About Touchstone Center for Crafts
Touchstone Center for Crafts is nestled within 230 acres of lush woodlands, just 60 miles south of Pittsburgh in the scenic Laurel Highlands. Our campus features fully equipped studios, professional exhibition galleries, on-site lodging, and is surrounded by towering trees, rushing streams, and the calming sights and sounds of nature—creating the ideal setting to explore, create, and expand your artistic skills.
In addition to our main campus, we are excited to expand programming into nearby Ohiopyle through Touchstone by the Falls—a new space designed to increase accessibility and foster deeper creative engagement throughout the region.
History
It was 1972 when a group of artists, encouraged by the state, began sharing their love of traditional Appalachian craft. Classes in pottery, weaving, quilting, and the fiber arts were held in the Mill Run Grange Hall under the name ‘Pioneer Crafts Council’. These artisans were striving to build a creative community, and eventually found a home a few miles away in nearby Farmington, where the organization now known as Touchstone Center for Crafts remains today. Currently located on nearly 230 acres in Southwestern PA’s Laurel Highlands, Touchstone’s journey has given shape to a place where you will find artists of all backgrounds, skill levels, and ages collaborating and pushing themselves in new directions and mediums. Inspired by the natural setting of the campus, makers become immersed in their craft while being influenced and informed by impactful natural surroundings and the community of makers that is built on campus each week.
