Tennessee Vacation - The State's Official Travel Planning Website

Tennessee Boat School / Sandra Lynn Boat Works
Create a hands-on, float-your-boat memory. Learn how to build a wooden boat, do it in one or two days, and take it home with you! Construct your boat under the supervision of boatwright Karl Weinert and his wife Debi on their scenic farm.  Choose a one-day canoe or a two-day rowboat, all handcrafted. Take a refreshing timeout in northwest Tennessee in picturesque Big Sandy, on beautiful Kentucky Lake in Benton County. No prior woodworking skills required.

City:  Big Sandy

Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts
With a mission to “enrich lives through art,” Arrowmont offers year-round, specialized arts and crafts classes, including ceramics, fibers, jewelry/metals, woodworking, woodturning, painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, and paper arts. One- and two-week workshops are held in spring and summer; weekend and one-week workshops in the fall. The internationally known school is home to galleries, a book and supply store, and performance center. Special events feature musicians, short workshops, and more.

City:  Gatlinburg

Horsin’ Around Carousel Carving School
Master carver Bud Ellis offers a no-experience-required, hand-carving education. Ellis has created hundreds of intricately carved animals, as well as restoring Chattanooga’s Coolidge Park vintage carousel to its former glory, with beautiful pigs, ostriches, giraffes, camels, rabbits and fish—oh, and horses. The school is the only one of its kind, with students from all over the world.  Students have completed over 500 animals; you are limited only by your own imagination as you create a remarkable piece of art.

City:  Soddy Daisy

Appalachian Arts Craft Center
Offerings here revolve around both traditional and contemporary crafts.  The studio includes looms, potter’s wheel, quilting frames, kiln, and other equipment for classes. Seasonal events include the Spring Porch Sale, annual auction and dinner, and Autumn Splendor Festival.  Classes and events are open to the public; memberships are also available. The gallery sells paintings, photographs, origami, pottery, weaving, quilts, cards, baskets, woodcarvings, stained glass, jewelry, wearable art, soaps, and toys.

City:  Clinton/Norris

Appalachian Center for Craft
On 500 rolling acres, the Appalachian Center for Craft serves as the center point for Middle Tennessee's arts community. A satellite campus of Tennessee Tech University, the center offers a BA in fine arts and craft certificate programs in clay, fibers, glass, metals, and wood. The center is an important stop along the 200-mile Cumberlands Craft Trail connecting cottage industries and studios of professional craft artists. Workshops lasting 3-6 days focus on various art skills and media.

City:  Smithville/Cookeville

National Ornamental Metal Museum
The National Ornamental Metal Museum offers workshops in blacksmithing, etching, metalsmithing, jewelry fabrication, and aluminum casting. Overlooking the Mississippi River, the campus includes three historic buildings: a 1930s gallery with 3,000-item permanent collection; a smithy for metalsmiths in leather aprons to hammer, cut, and grind; a foundry for melting and pouring into molds and classes on basic forging and casting. Craft a personal metal "signature" at this one-of-a-kind teaching museum.

City:  Memphis

Fuhrman Glass Studios Inc.
If blown glass is your passion, chances are you can make it or buy it at Fuhrman Glass Studios. The Studios, in the hills of Cannon County, are in a small community with a strong allegiance to arts and crafts. Tom Fuhrman owns and operates the studios, where you can find an operating glass furnace and a gallery of glassworks. Among the workshop projects you can choose from: kiln-fired glass, glassblowing, sculpture, beadmaking, and laminated glass.

City:  Woodbury