A new craft festival will include an element of history along with demonstrations and music.

The Sunset Mountain Craft Festival, a juried fair with 80 booths, will be held at Grovewood Gallery and the adjoining Grove Park Inn Resort & Spa on Saturday and June 4.

The festival, also sponsored by HandMade in America, will feature jewelry and ceramics to metalwork and woodwork. About half the vendors are from Western North Carolina.

“It’s an event to give people the opportunity to be educated about our (crafts) history and to see what’s going on currently, how it’s still relevant today,” says Vanessa Osborne, general manager of Grovewood Gallery.

In addition to vendors selling their works, the festival will include lectures and craft classes, open artists’ studios at Grovewood and tours of Biltmore Industries’ former weaving operation, the dye house and spinning room in a building beside the gallery. Food and music will be part of the event.

All activities are free except the classes, which cost $60 each and will be offered June 2 at Grove Park Inn, Grovewood Gallery and Touch of Glass in West Asheville. Classes, for which reservations are required, will include whittling, glass beads, jewelry and ceramics.

The price range for most crafts at the festival will be $50 to $200. High-end jewelry and furniture may go for $4,000 to $10,000, Osborne says.

“All the people I come across are hungry for this type of event,” says Carole Summers, director of tourism for HandMade in America, a nonprofit organization that promotes crafts in Western North Carolina. “This is a great way to get everyone in one place, to bring craft to the general population.”

Source: citizen-times.com

Tags: America, Asheville, Carole Summers, food, Furniture, Grove Park Inn, Grovewood Gallery, HandMade in America, Levant, metal,