A Penland Studio Style photo of jeweler and instructor Lola Brooks from Spring Concentration 2011 makes it’s glamorous public return in the pages of Ornament Magazine this month! Click here to check out the preview on Facebook. Or click here to read the full article.
Bill Thomas’s recent workshop at Penland School of Crafts was a sort of homecoming for the woodworker, whose parents, Vern and Shirley Thomas, live in nearby Spruce Pine. “Most of my family is buried in Bandana,” he recalls. “I was born in Spindale, and my father was born near Micaville. He moved out in the early ’40s, looking for work. He moved back the day he retired.” Thomas taught “Building the Fox Canoe,” a class featuring his technique for fabricating a sleek, lightweight canoe from plywood panels and fiberglass, in Penland’s wood studio the week of April 7 – 13. He has been a professional woodworker for over 35 years, designing and building custom projects from cabinetry and furniture to sailboats, powerboats, kayaks and canoes, for a wide range of clients. He lives in southern Maine, where he says the environment reminds him of North Carolina. There’s more information about Bill at billthomaswoodworking.com.
This is Gene Ayscue and Dan Bailey finishing up the installation, in the Penland Gallery lobby, of Dan’s incredible piece called Looking Down: Penland School of Crafts. The piece was constructed from over 15,000 photos taken in July, August, and October 2012 from a tethered balloon. They have been collaged by hand and placed onto the background satellite image to form a chronicle of human activity on the Penland School campus. Magnifying glasses will be available for visitors. This piece is part of the 0 to 60 project, which is a collaboration between Penland School and the North Carolina Museum of Art.
This is Dan’s piece as it appears on the Gigapan website, where you can scroll around and zoom way in and see all of the activity recorded in the collage. It includes bits from July 4, from the auction, a few sequences of groups of people walking through the landscape, people playing with the balloon shadow, and other delights. Click here and say goodbye to the next half-hour.
The spring clay class is building a new wood kiln (that is going to rock!). This crew is getting ready to work on the part of the chimney that sticks up above the roof.
Instructor Bridget Elmer demonstrating the Library of Congress longstitch binding during her spring books class.
On the last morning of their Slow and Savor: Mindfulness and Service in the Craft Arts workshop, beloved Penland neighbor and many-time instructor Paulus Berensohn and former core student Caverly Morgan lead their students and guests in a celebratory dance around the work they’ve made together.
Finished at last, core fellow Liz Koerner and former core fellow Jack Mauch pause to reflect on, and in, the beautiful surface of their specially-commissioned table for the future Core House.
