Classes – Page 26 – The Penland Sketchbook

Posted on May 13, 2019 by Penland

Sixteen Spring Workshops

We’ve just finished uploading all Spring 2020 workshop descriptions to the Penland website, which means that a full year of workshops is available for your browsing pleasure! Take a look at all our upcoming offerings here.

Spring and fall at Penland both offer students two very different options: focused, immersive one-week sessions that delve into a particular skill or technique, and expansive, eight-week sessions known as concentrations that allow artists of all levels to cover a lot of ground in the studio.

Here’s a taste of the concentrations we’ll be offering next March 8 – May 1, 2020 for those who want to go deep in the studio:

Clay – Parts Unknown with Jenny Mendes
Glass – Intentions & Innovations with Dan Mirer
Iron – Attention to Detail with Andrew Dohner
Metals – Wunderkammer with Suzanne Pugh
Photo – Processing Process with Mercedes Jelinek
Letterpress – Print/Process/Production with Jamie Karolich
Textiles – Following Threads: Trusting Tangents with Hillary Waters Fayle

Students in Annie Evelyn’s Spring 2019 woodworking concentration pose with some of their chairs at the session’s final Show and Tell.

And, for those who want the Penland experience in shorter bursts, we’re excited to share these one-week offerings:

Glass – Ebb & Flow with Ben Elliott
Textiles – Handweaving: Foundations & Exploration with Amanda Thatch
Printmaking – Word & Image with Stuart Kestenbaum and Susan Webster
Paper – Paper of Place with Frank Brannon
Textiles – Felt & Straw Hats: Traditional Blocked & Freeform with Wayne Wichern
Wood – The Art of the Bandsaw Box with Jenna Goldberg
Books – Bookstone Bookwork Woodwork with Daniel Essig
Clay – Don’t Hate, Decorate! with Kurt Anderson
Wood – Creating Stringed Instruments with Beth Ireland & Keunho Peter Park

Registration for each of the above workshops opens on Wednesday, May 15 at 10 AM Eastern time. Students will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis.

Scholarships are available for all eight-week concentrations. Scholarship applications are due by June 15 for fall workshops and November 28 for spring workshops. Beginners and advanced students alike are encouraged to apply!

Posted on May 3, 2019May 3, 2019 by Penland

Photo of the Week: Upholstery Dyeing

This is student Dev Flaherty and textiles instructor Jessica Green dipping wool cloth into madder (it was previously dyed yellow). The point of interest here, other than the great color, is that Dev was a student in the chair making Concentration in the wood studio. Annie Evelyn, who taught the wood class, is an upholsterer as well as a woodworker, and most of her students upholstered at least one of the chairs they made in the workshop. Several of them also spent some quality time in the textiles studio as Jessica generously helped them create custom colors for their upholstery fabric. This is just one of the many reasons it’s amazing to have so many different materials and processes happening at the same time.

This is the chair he made. It’s quite comfortable.

Posted on April 26, 2019 by Penland

Marc Maiorana’s Metal: The Absence of the Extraneous

Close-up views of two pieces by Marc Maiorana. Left: “Wine Rack” (detail), right: “Bend Coatrack with Brass” (detail).

To work with iron in a spartan and ascetic fashion requires courage. Rather than the addition of some trademark technique or design element, it is the absence of the extraneous in Marc Maiorana’s work that is his methodology. Surfaces are pristine, with little suggestion that a heavy tool or a formidable machine played any part in forming the steel. The courage is that of exposure—the vulnerability of immaculate design.
— from “Inspired,” a book about Penland’s core fellows and resident artists

This summer, we are excited to welcome former resident artist Marc Mairorana back to Penland to lead our first session iron workshop. Marc will teach Form Follows Steel, two weeks of forging, fabrication, and design that will run May 26-June 7. He will draw on his background as a blacksmith, sculptor, and designer to introduce students to a selection of the techniques he uses in the creation of his elegant, functional pieces. Whether you’re interested in sculptural forms or household objects like vessels and utensils, a session in the Penland iron studio with Marc is sure to inspire you with new skills, new ideas, and new ways to approach design in metal.

REGISTER NOW

Scholarships are still available for this workshop. Applications are being taken on a first-come, first-served basis. Submit yours and join us in the studio! More information.