Lost Skills Gathering is being shaped as a living festival of old knowledge, useful beauty, and hands-on tradition. As the gathering grows, more teachers, demonstrators, elders, makers, and craftspeople will be added, and the offerings may continue to shift with the season, the weather, the materials at hand, and the real human needs of those generously sharing their wisdom.

Many of our teachers carry skills earned through long practice and lived experience, and part of honoring that knowledge means honoring the people who carry it. The exact lineup may change, but the spirit will remain the same: a day filled with skills worth preserving, stories worth hearing, and practical knowledge brought back into living hands.

Handcraft & Traditional Trades
The useful arts of making, mending, shaping, and repairing by hand. Skills may include basket weaving, broom making, blacksmithing, knife sharpening, wood carving, whittling, leatherwork, sewing, mending, quilting, hand stitching, fiber work, spinning, weaving, natural dyeing, tool care, simple repair skills, handmade household goods, traditional craft demonstrations, and useful handwork with wood, fiber, metal, cloth, and natural materials.

Plant Wisdom & Land-Based Skills
The knowledge of plants, soil, seasons, gardens, forests, food, medicine, and the living world. Skills may include herbal medicine, foraging, native plant identification, wild foods, medicinal plant walks, garden wisdom, seed keeping, composting, soil care, mushroom inoculation, mushroom growing, pollinator plants, tree and woodland knowledge, seasonal land tending, natural remedies, plant preparations, and learning plants by sight, scent, touch, and use.

Hearth, Home & Foodways
The old domestic arts of nourishment, preservation, kitchen wisdom, and practical household resilience. Skills may include sourdough, fermentation, canning, food preservation, jam and jelly making, dehydrating, pantry skills, cooking from simple ingredients, traditional kitchen wisdom, herbal kitchen preparations, homemade broths, vinegars, infusions, practical homekeeping skills, natural household care, and the everyday arts of feeding, tending, storing, and making do.

Fire, Field & Outdoor Skills
Skills rooted in weather, tools, woods, movement, outdoor confidence, and life beyond the walls. Skills may include fire tending, fire starting, safe tool use, archery, camp skills, outdoor cooking, knife skills, tracking, observation, navigation basics, shelter or fieldcraft demonstrations, practical preparedness, and working safely with heat, weather, tools, and land.

Story, Music & Cultural Memory
The traditions that live through voice, rhythm, memory, counsel, and community. Skills may include storytelling, acoustic music, traditional songs, oral history, elders’ wisdom, folk knowledge, local history, philosophy of the old ways, community resilience, family wisdom, practical life lessons, and the art of listening, remembering, and passing knowledge on.

Art, Beauty & Creative Expression
The skills that remind us beauty is not extra. It is part of how people have always made meaning. Skills may include watercolor, nature journaling, drawing from the living world, folk art, handmade decoration, natural materials in art, creative observation, seasonal craft, simple make-and-take projects, and art rooted in land, memory, and tradition.

Family & Young Hands
Gentle, tactile, wonder-filled experiences for children, families, and curious beginners of all ages. Skills may include children’s crafts, make-and-take activities, nature exploration, simple plant learning, hands-on demonstrations, family-friendly skill stations, garden wandering, curiosity-led learning, small projects children can carry home, and experiences that help younger hands discover the joy of making, noticing, and trying.

A Living Lineup
Not every skill will appear in the same way, at the same time, or in every year of the gathering. Some may be scheduled classes, some may be rolling demonstrations, some may be quiet conversations around a table, and some may appear only when the right teacher, tools, weather, and moment come together. That is part of what makes this gathering alive.

Lost Skills Gathering will be alive with movement throughout the day. Rather than one single track of events, the gathering will include a mix of scheduled classes, rotating demonstrations, open skill stations, music, storytelling, marketplace browsing, food, family activities, and moments that are discovered by wandering.

Some sessions will have set times. Others will happen in cycles as seats open, materials are ready, teachers reset, or curious hands gather around a table, tool, plant, song, story, or flame. Many offerings will be rolling or drop-in style, and some may repeat throughout the day as space and interest allow.

The gathering will be held rain or shine, with many activities taking place under tents or in the pavilion. In the case of severe or unsafe weather, the schedule may be delayed or adjusted for safety. A more detailed schedule will be added closer to the gathering, but guests can expect a full day of learning, listening, making, exploring, eating, visiting, and following what calls to them next.

Some parts of the day will be planned. Others will be discovered.

Lost Skills Gathering is built around the people who still know how: herbalists, craftspeople, homesteaders, gardeners, musicians, makers, elders, artists, tradespeople, and skilled neighbors who carry knowledge worth sharing.

Some have practiced their craft for decades. Some learned through family, land, labor, necessity, study, or long devotion to the work itself. Throughout the day, these teachers and demonstrators will help bring the old skills back into motion through hands-on instruction, live demonstrations, stories, tools, plants, materials, and the generous act of showing others how something is done.

Each offering may look a little different. Some teachers will lead scheduled classes, some will demonstrate throughout the day, some will invite guests to try the work by hand, and some may simply become the person you find yourself talking to beside a table, tent, garden path, or fire.

Teacher announcements will continue to be added as the gathering grows. The final lineup will be shaped with care, flexibility, and deep respect for the people sharing their time, skill, and lived wisdom.

Not every skill is passed through tools alone. Some knowledge comes through story, memory, reflection, experience, and the kind of wisdom that gathers when people sit down long enough to listen.

Throughout the day, Lost Skills Gathering will include speakers, storytellers, and thoughtful voices sharing on the deeper themes behind the old ways: tradition, resilience, land, family, community, craft, stewardship, memory, and the importance of preserving practical knowledge before it disappears from daily life.

Some talks may be formal. Others may feel more like story circles, fireside wisdom, music woven with memory, or conversations that help us understand why these skills still matter. Speaker announcements will be added as the gathering continues to take shape.

The gathering will not only be taught. It will be felt.

Music will move through the day as part of the atmosphere of Lost Skills Gathering, rising between workshops, marketplace wandering, food, conversation, and quiet moments beneath the trees. We are shaping the musical side of the festival around artists who fit the spirit of the gathering: acoustic, rooted, soulful, folk-inspired, earthy, thoughtful, playful, or deeply connected to place and story.

Music will happen from a central place at the stone amphitheater, with other performances possibly appearing in smaller moments throughout the grounds. However it unfolds, the hope is simple: songs, strings, voices, and rhythm helping the whole day feel alive.

Musician announcements will be added as the lineup continues to grow.

Lost Skills Gathering will be a day to wander, linger, listen, and let curiosity choose the path.

Across the twenty acres of Clary Gardens, the festival will unfold through rose gardens, herb fields, wooded trails, garden paths, tents tucked among the trees, music in the air, teachers at work, food nearby, children discovering what their hands can do, and conversations that begin simply because someone stops to ask, “What are you making?”

The atmosphere will be peaceful, welcoming, hands-on, and full of discovery. Some guests may come with a plan. Others may follow a song, a smell of woodsmoke, a table of tools, a plant they recognize, a story being told, or the sight of sparks rising from the forge.

However you move through the day, the gathering is meant to feel alive: part festival, part outdoor classroom, part makers’ market, part garden walk, and part return to the old human pleasure of learning together in the open air.

A good gathering needs good nourishment.

Between workshops, music, marketplace wandering, and garden paths, guests will have time to pause, eat, sip, visit, and settle into the rhythm of the day. Food and drink details are still being finalized, but we are shaping this part of the gathering with the same spirit as the rest of the festival: simple, welcoming, nourishing, and rooted in care.

Local food trucks are expected to be part of the day, and some teachers or vendors may offer samples, small bites, preserves, herbal tastes, or other traditional foods connected to their craft. Guests are encouraged to bring a refillable water bottle, and cash is strongly recommended for food, teacher donations, handmade goods, and small treasures found throughout the grounds.

More details will be added as food vendors and drink offerings are confirmed.

Lost skills belong to every generation.

The gathering is being shaped as a place where children, parents, grandparents, and curious people of all ages can explore together. The Kids’ Area is planned near the top of the gardens, with hands-on activities that invite younger people into the joy of making, noticing, asking, trying, and discovering what they can do.

Family-friendly offerings may include tie-dyeing, sunprints, watercolor, bead art, plastic canvas, simple make-and-take projects, nature exploration, storytelling, garden wandering, hands-on demonstrations, and a festival-wide scavenger hunt.

More details will be added as family activities are confirmed, but the heart of this part of the gathering is simple: helping children feel included in the old skills, not kept at the edge of them. Our hope is to inspire kids to spend less time on screens and more time making, exploring, wondering, and building real-life skills.