On day one at John C. Campbell Folk School, I woke up early and took advantage of the foggy morning to take some photos from my vantage point at Orchard House. Since breakfast was at 8:15 I had plenty of time to take photos and get the studio set up for the first full day of class. Breakfast (and every meal) was wonderful during the entire week with so many choices; kudos to the chef for providing so many incredible meals every day. Veggie choices were superb.

A family of barn swallows protecting their nest provided a welcome of sorts to the studio. There were three nests and every day the birds greeted us with warnings, which we had to ignore of course. I loved watching them swoop in and out chattering all the time. I wish I could have seen the result of all the hard work they put in during our stay.

After a brief introduction and demo it didn’t take these artists very long to get to work with heated palettes, torches and heat guns preparing their panels and starting to work on their creations. Notice the great space we had including the overhead electrical systems which allowed everyone great freedom of movement, a system I would love to have in my studio. The progress was amazing. Several artists had not worked with encaustic before but had evidently done their homework because they were prepared with boxes of mixed media resources. The atmosphere was relaxed as befitted the surroundings and the work exploded. I mean it. Witty, creative, hardworking all the students spent many hours in the studio with marvelous results. I’ll let photos show the rest. Thanks to all the artists for making this a week to remember and thanks for the parting gifts. I treasure them all.