Fall Folk Arts Festival

Kingsport, TN – Autumn is arguably the most beautiful time of year in Northeast Tennessee and Southwest
Virginia, and Exchange Place Living History Farm gives it the welcome it deserves with its annual Fall
Folk Arts Festival. Always eagerly anticipated, this year’s event will be held on Saturday, September 27,
from 10 am until 5 pm, and Sunday, September 28 from noon until 5 pm. Admission is $5 for ages
12 and over, with those under the age of 12 admitted free. Proceeds go towards the care of the farm’s
resident animals, and are also used in the ongoing restoration and preservation of the site, located at 4812
Orebank Road in Kingsport, Tennessee, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
For the 53 rd year, artisans from throughout the region will gather to demonstrate 19 th century crafts, as well as
to sell a wide array of traditional folk and hand-crafted arts of today. Over sixty vendors, guilds and volunteers
will fill the site with handcrafted arts, specialty goods, plants, harvest products, demonstrations and education.
Visitors can see brooms being made, wood being whittled and baskets of all kinds being woven.
Harvest-time activities, typical of an 1850s farm, will be taking place all around the site. In the log kitchen, the
Eden’s Ridge Hearth Cookery Society, and our energetic Junior Apprentices, will prepare some of the
foods the Preston family would have eaten in the mid nineteenth century. The artistry and iron expertise of
our blacksmith will be on display at the forge, where you can pick up a quick lesson in this timeless skill. The
newly renovated Gaines Store will be open and offering a view of merchandise sold in that era. Nearby, Ms.
Maggie T. Mule, as well as some of Exchange Place’s human volunteers, will once again be extracting juice
from sorghum cane so it can be cooked into sorghum syrup. (Please note this will only take place on Saturday,
though Maggie will also be around for part of Sunday.) Pure sorghum syrup, made fresh this year by the
Guenther family of Muddy Pond, TN, will be on sale for as long as supplies last. Next to the sorghum patch
you can see a small area of buckwheat that volunteers have sown as a cover crop to enrich the soil, while also
providing nourishment for Exchange Place's honeybees and other pollinators.
The Overmountain Weavers Guild will be demonstrating spinning and weaving techniques in several places
around the farmstead. In the Burow Museum, Guild members have also curated an exhibit focused on knitting
and crocheting that features unusual and vintage pieces. In addition, two of their members will be offering a
Basics of Knitting workshop. Held in the Roseland building on Saturday, September 27 at 1 pm, Paulette
Bruggeman and Jesse Szombathy will be teaching the knit stitch, purl stitch, and binding stitch, which should
give participants the ability to knit a cotton dish cloth by the end of the class. No experience is required, and
all written instructions, plus one pair of straight knitting needles and enough cotton yarn to complete two dish
cloths, will be provided. This workshop is limited to ten (10) students, and is not recommended for children
under the age of 12. The cost is $25.00, plus a small $1.20 online processing fee.  To pay and reserve your
spot for this class, go to this site:
file:///C:/Users/msade/Downloads/Events%20%E2%80%93%20Overmountain%20Weavers
%20Guild.html%20%20knitting.html.
Exchange Place festivals always feature special people demonstrating their special skills, and this one will be no
exception. Kathy Martin will be on the Roseland porch, showing how to make paper. In the past, she has used
things like iris stalks, okra and yucca, and at the Fall Festival she will be using white and denim pulp. Also hard
at work will be guitar luthier John Deason, who will be making a new guitar, and will also have five of his
original instruments available for purchase.

Children's activities are a favorite feature of Exchange Place festivals for families. Once again Tri-State
Basket Guild will be teaching children how to make baskets in the Schoolhouse. Children of all ages always
enjoy meeting our horses, cow, and donkey in the 1851 barn, and seeing our sheep grazing in different fields.
This year the animals will be part of the Living History Farm Scavenger Hunt, in which young visitors can solve
riddles, guess the jokes and learn some interesting facts. The annual Scarecrow Challenge, which encourages
creativity by individuals, groups and families, will allow people to bring their best scarecrows to the farm on
Friday (September 26) from 9 am until 6 pm, or Saturday from 7 am until 9 am, with the judging taking place
on Sunday.
As is our tradition, tickets to one of our most popular events — Witches Wynd — will go on sale at the
Festival. This Halloween-based storytelling adventure is scheduled for 8 pm on both Friday, October 17 and
Saturday, October 18, and because only a limited number of tickets are available every year and are
snapped up quickly, we encourage people to purchase them at the Festival. Tickets are $10 apiece and will be
found at the Museum Shop, where the interior has been re-designed and new products added, many of them
unique to Exchange Place.
A variety of food items will be available for purchase, including kettle corn, baked goods, lunch items, and
more. And as always during festivals, the grounds of the farmstead will be alive with music. There will be
many old favorites playing throughout the weekend, and this year we are proud to feature The Checkered
Past, Lee County (Virginia) residents who will be playing diverse music on a wide variety of instruments
throughout their Sunday afternoon set. A complete schedule of the artists is included below, but please note
that this list is always subject to last-minute changes.
For more information, you may call Exchange Place at 423-288-6071, write to
exchangeplacefestivals@gmail.com, or visit our website at https://www.exchangeplacetn.org.
Exchange Place is a living history farm whose mission is to preserve and interpret the heritage of mid-
nineteenth century farm life in Northeast Tennessee. Exchange Place is a non-profit organization maintained
and operated entirely by volunteers and is supported by donations, fundraisers, memberships and grants.