NEW Exhibition at Penland Gallery

March 8, 2008

Penland Gallery Welcomes Instructors New to Penland School

Each year, more than 100 guest instructors teach at Penland School of Crafts, and each year about half of them are teaching at the school for the first time. Work by 30 of these newcomers is included in the Penland Gallery exhibition, NEW, which runs though May 18. The opening reception is on Friday, March 21, from 7:00 – 8:30 PM.

This show includes work in most of the media taught at Penland: clay, glass, iron, jewelry, papermaking, photography, printmaking, painting, textiles, and woodworking. The artists in this show come from all over the country. Of special interest is Sabiha Mujtaba’s Bharatanatyam Dancer, a wooden chair that exquisitely suggests the body of an Indian dancer. In contrast with this piece of sculptural furniture is John Grew Sheridan’s C/Y Chair, a beautifully crafted, classically styled parlor chair. Glass artist Michael Mangiafico is represented in the exhibition by three realistic glass insects, a praying mantis, a mosquito, and a spider. Don’t worry, they won’t bite. Blacksmith Maria Cristalli extends the biological theme with a steel bonsai tree titled Wind Wrought.

Textile artist Loren Schwerd’s piece is from an ongoing series titled Mourning Project, which is dedicated to victims of Hurricane Katrina. Following the Victorian tradition of weaving memorial objects from the hair of the deceased, this artist collected hair extensions found outside a flooded New Orleans beauty shop and wove them into a replica of an abandoned house from the same neighborhood.

In addition to this special exhibition, the Penland Gallery has a sales area featuring work in all media by artists affiliated with Penland School of Crafts. The gallery is located on the Penland School of Crafts campus, just off Penland Road in Mitchell County. Gallery hours are 10 - 5, Monday through Saturday; 12 - 5 on Sunday; closed on Mondays. For more information call 828-765-6211 or visit our gallery page.

Penland School of Crafts is a national center for craft education located in Western North Carolina. Penland offers workshops in books and paper, clay, drawing, glass, iron, metals, printmaking, photography, textiles, and wood. The school also sponsors artists’ residencies, an outreach program, and a craft gallery open to the public. Penland is a nonprofit, tax-exempt institution that receives support from the North Carolina Arts Council, an agency funded by the State of North Carolina and the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art.