ABOUT TARWEED FOLK SCHOOL
Our mission is tending to the land, ourselves, and each other through the sharing of practical arts and place-based skills here in the heart of the Willamette Valley.
We are tenders. Tarweed Folk School stewards opportunities for community-based, hands-on learning to all ages. We offered our first classes in 2023 and continue to host half day, full day, and multi-day classes taught by local educators, craftspeople, scientists, tradespeople, small business owners, and members of our Willamette Valley communities. Read below to learn more about our values, folk schools, tarweed (the plant), our steering committee, and our partnerships.
WHAT IS A FOLK SCHOOL?
The folk school idea blossomed in rural Denmark in the 19th century, inspired by the work of poet, philosopher, and educator Nikolai Frederik Severin (NFS) Grundtvig, who proposed the idea to help Denmark transition to a more grassroots model of social development. The idea then spread through Europe and the United States, seeding varied and diverse communities for lifelong, non-competitive, hands-on learning.
In Danish, Folkehøjskole simply means "folk high schools," but the idea revolved around what Grundtvig called "the living word"-- an approach that emphasized practical, hands-on knowledge, skills, and crafts, but also -- through individual and shared social experience -- connection, community, equity, and joy! Folk schooling gives people the space to gauge their own progress according to their own needs and desires, free of grades, certificates, and external measures.
Learn more about folk school history and find a directory of country-wide folk schools through the Folk Education Association of America.
WHAT IS A TARWEED PLANT?
Tarweed species found locally: Madia madioides (woodland tarweed), Madia elegans (common tarweed), Madia sativa (Chilean or Coast tarweed), Madia gracilis (slender tarweed)
Tarweed has grown in the Willamette Valley and greater Western region since time immemorial. It is found in the oak savanna, coastal, and woodland biomes of where we live. Indigenous peoples of this region relied on it heavily for food, harvesting after controlled burns and often using it in trade at Willamette Falls.
As part of the sunflower family, tarweed suggests resilience and resistance to destructive forces, and the power of life to survive and thrive.
We also love tarweed for the beauty of the flower, and the human story of reciprocity between the land and people, who used controlled burns in the oak savanna in order to be able to successfully harvest tiny seeds from sticky stems, and also encourage the oak trees and other wildflowers.
STEERING COMMITTEE
In November of 2019 a group of us began envisioning what a folk school could look like in our community. We met monthly for over three years to share food, stories, chores, and craft as we developed our vision for the school. We have a commitment to lifelong learning and work as educators, makers, parents, business owners, and more.
Kiko Denzer
In college, I read about Miles Horton, who founded the Highlander Center in Tennessee, a folkschool that was instrumental in the labor and civil rights movements. Years later, I got to work with Beverly Brown when she started up the Jefferson Center, a PNW folkschool that did ground-breaking work on forest and land management issues in the 90s. Since then, I’ve been inspired by primitive skills gatherings, which embody folkschool principles in a temporary, nature-based format. For me, Tarweed is an opportunity to bring home these seeds of inspiration, so we can propagate strength, beauty, health, and real human culture in our own backyard…
Duncan Ellinwood
Duncan has had an eclectic career that includes glassblowing, baking, chocolate making, microbiology, chemistry, and woodworking. Across all these fields, Duncan is inspired by the unique material properties of these diverse mediums and how they can be applied to create unique objects, solutions, and ideas. This fascination has cultivated a deep love of making handcrafted things and the belief that the community found in sharing craft has a transformative power for good. Through Tarweed, Duncan hopes to help build a strong community that invites new people into the crafts, support artisans looking to make a life in craft, and create space for people to share their curiosity and discoveries of the natural world.
Rose Holdorf
In 2011, I visited North House Folk School on the shore of Lake Superior while on a Great Lakes bicycle trip. I met the people there and thought working at a folk school must be the best job ever—to harbor community spaces for people to be curious at any age, to teach with humility and kindness, to learn by doing and with praxis, and to sow a deep respect for the land around us and the people who tend to it. When I returned to Oregon, I wanted to help build a place like that for my home. For Tarweed, I program classes and get to meet every month with my friends who help our dream come alive.
Avie Meadows
Avie is an artist and educator, who works towards making art accessible to people as a way to help build healthier and better connected communities. Being involved with Tarweed Folk School allows Avie the opportunity to use her unique administrative skill-set to help build locally what she is most passionate about; community, education, and art.
Margot Schwarz
Margot is passionate about community-building, regenerative food systems and empowering folks to learn from their neighbors. She was our Spring 2024 intern and is now Tarweed's full-time staffperson! She has lived across the U.S. and internationally, where she has attended schools and worked on regenerative farms. She comes to Tarweed with a strong interest in creating community-building tools that will help strengthen our bonds and bring about connection and growth!
Nathaniel Stein
Nat has built an eclectic set of creative skills and craft knowledge over the years. Learning carpentry during a tenure in set design, self taught metal working skills, and fine woodworking skills at LBCC. He loves teaching the skills he has learned in community himself. As a Highland Woodshop partner, Nat is helping create a community space for Tarweed classes. He is as passionate about making the tools to build things as he is about actually making the things themselves.
Nat is offering his graphic design and illustration expertise to Tarweed Folk School.
Daniel Pono Takamori
Daniel Pono Takamori was born in Corvallis and considers the Willamette Valley his home. His hobbies are playing 'Go', biking, and weaving. With a day job at a non-profit dedicated to ethical technology, he hopes to bring some logistics and governance ideas to a more place-based endeavor.
Sunia Yang
Sunia joined the Steering Committee after taking three classes. She was struck by the integrity, care and craftsmanship of all the teachers, the enthusiasm of the students and the beauty of all the hands and hearts joined in work and learning. She wants to see Tarweed grow and thrive as a learning home in our community. Sunia is a gardener, natural history guide, lichen evangelist, drummer and retired IT engineer.
PARTNERS
Wade Hardware, Greenbelt Land Trust, Highland Woodshop, and the Corvallis Waldorf School are generous hosts and collaborators of Tarweed Folk School classes and events.
Tarweed Folk School is a project of Cascade Pacific Resource Conservation & Development (CPRCD), a 501(c)(3) non-profit based in Corvallis, Oregon. As our fiscal sponsor, Cascade Pacific RC&D enables Tarweed Folk School to effectively operate as a non-profit with all of the benefits thereof, so we are able to apply through CPRCD for grants, receive tax-deductible donations, and focus on realizing our mission and values in our inaugural season of growth.
We are fortunate to work with some amazing local and national organizations as our partners and granting organizations.
