Asheville Textures

The tobacco farms in the Western North Carolina

are an example of an old and dying art: the art of tobacco farming. There is skill and craftsmanship handed down from one generation to the next when tobacco was a big money market. So many arts are lost as we move into the internet age. These are some of the arts that are quickly being lost from one generation to the next: knitting, quilting, crocheting, tatting, wood handcrafting, pottery, and endless others. I was talking to friends on the mountains tonight about this, after a wonderful supper of home made dinner of pot roast with vegetables. We talked of lost skills and

what would happen now if we had to depend on ourselves in a catastrophic event. What skills would we still have? My Mother knitted, my Grandmother quilted, my Aunt tatted. And that was just a few of their skills. I am a fine artist, that is my training. I am not a practical craftsman, but I admire people who are. I admire the tobacco farmers who still practice this ancient art of hand picking and drying tobacco.