The Bounty Of The Blue Ridge Tradition Of Craftsmanship Holds Strong In Mountain Range Communities Running From Pennsylvania To Georgia

“You’ll know my place by all the junk in the yard,” Jerry King says.

His place is near Blairsville, Ga., in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Jerry makes banjos and carves walking sticks in his spare time.

Tall and nearly as thin as one of his walking sticks, he wears a thick beard that reaches toward the top of bib overalls. His handshake is gentle.

In his yard there’s the clutter of a handyman-farmer-carpenter-craftsman. An ancient pickup truck on blocks powers a homemade sawmill. Works in progress vie for space with raw materials. Partly finished lumber is piled here; partly built benches and tables over there.

But Jerry’s place is well back in the woods, safely out of sight of the highway in hills more than a billion years old. These mountains, valleys and woods have nurtured and sustained generations of Native Americans and settlers.

What we now call mountain crafts, they considered life’s necessities. And they gleaned them from the bounty the land provided, from the food they ate to the clothes they wore.

If they needed furniture, they made it; wool was plucked from sheep, carded, spun and woven into fabrics for clothing; pottery was made from local clays; baskets were woven from the plants of the forest; tattered clothing found new life in quilts; whittlers occupied long winter evenings carving utensils or toys.

Those traditions of craftsmanship continue in the Blue Ridge, a cigar-shaped range of mountains running from southern Pennsylvania to northern Georgia. Along the crest of this range is a highway. In the North it’s called Skyline Drive, and in the South it’s called the Blue Ridge Parkway. The parkway, 60 years old in September, ends at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina.

Most visitors find their wares at fairs and galleries, easily accessible from the parkway and other major roads. But those who take the time and trouble to explore the side roads will meet the descendants of Blue Ridge settlers. The hills are thick with them: potters, quilters, woodworkers, blacksmiths and weavers. Many produce fine work, some magnificent.

But you’ll have to get directions. These places are not easy to find. For the more adventurous souls, a trip to Blairsville, for example, is worth the long detour off the Blue Ridge Parkway because it can result in a visit with people like Jerry King.

Penetrate the clutter of Jerry’s yard and perhaps he’ll pluck out “my-dog-has-fleas” on the 50th banjo he has completed.

But it is the walking sticks that are Jerry’s most unusual and appealing work. He has been making them for only about 10 years.

“I’d go around to craft fairs with my banjos, but people were more interested in the walking sticks,” he says. “That’s how I got into it.”

To make the sticks, he searches the woods for sourwood branches that have honeysuckle vines growing tightly around them, so tightly that the two have become fused. He shapes the branch into a wonderfully worked stick. The vine becomes a snake writhing around it.

“I sell ‘em for $250 and believe it or not, I have people askin’ for ‘em,” he says.

Just 15 miles north of Jerry’s place lives his friend and fellow artisan Martha Owen. She spins yarn from the wool of the sheep and angora rabbits she raises. First she dyes it, then knits it into beautiful shawls, sweaters, scarves and mittens.

To reach her is a pleasant drive. From overlooks along the roadway, ranks of ridges march into the distance, each a paler blue than the one before. In places, craggy peaks tower over stands of mountain ash, their bright orange berries in brilliant contrast to deep green leaves. The Shenandoah Valley spreads out flat and fertile, like a table set for dinner. Cloud shadows the size of counties drift slowly across it.

Drinking in such a scene it is difficult to realize the Blue Ridge Mountains are under attack by a number of enemies. In places, acid rain and air pollution are degrading the forests. Several diseases are killing trees. Over-development is a problem where the hills burst with condos, ski chalets, golf courses and country clubs.

Martha’s place seems far removed from these grim matters.

She keeps her rabbits in pens behind the house. Their pink noses wiggle as they sniff a visitor.

“I pluck them when they’re shedding, four times a year, and get a good shoe box full of fur each time,” Martha says. Sitting before her wheel, she takes a handful of fur from the rabbit sitting in her lap and gently feeds it into the machine. The rabbit fur adds texture and fuzziness to pieces knitted from sheep wool.

Martha is intense but courteous, a busy woman who juggles teaching, raising a family and her craft.

She shows off boxes of wool that she has dyed. “Many ancient dyes came from this part of the world. The Indians traded dyes. Indigo gives blue. If I use marigold or onion skins, I get yellow. And if I then put the wool in the indigo dye pot, I get green. Here it’s easy to get brown from walnuts, yellow from goldenrod.”

The work Martha produces is as soft as the clouds that float above the Blue Ridge, but in rich, earthy colors. In shops, one of her large sweaters sells for around $250.

Like most craftsmen, Martha spends many weekends at the craft fairs that are held frequently throughout the Blue Ridge. Drive the narrow, winding mountain roads for any time, or stop at a gas station or general store, and you’ll see fliers and posters advertising them.

At tiny Foscoe, N.C., Judy Mofield-Mallow, who lives just east of the Blue Ridge but often shows her work at its craft fairs, is weaving baskets from the thin, pliant needles of longleaf pines, a tree native to dry sandy soils of the Southern coastal plains.

This particular craft has been in her family for five generations: She learned it from her grandmother, who learned it from her grandmother. “I make baskets absolutely full-time, day and night.

Soaking the needles to make them pliable gives Judy’s baskets a beautiful black sheen. Some have slices of black walnut shell woven into them as decoration. Prices range from $10 for a small, simple basket to $1,000 for a large, complex one.

Most Blue Ridge craftsmen count on their crafts to supplement their incomes, although Judy gets all her money from her crafts. But few rely on the craft trade more than the region’s Cherokee Indians do.

Like most Native Americans, the Cherokee saw their culture collapse after contact with Europeans, and, - for many - decades of poverty followed.

The empire of the Cherokee once covered the southern Blue Ridge, numbering perhaps 30,000 when they first encountered whites. Most were forcibly removed to the Oklahoma Territory in 1838. Several hundred eluded the roundups and took refuge in the mountains on the border of North Carolina and Tennessee. Their descendants live there today in and around the town of Cherokee at the edge of the Smokies. Many are fine craftsmen.

Louise Bigmeat Maney, soft-spoken and motherly, has a shop on the outskirts of Cherokee where she sells Cherokee crafts, but features her own Bigmeat Pottery.

“That’s my maiden name,” she says. “I’ve traced it back six generations. My great-great grandfather and his wife, Little Deer, left a daughter behind when they were removed to Oklahoma. She made pottery for the Cherokee who were hiding in the mountains. I’m descended from her.”

Louise’s pottery reflects her pride in her Cherokee heritage. She uses traditional materials, traditional wood fires for her kiln, traditional patterns and colors. Pieces she produces once served traditional functions: burial urns, wedding vases, oil lamps, peace pipes. They sell for $6 to $500.

Like many craftsmen, Louise learned pottery from her mother. “When you grow up in a home where pottery is made, you can’t help but know how. I was making pottery when I was 5 or 6 years old. My children grew up with pottery, too, watching me, playing with the clay. I hope when I’m gone they’ll carry on.”

MEMO: Ron Fisher has written several books about the Blue Ridge Mountains, including “The Appalachian Trail,” “Mountain Adventure” and “Blue Ridge Range: The Gentle Mountains.”

This sidebar appeared with the story: BLUE RIDGE CRAFT MAKERS Over the last 30 years, I’ve visited the Blue Ridge often, in every season. And whenever I’m in the mountains I try to visit a few craftsmen and women. Several favorites are featured here, but you can also find your own. Craft fairs are a good place to begin. Or you can get their names from craft shops. All are busy, many are shy and some are leery of strangers, but if they don’t want to be dropped in on, they’ll say so. Take careful notes as they give directions to their workshops. Typically they live far off the beaten path, where there are no named streets or numbers painted on curbs. To visit with Jerry King and see his banjos and walking sticks, write to 9096 Burns Drive, Blairsville, GA 30512. Martha Owen can be reached by writing to Route 2, Box 248A, Murphy, N.C. 28906, or calling (704) 837-9538. Judy Mofield-Mallow travels frequently visiting craft fairs, so she can best be reached by writing to 2463 Farm Life School Road, Carthage, NC 28327. Louise Bigmeat Maney’s shop, featuring her work and that of other Cherokee artisans, is at Highway 19, East Cherokee, NC 28719, or call her at (704) 497-9544. Because of the Rev. Russell Gillespie’s uncertain health, he prefers to be contacted by mail at Route 3, Box 84, Leicester, NC 28748. The work of fine Blue Ridge craftsmen and women can be seen and bought at a number of places in the mountains, including the Folk Art Center at Milepost 382 on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Write to them at Box 9545, Asheville, NC 28815, or call (704) 298-0398. Cherokee work is featured at Qualla Arts and Crafts, Box 310, Cherokee Indian Reservation, Cherokee, NC 28719, (704) 497-3103. The region’s largest craft fair, featuring the work of hundreds of craftsmen and women, is held twice a year, in July and October, at the Civic Center in Asheville. For more information, call (704) 298-7928 or write to the Civic Center, 87 Haywood St., Asheville, NC 28801. For more information on the Blue Ridge Parkway, call (704) 687-8722 or write to Blue Ridge Parkway, 200 BB&T Building, Asheville, NC 28801. For general information on visiting the Blue Ridge Mountains, contact each state’s tourism bureau: Virginia Vacations, (800) 847-4882; North Carolina Travel and Tourism, 430 North Salisbury St., Raleigh, NC 27611; (800) 847-4862; Georgia Tourism, Box 1776, Atlanta, GA 30301, (800) 847-4842.