Master craftspeople from the Southern Highland Craft Guild will be celebrating the medium of wood on Saturday, August 8, 2015 at the Folk Art Center.

The annual event, held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., showcases a variety of tools and processes for creating bowls, brooms, flutes, chairs, carvings, treenware, as well as heritage toys. A range of techniques from woodturning on the electric lathe, to the heritage crafts of coopering and whittling will be featured.

New this year is “50 Bowls in 5 Hours,” a combined challenge for woodturners Warren Carpenter of Seneca, SC and Joe Ruminski of Fairview, NC. The two turners plan to create fifty unfinished bowls on the lathe within the day. The bowls will be donated to the Guild.For a complete list of participating artists visit www.craftguild.org/wood-day.

Visitors also have the opportunity to learn carving. Member Ronnie McMahan and the Western North Carolina Carvers will be teaching participants on bars of soap with spoons and other tools. Carving has been represented in the Guild since forming in 1930, and has continued through various artists, most memorably the Brasstown Carvers. Guild member Carolyn Anderson of the Brasstown Carvers and others will be demonstrating their craft with different types of wood.

Admission to Wood Day and the Folk Art Center is free. Headquarters to the Southern Highland Craft Guild, the Folk Art Center also houses three galleries, a library, Allanstand Craft Shop and a Blue Ridge Parkway information desk and bookstore.

The Southern Highland Craft Guild is a non-profit, educational organization established in 1930 to bring together the crafts and craftspeople of the Southern Highlands for the benefit of shared resources, education, marketing and conservation.

If You Go: Wood Day, Saturday, August 8, 2015 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Folk Art Center is located at Milepost 382 on the Blue Ridge Parkway in east Asheville.

For a complete list of artists participating in Wood Day, and to learn more about Southern Highland Craft Guild programs at the Folk Art Center call (828) 298-7928 or visit www.craftguild.org/wood-day.