Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
PETERS VALLEY CRAFT CENTER
make a flower knot basket or cast a line
LAYTON, NEW JERSEY
I don't like to say I have given my life to art.
I prefer to say art has given me my life.
—Frank Stella, American artist
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She's dying to take a class in Japanese basket weaving; he just wants to fish. Peters
Valley could provide the compromise they're looking for. Not only is Peters Valley an inter-
nationally recognized arts-and-crafts school, attracting top-notch instructors in ceramics, tex-
tiles, fine metal, photography, and blacksmithing, but it's also located smack dab in the middle
of the largest national recreation area on the East Coast. So while she's constructing a flower
knot basket from sedori cane, he can cast his lure in the 40 miles of the Delaware River that
run through the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area where the school is located.
There are other artist-in-residence programs offered by the National Park Service—at 29
of its parks, from the two one-week residencies at Wyoming's Devils Tower National Monu-
ment to the six residencies for photographers, filmmakers, sculptors, composers, and visu-
al artists at Everglades National Park—but Peters Valley is the only one that hosts fledgling
artists, more than 1,200 each year.
Located at the north entrance of the 67,000-acre park, Peters Valley operates out of some
three dozen 18th-century buildings (16 of them are on the National Register of Historic Places,
and one dates back as far as 1790) that center around an 1838 Dutch Reformed church. Once
