The Weekly Volcano, Oct. 17, 2013
To the best of my knowledge, Arbutus
Folk School opening in Olympia Oct. 19 will be the first school of its type in
the Pacific Northwest. The school at 600 4th Ave E will offer classes in such
arcane (and common) crafts as Scandinavian knife making, blacksmithing,
woodworking, top-bar beehive building, fiber arts, ceramics, and growing and
preserving foods.
The
core subject areas offered in the first phase of the school’s development will
focus on wood crafts, music and storytelling. The second phase will
include a pottery studio, fiber arts studio and commercial kitchen. Just a
few of the many other classes they plan to offer includes gardening, food
preservation and storage, beekeeping, wine/beer making, wooden boat building,
folk dance, canoe carving, foraging, food preparation and preservation.
The public is invited to the grand
opening celebration Saturday, Oct 19, from 3-9 p.m. There will be craft
demonstrations, kid's activities, live music by Back Porch Swing and a
presentation about the folk school. Classes will start the following Monday.
The school is a work in progress,
and not all classes will be available in the beginning. Some of the classrooms
are still being built. Most of the woodworking shop is complete and they have a
kiln, but some of the ceramics equipment is yet to come and there are walls to
knock down and rearrange, stuff still to be built.
The school is the brainchild of
Stacey Waterman-Hoey who has worked for Washington State University more than
20 years but quit her job last year in order to pursue her dream of opening
this school. She says she is grateful to a “phenomenal team of co-visionaries
and co-founders” for helping her bring her vision to fruition.
In addition to classes in a wide
variety of crafts taught by some of the best crafts persons in the Puget Sound
region, Arbutus will have a small gallery where artworks and hand tools will be
displayed and sold, there will be performances and workshops in the spacious
front room, and classrooms will be available for rent.
“I have been thinking about it for
at least five years,” Waterman-Hoey said. She wanted to get out of working in a
cubical and “do something heartfelt.” She kicked around many ideas, but “When I
got this idea I knew it was a go.”
Most of the board and volunteers who
have been helping to get it started are working for free right now, and a lot
of the equipment has been donated. Windfall Lumber donated 2-inch-thick maple
woodworking bench tops.
Arbutus will be using and selling
sustainably harvest lumber from small farms in Lewis, Mason and Thurston
Counties. They have partnered with the Department of Natural Resources to
utilize urban waste lumber.
The blacksmithing classes will be
taught by Kelly Rigg, who has taught at South Puget Sound Community College and
The Evergreen State College. The Scandinavian knife making with leather, wood
and metal will be taught by Tim Nagel, who taught on the East Coast for 15
years. Furniture making will be taught by local craftsperson Jay T. Scott. Kirk Hanson and Matt
Newton will teach top-bar beehive building
Most classes will be held evenings
and weekends. Waterman-Hoey says “It’s not all Little House on the Prairie.”
She says they want to have a lot of activities for families.
For now, Arbutus Folk School looks
like a fabulous idea off to a great start, but they have almost exhausted their
start-up funds and will need to raise more money to keep it going. For this
they will need investors, donors and paying students. Waterman-Hoey is confident
they will succeed.
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