By Julia Merchant • Staff Writer

Not too long ago, the number of people who carried on the ancient Cherokee basket-weaving tradition had dwindled to just a handful. Today, the craft is experiencing a resurgence — thanks in part to local organizations helping to restore native plants vital to making the baskets.

By Michael Beadle

Terry Painter and his wife Anita love collecting ornaments for their Christmas tree each year, but they found that fewer and fewer ornaments bore any connection to the actual holiday.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

Sarah Rolland first connected with clay on an emotional level. With lunch plans to meet a friend who was taking a course in Haywood Community College’s craft program, Rolland walked into the school’s pottery studio — her curiosity immediately was piqued.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

Pisgah Center for Wildlife Education specialist Lee Sherrill dips out a cup full of water from a five-gallon bucket and holds it up to the small group of students gathered around. He inserts a straw and captures a drop of water.

By Michael Beadle

There’s a dance of light in a work of glass. Move around the piece and it changes color as if it were alive.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

Sitting at a workbench in the back of his gallery on Main Street in Waynesville, wood worker Dennis Ruane meticulously carves a tiny bearded man into the handle of a spoon. The spoon is a replica of one of his early pieces, being made for a collector up North who saw the work on the cover of Ruane’s novel Wooden Spoons.

By Sarah Kucharski

Entering figurative sculptor Wesley Wofford’s studio one is struck by the sheer size of his works.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

The duck egg is just slightly larger than the chicken egg, its shell a little harder, making it the perfect egg for Rebekah Joy Brown to turn into a Christmas tree ornament.

By Michael Beadle

Glass dazzles. It bears no secrets.

It illuminates the world around itself.

By Anna Fariello • Guest Writer

William Rogers has been a professional metalsmith for more than 25 years, but nothing could have prepared him for the work he is doing at the Jackson County Green Energy Park.