Earth-folk Craft Mentorship
Rooted in community, craft, and exploration
September 2026 – March 2027
The Why of this
I’ve lived in Western North Carolina for almost 20 years now and am incredibly blessed to know so many skilled, humble, magnificent humans with rich wisdom in their particular fields. This dream has been unfolding since I joined my first two broom-making apprentices in a blacksmithing class with my friend Tod – who tends a wild and lush piece of Earth in the hollers of Barnardsville. I had so much fun playing with them and grew inspired to connect more of my people together in a rhythmic, solid container that runs through the winter months – helping to stoke the fires of our hearts through joy, play, connection, and inspiration.
What This Mentorship Offers
A chance to be taught by some salt of the Earth people.
An opportunity to deepen in community with a small cohort over the course of 7 months.
An invitation to play, to learn new hands on crafts and skills, to make beautiful and functional objects to use in your everyday life.
A space to grow, be held in community, and step forward onto a path that calls you.
This mentorship is about discovery of what you love. Its about a philosophy of understanding more about your self through working with your hands. Through being in your body. Its about allowing the space for the mystery to take root.
Structure & Flow
Duration
7 months | September – March
12 total days of class. 8 different teachers.
Class Dates
September 12 (Opening Circle & Broom-making)
October 10 & 17 (Wild Pit Fired Pottery and Spoon Carving)
November 14 & 15 (Willow Basketry)
December 5 (Beeswax Candles)
January 16 & 17 (Hand Quilting)
February 13 (Pyrography)
February 20 (More Broom-making)
March 26 & 27 (Closing Circle & Blacksmithing)
Who This Is For
This mentorship is for those who:
- Feel called toward integrating craft and skills into their lives
- Long for consistency, depth, discovery, sacred space
- Want to explore a variety of different mediums
- Want to be in community with others who value slowness, presence, earth based practice
- Value a return to a slower pace of life
This container is here to help you step into who you wish to become! You are invited to show up just as you are.
The Deeper Thread
At its heart, this mentorship is about remembering.
Remembering how to work with our hands.
Remembering the language of our ancestors.
Remembering how it feels to be held in community.
Remembering ourselves.
Cost:
$2200 Pay in Full Early Bird Price (until July 15)
$2600 Pay in Full Regular Price (due September 1)
Payment Plans available (add $150 to cover admin fees)
Includes 12 Full in person class days, all supplies during class sessions, a doorway to connections with skilled craftspeople, a small cohort (no more than 8 people) to deepen with.
To Apply, please fill out the Interest Form and pay your deposit
*Deposit goes towards your tuition
FINAL DEADLINE TO REGISTER IS SEPTEMBER 1
The Teachers
Emileigh Zola (Broommaking)
Emileigh Zola is a broom maker and teaching artist based in Marshall, North Carolina. Rooted in the landscapes of Southern Appalachia, her work bridges traditional handcraft with earth-centered practice. She is the founder of Rhythm & Ritual, an evolving body of work grounded in intentional making and natural rhythms.
Emileigh crafts hand-tied brooms as both practical tools and meaningful objects, designed for everyday use and ceremonial spaces. Through classes, workshops, and retreats, she teaches traditional broom-making techniques with an emphasis on mindful craftsmanship and embodied learning. Her grounded, inclusive approach fosters confidence, curiosity, and connection while helping preserve and reimagine folk craft traditions for contemporary makers.
Bee Beddingfield (Pyrography)
Bee Beddingfield is a self-taught professional pyrography artist and author of the book Creative Woodburning. She sells her hand-burned artwork, jewelry, and kitchenwares locally and online via her business BeeSymmetry Designs.
As a resident of the Blue Ridge, she is heavily inspired by the natural beauty around her and seeks to capture that essence in her bold and intricate designs. Working with the element of fire/heat and natural materials like wood and leather brings an earthiness to each item~connecting the history of the once-living “canvas” with new life and possibility.
When teaching, both in-person and through her online courses, Bee shares the fundamental techniques of woodburning and advocates for its incredible versatility in creating functional art pieces which can serve a purpose in daily life. Come experience this fun, sensory art form for yourself!
Tod Kershaw (Blacksmithing)
Living off-grid in a self-built tiny home in the mountains of Western North Carolina, Tod is a blacksmith, scavenger, and self-taught craftsperson devoted to low-impact, resourceful living. After years working in welding and engineering, he turned toward traditional blacksmithing, building his first forge and bellows by hand from local clay, wood, and hand-tanned deer hide. Rooted in a deep respect for reuse and self-reliance, his work centers around reclaimed materials, handmade tools, and ancestral craft traditions. Through teaching and demonstration, he shares a “neo pre-post-apocalyptic” approach to blacksmithing that values ingenuity, sustainability, and learning from the land.
Jessamy Ames (Candle Making)
Western North Carolina multimedia artist Jessamy Ames creates handcrafted beeswax candles and ceramic altar ware designed for celebration, ceremony, and everyday beauty. Working from her off-grid studio north of Asheville, she draws inspiration from the surrounding wilderness and the rhythms of the natural world.
Her work reflects a lifelong devotion to creative practice, traditional craft, and functional artistry, shaped through years of study alongside fellow makers and artisans. Using beeswax, clay, and other natural materials, Ames creates pieces that bring warmth, light, and intention to hearths, dinner tables, mantles, and sacred spaces.
Through North Star Candle Co., her work honors the timeless relationship between utility and ritual, offering handmade objects that invite connection, presence, and reverence for the natural world.
Callan Burton-Shore (Spoon Carving)
Raised in the woods of Virginia, Callan (she/her) fell in love with creating things by hand from materials found in her local ecosystem. Now living in North Carolina, she is an ancestral skills teacher and traditional craftsperson. She teaches spoon carving, hide tanning, friction fire and other skills to children and adults across the southeast. She loves to climb trees, swim in wild waters and tend fire.
In her outdoor workshop, she makes leather, tans furs, and carves wooden wares. Her craft work is driven by a wish to use often wasted materials and step out of the consumer cycle. Through her teaching she hopes to empower others to do the same.
Shannon Daum (Wild Pottery)
Im Shannon, I am a ceramics artist, community herbalist and birth doula. Over the last decade I have been experimenting with clay and have found myself obsessed with the wild clay harvesting and pit firing process. In attempting to deepen my understanding and relationship with our native biome; I learn something new every time I dig, fire, and finally get medicine to the mouth. There is a special sort of magic that happens when we fire this way and part of that alchemy comes from gathering together.
Tyler Lavenburg (Willow Basketry)
Tyler and his family align their life with the cycles of the seasons and the bounty of the wild. They harvest and utilize as much as they can from the gardens and forests around them. He is a builder, arborist, gardener, father, husband, kitchen diva, and loves creating fun outdoor spaces for kids.
Tyler first fell in love with Southern Appalachian ecology as a student at Warren Wilson College, where he received a degree in Environmental Education. Through a long and rigorous pursuit of purpose in life, Tyler began learning traditional crafts and teaching them to children. Since then, he’s been blessed with teachers and mentors who continue to draw his attention into deeper layers of mystery and the possibilities around crafting a handmade, wild life.
Over the years, Tyler has studied, apprenticed and taught at many traditional skills schools and events, including Wild Abundance, The Roots School, Living Earth School, Earthskills Rendezvous, The Firefly Gathering, Florida Earthskills, Whippoorwill, and others. He’s worked with hundreds of children and adults through public and private schools, homeschool cooperatives, and special events.
Tyler has experience in many traditional crafts and skills, with a special passion for willow basketry. He has been teaching basketry using willow specifically for 7 years, tending to the craft of teaching as much as weaving. He grows around 20 species of European basket willow and plans to provide basket material and live cuttings to the Asheville community in the near future.
Jess Kaufman Hand Quilting)
Jessica Kaufman (she/her) has an MA in crafts education and is the owner of WAXON Batik & Dye Studio in Asheville, NC. With over 22 years of teaching experience, Jess has taught a wide variety of fiber and textile arts to summer campers, school children, high schoolers, and adult workshops up and down the East Coast. Her enthusiasm for teaching is apparent in every class she leads. Jess maintains over 80 free knitting videos at HappyGoCrafty.com.
Find out more about Jess and her offerings at waxonstudio.com.
The Crafts
Whiskbroom Making
Delve into the satisfying and meditative craft of broom-making in this all day class where we will make turkey wing whisks, hawk tail whisks, and stitched whisks!
Sweeper Brooms
Over the course of a day, we will craft full length sweeper broom using broomcorn hurl, stems, and natural handles.
Learn how to tie a broom, stitch it flat, and plait a beautifully woven cap.
Woodburning on Kitchen Utensils
This class will focus on a well rounded introduction to woodburning: Pyrography basics through the practice of simple botanical imagery on functional items (kitchenware)
Spoon Carving
Did you know you can take a tree and turn it into an eating utensil? Over the course of a day, we will start with a piece of green wood and transform it into an eating spoon using only hand tools. The class will start with a conversation about wood grain and which trees are best for making spoons, as well as how to use sharp tools safely. Then we will use “sloyd” knives to carve out the shape and hook knives to make the bowl of the spoon. We will also talk about decorative techniques and how to finish your spoon with oil. You will leave with a hand-carved spoon and the knowledge of how to start making your own wooden tableware!
Blacksmithing – Hooks and Spoons
Learn how to make hooks and spoons in an off grid workshop with hand powered tools, coal fired forges, and very little bought materials. You’ll not only be awed by the incredible experience of working with hot metal, but by the instructors resourcefulness and the materials that can be salvaged everywhere you look!
Beeswax Tapers & Luminaries
In this full-day beeswax candle making workshop, we will begin by hand-dipping a set of taper candles and creating beautiful twisted tapers. In the afternoon, we will make hand-dipped beeswax luminaries embedded with dried and pressed botanicals. We will also discuss various types of candles, waxes, and mold-making possibilities, as well as the fascinating history of honeybees and their wax.
Wild Clay Pit Fired Pottery
Two day wild clay harvesting and pitfiring workshop! On the first day we will harvest different wild clay bodies on my land, learn how to process them and spend the rest of the day hand building vessels. I will feed you a meal this day and I will send you home with clay to make things on your own and the next time we gather we will fire our pieces together all day out on my land in the ground. Potluck style meal this day. You will learn about pitfiring techniques, and get to take home your pieces that survive the fire!
Willow Baskets
In this 2 day class we will be using locally grown European basket willow to weave up some fine hand/shoulder/picnic baskets. We will be using whole round shoots of willow varieties selected over centuries for industrial strength baskets. Willow is arguably the most widely used material for weaving in all of European history–it literally made the early industrial revolution possible! It has been propagated for over two thousand years, having a long storied history in relationship with people. I welcome you to be a part of that ongoing history, weaving with a fine group of folks here in the Earthcraft Mentorship.
Day one we will cover growing, propagating, harvesting, and preparing while weaving our bases and locking our spokes in place. Day two we will weave up the body, turn down the rim, and begin making straps. Strap material will vary in price depending on the student’s choice of willow or leather. You will learn several different weaves including twining, randing, slewing, waling, and all sorts of other fun words you’ve never heard before!
Hand Quilts
Spend two slow, nourishing days gathered in circle with cloth, needle, and story. In this immersive hand quilting workshop, we’ll explore quilting not simply as craft, but as an ancestral practice of patience, beauty, repair, and belonging.
Saturday — English Paper Piecing & Hexagons
We’ll begin with the meditative rhythm of English Paper Piecing, wrapping fabric around paper forms and stitching hexagons into living geometry. Hexagons appear throughout the natural world — honeycomb, turtle shell, basalt columns — and this practice invites us into slow attention, precision, and flow. Portable, quiet, and deeply calming, EPP becomes a kind of textile prayer.
Sunday — Half Square Triangles
On the second day, we’ll work with half square triangles, one of quilting’s most foundational building blocks. Through simple hand stitching, we’ll discover how repetition creates movement, harmony, and endless pattern possibility. These humble triangles become maps of relationship: dark and light, contrast and balance, fragmentation becoming wholeness.