Arts and Crafts Community Neighborhood Guide

The Arts and Crafts Community stretches along an 8-mile loop east of downtown Gatlinburg, winding through the foothills along Glades Road and Buckhorn Road past more than 100 working studios, galleries, and craft shops. It is recognized as the largest group of independent Appalachian artisans in the United States, with painters, potters, weavers, and woodcarvers who keep their studio doors open and routinely demonstrate their craft to visitors passing through. The community has operated in this tradition for generations, rooted in the folk and handcraft heritage of the Great Smoky Mountains region. Living here means being embedded in that creative culture year-round, with the rhythm of daily life shaped by the same roads tourists travel specifically to explore. It suits people who are drawn to working creatively in a place where that work is genuinely part of the neighborhood's identity, though the steady stream of tour buses is as much a fixture of the landscape as the studios themselves.