HAYWOOD COUNTY, N.C. (828newsNOW) — Haywood Community College is offering second chances to Western North Carolinians searching for the next stop on their career journey. Adults can sign up for Workforce Continuing Education courses for low costs in one of dozens of fields, from phlebotomy to pottery.
Haywood’s courses are designed to give necessary skills for those seeking midlife career changes.
Under the Creative Arts division, headed by Anilia Hornsby, Haywood Community College offers numerous “personal enrichment classes” throughout the year that are “open to anyone.”
These extracurricular courses are designed to offer the community a place to craft.
Crafting “should be accessible to everyone,” Hornsby believes. “Creativity is for everybody. It’s part of our human nature.”
Haywood’s Creative Arts classes do not operate in a vacuum. It requires local artists willing to teach and students willing to learn something new – and often frustrating – yet very rewarding.
“We’re really lucky that craft is important to this area,” said Hornsby.
Rebecca Carter is a stained-glass artist who owns Upstream Artworks in Waynesville, which is helping enact Hornsby’s vision for the furthering of craft in Western North Carolina.
“I reached out to Haywood because I didn’t have studio space,” said Carter. That personal motivation for teaching melted away when she met her students.
“They’re very creative,” Carter said. “They inspire me.”
Glass artistry is “constant problem solving,” according to Carter. “It’s more problem solving than math.”
Carter has found her groove in the medium. “It gives me a lot of freedom to experiment.” She hopes to help her students start their journey toward that same freeform expression that she has.
But her freedom only came after many years of head scratching.
“It’s been a big evolution… from simple shapes to creating my own aesthetic,” said Carter. She helps her students find their own aesthetic by offering a variety of patterns and colors to choose from.
Carter’s personal aesthetic is based on nature. “I hike, so I grabbed some mica,” she said. “I kayak, so I got some river stones.” Carter includes these natural elements in her glasswork to display the outdoors she loves to explore.
Sometimes Carter deviates from her natural aesthetic.
“I mix a lot of mediums,” Carter explained, illustrating her point with a stingray she cut out of a Diet Dr. Pepper can. She plans on adding it to a piece she called “Belize.”
An outdoorswoman, Carter teaches her students that glass art is “like kayaking. How you handle your problem solving on your piece [or kayak] is how you deal with your problem solving in life.” When problems arise, “How resourceful are you going to be in this moment?” she asked. “Are you going to be aggravated or power through?”
Like other teachers in the Creative Arts division of Haywood Community College, Carter is an involved teacher, always available to answer her students’ questions with both her words and her hands.
“Our classes might be one day for four hours or 12 weeks or anything in between,” Hornsby said. Carter’s stained-glass course lasts six weeks.
“There’s a broad variety of classes available,” said Hornsby. “We’re open to new ideas from the community if it’s not already offered here.”
Enrollment is open now for upcoming classes including blacksmithing, Appalachian Ghosts Printmaking, weaving and canning. Many courses require no experience. Click here for more information on class offerings.