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Gatlinburg, TN
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© 2004 Bonita Productions Inc.
Arts And Crafts Heritage Trail In Gatlinburg, TN
By Bonnie & Bill Neely
When Bonnie was a child in the fifties her family often spent week-ends in the quiet little mountain town of Gatlinburg in the beautiful Smokies of Tennessee. Along with her family she looked forward to picnicking, hiking, and collecting red and yellow leaves in autumn along the sweet-smelling forest trails of Smoky Mountain National Park, watching real bears often on the side of the road, wading in the gurgling streams that fed the Little Pigeon River, and eating pancakes at the Log Cabin Restaurant. But always a day was allowed for visiting the myriad of craft shops along the single main street of Gatlinburg. They loved watching the talented artisans and mountain folk create wondrous things, and of course sampling the famous fudge! Bonnie saved her allowance to purchase a hand-crafted item on each visit, and when she returned home she was inspired to create her own arts and crafts from nature or found objects, as she saw those mountain crafts men and women do. We still love to return to Gatlinburg frequently, but today the city of Gatlinburg is by no means the same quiet little town it was in the fifties! Today Gatlinburg and her almost adjoining sister city of Pigeon Forge and the fast-growing Seviersville, which was the original county seat and remains so today, are growing so fast with tourism par excellence... including every kind of fun thing to do that you can think of, shows, rides, midways, entertainers, and excellent food and restaurants....and even two locations for the wonderful Log Cabin Restaurant, whose pancakes are still the BEST, although they have competition on every corner now! There are many streets of shops including antique shops, art galleries, museums, and expensive collectors' dream showcases. And heading for the huge outlet malls like TANGER in both Seviersville and Pigeon Forge shoppers can spend twelve hours a day for a week and never get into all the bargain-hunters' paradise of stores! But many visitors miss the typical mountain-made craft shops and artisans at work for which this area became a favorite trek for hundreds of visitors in the early years...But these are still there!!!
You'll find the Great Smoky Arts and Crafts Community guide in all the hotels and tourism centers to guide you to Highway 321 North (near Gatlinburg Traffic Light #3), for Glades Road, Buckhorh Road, and Adjacent Byways, along which the Great Smoky Arts and Crafts Community relocated years ago in order to preserve the typical old crafts and mountain atmosphere for which Gatlinburg and this area became famous but which was being covered up in modern commercialism. You cannot miss spending a day (or a week!) on this eight-mile loop of craft shops, studios, galleries, and artisans at work in many different media! You'll find carvers, potters, glass etching, candy-makers, fiber artists, furniture makers, candle-makers, painters, and craftsmen and women making everything from brooms to gnomes, from toys to music instruments. Many of these artists have learned their skills from their parents, grand-parents, and great-grandparents, who were early settlers of these mountains and made things from whatever was at hand, especially during the long, cold winters.You and your children will love watching these talented and dedicated people at work doing what they love. You can observe how many useful items have been made for centuries before commercial manufacturing. This is what the old Gatlinburg and area was all about and how it became a favorite place to visit.
These were among our favorite shops we visited along this Arts and Crafts Community Heritage Trail.
The beautiful photographs of Steve Shoemaker are enhanced by his wife Terri's lovely floral arrangements in the Mountain Visions Gallery, "Where the Rockies Meet the Smokies." The art photography is magnificent, featuring mountain scenery of both of these National Park area.
Completely different, we loved meeting David Ogle at Ogle's Broom Shop. David is the third generation to continue this craft which his grandparents, Lee and Lillie Ogle started in 1920's, and his parents, Wayne and Betty, continued. You can watch him make ornamental brooms, which can also be actually used but seem too pretty to put to work, from broom-corn straw, some of which he grows himself. He hand sews this with basket cord to a wooden handle. He uses many different kinds of wood to achieve various artistic looks. Most of these he hand- carves with faces of mountaineers or animals. His specialty is the wood of the dogwood tree. He also makes walking canes, cattle canes, and oil burners. Phone 865-430-4402, or orders 1-800-443-4575.
Nearby you might want to stop at Ma's Kitchen, in a little white house down a quaint garden path. "Ma" serves breakfast and lunch Monday through Saturday and supper on Fridays from 5 - 8. Her plate lunches, barbecue, and soups seem to be favorites with the locals, and you have to be early before it runs out! On her menus she has a dove and olive branch and the words, "To God be the glory; Great things he hath done."
One of the most fascinating artists we watched work was seventy-three year old Frank Edwards at Edwards Glass Art Shop in Morning Mist Village on Glades Road (#17). Frank was trained as a painter and is an exceptionally good artist of nature; however, he says his family was suffering and he was a starving artist when he was hired at Silver Dollar City in Missouri to fill in for other crafts people when they took a break. He became fascinated with the glass cutters he was able to watch and then to help. He trained himself in the necessary skills which he has found to be a very satisfying career. He believes he is the only artist in the United States to combine the skill of stained glass with cut glass, and he has many works of this type for sale in his shop.
To watch Frank work is fascinating because he does glass cutting by the oldest method of direct cutting of the glass. Today, besides in this shop, the only places to see this skill performed is in theme parks or in Europe. In the early years Frank used only a natural stone cutting wheel with a hand crank. But of course, this has been replaced with and electric powered shaft and an aluminum oxide manufactured wheel. We were amazed that Frank could do the delicate, precision, cut-glass work and talk to us at the same time, but he says this is one of the great satisfactions of his job...to share it by demonstrating and talking to his customers. A true artist, both gifted and experienced, Frank has no patterns and works only freehand, from what he sees in his mind's eye as he creates. This is even more amazing when you realize that to engrave a monogram, which he did as he talked with us, he has to work on it backwards and upside-down! We watched him as he calmly created a beautiful monogram and decorations and a little song bird on a glass tumbler for me. It was unbelieveable to us that he could do such intricate work in so brief a time and so perfectly! He says in twenty-four years of doing this he has never broken a single piece while working! (Yet it looked to us as if he could cut right through one in a matter of seconds!) Phone 865-436-2415 or email here. He says he never got into computing, but his wife manages that end of the business for him. 
When you need a sugar fix, stop at Heritage Trail Fudge Shop in Morning Mist Gallery where you'll find Art Mikles, a third generation fudge maker, having fun at work. You can watch him make the yummies and sample before you buy. Because he was raised in a bakery and candy store in Cincinatti, you'd expect Art to be quite overweight, but he certainly is not! He moved to this area in 1968 as a general contractor and was part of the boom of growth here. For the past decade he has just enjoyed helping eveyone satisfy their sweet tooth.At this same location (601 Glades Rd., Shop #8) you will want to find your special piece of nature from the Smokies to take home with you as a beautiful piece of jewelry. At Smoky Mountain Gold #2 in the Back To Nature Gallery we purchased a 24 kt. gold-covered hemlock cone necklace, but the decision was difficult with so many lovely pieces of locally hand-crafted jewelry from which to choose. There are many other natural pieces preserved in gold, silver, and copper, including various local deciduous leaves, dogwood blossoms, and other cones. The shop also features hand-crafted wood pieces which are beautifully made by Richard Crede.
Carolyn Mikles has developed a very, very special type of jewels for sentimental keepsakes. You find necklaces, bracelets, and earrings of gold with several different colors of beads: burgandy, fuschia, peach, white, and yellow. She makes these beads from rose petals which she dries naturally. She also has green beads from the leaves. She does not add any color to create the lovely beads. From five large roses she can make a necklace of nine beads and a pair of earrings with several beads each. By special order, she will turn your special memory bouquets into jewelry you can wear with love. The pieces are moderately priced (earrings start at $14 and necklaces at $35) and there is a $10 order fee for special orders, which require three to six weeks. They have not web address, but you can call 865-436-6805.
We spent a day enjoying many of the little shops, but we could not see it all in one day. We plan to return again and again!
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