shop or furniture store featuring Adirondack-crafted utensils, baskets, woven items, or chairs, with Adirondack-style music playing, and just wanted to take that balsam-fragranced emporium home with you? Are you an Adirondack native who has always wondered about how all of those wonderful furnishings at Grandma and Grandpa’s house were made? Maybe you’ve vacationed in the Adirondacks and wished you could make one of those great canoes you may have seen in a museum. The possibility of learning to make all of those items may be much more readily available than you realize, as classes in the creation of Adirondack products of workbench and loom, forge, kiln, and even a wood-fired brick oven are all taught at the Adirondack Folk School in Lake Luzerne.
What’s a folk school? The concept of a folkehoskole had had its beginnings in 1844 in the work of Danish philosopher and theologian N. F. S. Grundtvig. Grundtvig advocated for the knowledge to help one to live a better life and to understand one’s native culture.
Jim Mandle, founder of the Adirondack Folk School, was on the town of Lake Luzerne’s Master Plan Committee in 2008. Downtown Lake Luzerne was floundering. Even the town government was relocating from the former Odd Fellows Lodge on Main Street to a new location on Route 9N. As a member of the Master Plan Committee, attempting to keep the business district alive, Mandle was marketing the former town hall location. He inquired of the American Canoe Association, Adirondack Museum and SUNY Adirondack’s Adventure Sports Program. Everyone loved Mandle’s ideas, but the money to support these visions was not readily available.
Meanwhile in his travels, Mandle came across North House Folk School in Grand Marais, Minnesota. The people who had founded North House had drawn on their region’s Scandinavian roots and Grundtvig’s Danish teachings to create a school teaching traditional regional crafts and culture.
Mandle began to consider whether the former town hall property might become a folk school for education in the crafts and culture of the Adirondacks. Other organizations had established themselves as purveyors of various kinds of Adirondack information: Adirondack Museum for history, Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK) for knowledge of hiking trails and backwoods safety, The Wild Center in Tupper Lake for wildlife education. No one organization, however, seemed to have taken on the task of educating people in how to produce the traditional craft items that were the furnishings of everyday folk as well as of the region’s Great Camps, and in how to preserve the musical traditions of the region.
Mandle ran a survey in the area and found considerable interest in the concept. A 501(c) 3 not-for profit organization was founded for the purpose of “teaching the traditional arts, crafts, and culture of the Adirondacks”. A lease was signed with the town on February 10, 2010. On February 17, the first volunteer meeting assembled. Mandle and a corps of stalwart volunteers spent the remainder of that winter addressing plumbing issues, fixing stairs, painting, and generally getting the building into usable and aesthetically satisfactory condition.
Says Mandle, “We have been so fortunate to have the support of our community and thousands of hours of volunteer effort. Without the support, we could not provide such a wide variety of classes and programs.”
Once the school’s main building was in presentable condition, an open house was held, with special invitations sent out to artists residing in a 50-mile radius. One of the school’s goals was to hire as many local artists as possible to teach courses. Another goal has been the Folk School’s role as a “silent economic engine.” Mandle points out that for every dollar that students of the Adirondack Folk School spend on classes at the school, an additional $13 is spent on the local economy for food, gas, lodging, and other necessities. (Students have come from many states, and even from as far away as England and Nepal.)
In addition to providing a venue for keeping traditional arts, crafts, and culture alive, Adirondack Folk School is also sharing in the education of local public school students. A music program for local fourth graders has been implemented. A heritage trail set up on AFS grounds, with research completed and brochures and informational placards created by high school students, shows links between local flora (e.g., maple for syrup, and hemlock, whose bark was used for leather tanning) and landscape (the Hudson, used as an aqueous conveyor belt for logs cut further north) that have impacted the life of the region. (Though most of the courses at Adirondack Folk School are targeted for adults, there are some classes taught with kids in mind, including clay construction, songwriting, fly-casting, a simple blacksmithing project to create a marshmallow roaster, nature photography for teens, and introductory tinsmithing.
As the school’s curriculum has grown from 90 classes in 2010 to 150 last year to the current 200+ classes filling a 30-page catalog, structures have been added to the grounds. A pavilion for blacksmithing, boat building, kids’ programs and ceramics also can double as a performance shed when the weather is uncooperative for use of the 140-seat outdoor amphitheater. (Open forge nights are held on the second Wednesday of every month.) The wood-fired brick oven is a stand-alone structure in the Folk School’s back yard covered by a timber-frame structure that was a class project.
Inside the school building, a woodworking shop affords a space for building furniture, toboggans and other projects. The fiber arts room has sewing machines and accommodates spinning wheels for creating yarn and looms for weaving. Benchtop projects such as basketry (for anything from fishing creels to a traditional Adirondack pack basket) and carving (from spoons to loons, and assorted other projects) have a place as well.
Some of the most popular classes at the school include furniture making (including how to re-cane the seat of that heirloom chair), traditional birch bark picture frames, lampshades incorporating regional flowers and other botanicals, soap making, and assorted blacksmithing projects. For a complete list of courses, check online at adirondackfolkschool.org or stop by the school at 51 Main Street in Lake Luzerne and pick up a copy of the catalog. (You can browse the gift shop while you’re there.) Mandle emphasizes the high qualifications of the teachers at Adirondack Folk School. While most faculty members are skilled local area crafters and teachers, there are some teachers called in from further away who stand as “rock stars” in their respective areas of expertise. Photographer Carl Heilman II teaches three classes in Adirondack photography. An AFS tinsmith also does restorations for the Smithsonian. A Master Stonemason teaches how to build dry-laid stonewall. The flycasting teacher at L.L. Bean is also on the AFS faculty.
Adirondack Folk school is the first school in the country to offer certification through the Artist-Blacksmiths’ Association of North America. Mark Asprey is one of the top-five rated blacksmiths in the country. Michael McCarthy was the head smith at the Cooperstown Farmers Museum. Both teach at the Folk School.
The last week of July and the first week of August will represent a bonanza of Adirondack music and dance. Regional musicians, dancers, storytellers, and singers will teach classes during the day and present concerts in the evening.
The school’s third annual Bountiful Bowl Benefit on September 3 will afford school visitors an opportunity to purchase hand-thrown ceramic bowls filled with wonderful foods along with bread from the brick wood-fired oven and thereby benefit the local Walt Maxfield Food Pantry and AFS.
To learn more about Adirondack Folk School, visit the website or call 696-2400.