Tinker. “A usually itinerant mender of household utensils,” according to Webster’s.

 
 

The word first appeared in Middle English in the 14th century, gaining a negative connotation: the secondary definition of “tinker” is “an unskillful mender.”  As travelers, outliers, and knowledge-bearers, tinkers became  shadow figures—ones to beware. Ian Henderson, Penland’s metals studio coordinator, came across the word in a fantasy novel called The Name of the Wind. In the book, Ian remembers, it’s bad luck not to buy something from the tinker.

 
 

Penland’s tinker is skillful. (That’s an understatement.) And he’s not be feared. Unless you fear “preposterously laborious processes.”

 
 

Producing art work in step with a marketplace doesn’t shine for Ian. When he’s not working on something with one person in mind, Ian adventures in the Realm of the Absurd and Obsolete, “collecting ideas and techniques” rather than working within a goal of refining them.

 
 

Ian’s role at Penland provides space and support. Problems he encounters managing the studio dovetail with his own love of problem-solving. To talk with Ian about what he’s made and why is a bit like watching a stone skip across water– this, then this, then this–each work sets off sentences about the flash of invention, delivered in a joyful, skittery style.

 
 

“Everything I start I think it’s going to be My Thing, from the time I started Tom Spleth’s slipcasting concentration as a core student,” Ian jokes when we stop in to look at the things he made this winter. Penland’s tinker is someone who puts his whole boundless inquisitive self into what he creates, from an elaborate tile wall piece to a batch of kefir. Take a look.

 

 

 
 
 

Photographs by Robin Dreyer; writing by Elaine Bleakney

 
 

To view more of metalsmith, ceramicist, mixed-media artist, and tinker Ian Henderson’s work, visit ian-henderson.com. Photograph of kefir not included.

 
 

Slideshow above, with pictures of Bobby Hansson by Dana Moore, Robin Dreyer, and Wes Stitt. Artwork by Bobby.

 

Here at Penland we will long remember Bobby Hansson (a.k.a. Professor Bobo) who died of Parkinson’s disease last week at a care facility in upstate New York. Bobby was a photographer, author, teacher, tin-can art genius, filmmaker, blacksmith, musician (of sorts), incomparable fashion maven, mail artist, renaissance man, teller of good stories and bad jokes, generous human being, and one of Penland’s great instructors.

Bobby was a photographer of craft and sculpture for thirty years, during which time he was the principal photographer for catalogs produced by the American Craft Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and he taught photography at the School of Visual Art. He started making sculpture, objects, furniture, and musical instruments from found objects in 1955. In 1996, he produced an excellent how-to book titled, The Fine Art of the Tin Can. It was a bestseller for Lark Books and a second, expanded edition was published in 2005.

Bobby started teaching tin-can-art workshops at Penland in 1997 and taught regularly until 2011. He also taught workshops at Arrowmont, Campbell Folk School, Haystack, Peters Valley, and Touchstone. His workshops were rollicking affairs that included metalsmithing techniques, design ideas, musical performances, long stories, piles of junk everywhere, and some of the most inventive work ever done by Penland students.

Bobby was a man of tattoos and loud (LOUD!) clothes. He was a continuous, walking performance. To call him a colorful character would be a serious understatement: nobody ever mistook him for anyone else. He was also a deeply creative person sincerely motivated by a desire to make something useful or interesting out of material that was being thrown away. We’ll miss him.

Bobby’s family has suggested that memorial donations be made to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.

Here’s a short video about Bobby and his work with narration by his friend Tim McCreight. There are also lots of nice notes and pictures on Bobby’s Facebook page.

 -Robin Dreyer

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From a letter to Bobby Hansson from Betty Oliver which appears at the end of Bobby’s  book:

Dear Bobby,
I was in a supermarket in Blacksburg, Virginia, thinking about your book, and what I might say about tin cans, when I saw a little boy carrying a big can of tomatoes for his father, who had just rounded the corner into the next section. Finding himself alone, the boy set the can on its side and
used his foot to roll it the rest of the way down the aisle. When he reached the end of the aisle, he picked up the can and disappeared around the corner.

How could I express our nearly worldwide impulse to create any better than this little boy’s spontaneous gesture of invention? From his hand to the floor, from the floor to his foot–in those instants, a can became a wheel.