Murphy to Manteo: Finding new adventures, historic detours, and the soul of North Carolina on the state’s longest highway: U.S. Route 64. Read the series.

In an airy workshop with red-brick walls and floor-to-ceiling windows, the sweet scent of freshly cut wood fills the room. Adult students gather at a large workbench to get a closer look at the piece in progress. Wearing goggles and hearing protection, an instructor lifts a router — a power tool used to shape, cut, and trim wood to produce finished edges and corners — as she describes a technique for crafting a hanging cabinet with a tambour sliding door and an ornate drawer.

Earlier today, I pulled off a stretch of U.S. Route 64 in Tyrrell County, crossing a bridge over the wide, rippling Scuppernong River to check out an art gallery in downtown Columbia. After parking on Water Street, I stood looking out at the dark water, its banks studded with cypress trees draped in Spanish moss. It was absolutely quiet at the time, but I quickly discovered that this tiny eastern town hums with artistry just inside a handful of buildings. Here, on this riverside campus, the Pocosin Arts School of Fine Craft is a state-of-the-art hub of creativity.

Students come to Pocosin Arts School of Fine Craft for both its acclaimed instructors — like Ryan Lutz — and its inviting setting along the Scuppernong River in downtown Columbia. photograph by Chris Hannant

In the workshop, I watch as the instructor’s router buzzes to life, drowning out all other distractions. Suddenly I feel a pull to create that I haven’t felt in years. The students are laser-focused, fully immersed in their craft, and I, admittedly, am jealous. Always drawn to art as a child, I’d let my hobbies — drawing and painting, mostly — slowly fall away as I grew up. With each year that passes, the idea of picking up a paintbrush becomes more overwhelming, like I’ve forgotten everything. It’s almost as if, as a full-on adult, I’ve passed some “golden age” for artistic pursuits.

Now, as I stand in a small pile of sawdust, Pocosin seems to whisper (OK, maybe yell shrilly, if it’s the wood router doing the talking) that creativity is a lifelong journey.

• • •

Known as the Pocosin ARTS Folk School when it was founded in 1994, the campus has always been a place for artists to come together. And when Executive Director Marlene True took over in 2011, she began expansions — such as renovations in the wake of Hurricane Irene, new year-round programs, and weeklong workshops — that have helped position the craft school among the country’s best.

Ceramicist Tenisha Morrison handcrafts pottery pieces inside the ceramics studio. photograph by Chris Hannant

Nowadays, makers and creatives of all stripes — from right here in Tyrrell County to California and beyond — come to this artistic enclave on the banks of the Scuppernong for adult workshops throughout the summer. Each weeklong session, the world outside of Columbia falls away, and students, split among several tracks — ceramics, metalsmithing and jewelry, woodworking, textiles, and mixed media — focus on their craft. They learn new skills from world-class artists in hyper-specific classes, such as “Creating Dimension with the Hydraulic Press” in metalsmithing and jewelry, “Tambour Doors and Tiny Drawers” in woodworking, “Coiled Up, Figurative Building Techniques” in ceramics, and much more.

True, a metalsmith who earned her master of fine arts degree from East Carolina University, came to Pocosin as a resident artist in 2009, then led the creation of the metals studio. She understands how transformative Pocosin — and its setting on the Scuppernong — can be.

“It’s really special,” she says. “You come here, and there are 35 or so other people who are really excited and intense about what they want to learn. You meet the best people, and you make lifelong friends.”

• • •

After leaving the woodshop, True and I pass through the ceramics studio, where artists gather around worktables and sit at potter’s wheels, hand-shaping and throwing clay into small bowls and cups, dipping their fingers into blue buckets of slip, or liquid clay, and deftly smoothing out the edges. Tall windows frame the dark water of the Scuppernong as it flows toward Albemarle Sound. Next door, in the metals studio, we stop to chat with students who are learning to make rivets. True admires the creations sitting on a workbench — delicate gold butterflies and bees, brass keys and silver spirals — and greets familiar faces.

Marlene True photograph by Chris Hannant

“It’s like a reunion in here!” True says, waving across the room. “We get a lot of repeat students, which is really gratifying. We want to make everybody feel like, yes, it’s OK to come here. You don’t have to be a professional artist, or even have any experience to take part in a class. We’re trying to find new ways to reach the local community.”

As True prepares for her retirement in December, she takes pride in having made her dream for the school a reality: In addition to Pocosin’s signature weeklong workshops and online classes, the school has added a series of fall weekend sessions, weekly adult and youth classes, kids’ art camps, artist residencies and work studies, and scholarships — including ones for Tyrrell County locals. In the spring, they’ll also begin a new series of affordable one-day workshops geared toward beginners.

Across Water Street, at Pocosin Arts Riverview Gallery — the one I stopped to explore — the public can shop for handcrafted goods: coffee cups and bowls, jewelry and vases, bottle openers and journals. Now, knowing the story of this place, each item seems even more special.

I smile. The “golden age” for art is always right now.

• • •

On a deck along the river, students are gathering for lunch, watching birds swoop by while they chat about their work. Boats tied to the dock next door bob gently. At the end of the week, these students will return to “real life.” But they’ll take with them new skills and new friends. And, perhaps, some of the tranquility that comes with being immersed in their craft, the peace that this corner of eastern North Carolina imparts.

Pocosin Arts students spend breaks overlooking the Scuppernong River. photograph by Chris Hannant

“It’s hard to describe the craft school experience unless you’re a maker,” says jewelry and mixed-media artist Liz Steiner, Pocosin’s marketing manager and a former resident artist. “You find your people. You’re isolated, and somebody’s feeding you, so you don’t have to worry about what’s for dinner or doing the dishes. You’re just in the studio all the time, making.” Steiner pauses to reflect. “And,” she continues, “there’s this connection to setting — to nature.”

This school on the Scuppernong River breathes new life into artists from near and far. In turn, they fill this place with passion and creativity. Come spring, when workshops welcome new students, I think I might just be brave enough to join them.

Pocosin Arts Riverview Gallery
107 Water Street
Columbia, NC 27925
(252) 796-2787
pocosinarts.org

More to Explore: Make a day of it! Find out where to eat and explore after a visit to Pocosin Arts at ourstate.com/columbia.