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Fall and Spring Workshop Listings

catalog cover showing a man painting a sign

We’re thrilled to announce our workshop lineup for Fall 2016 and Spring 2017! Whether it’s an eight-week concentration in crafting sculptural wood furniture or a one-week intensive on kinetic metal jewelry, there’s lots to choose from in each of our studios. Browse through all the course descriptions to find your next creative challenge.

Registration is open now, and scholarships are available for all fall and spring concentrations. Printed catalogs will be in the mail shortly.

 

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Photo(s) of the Week: Raising Day!

The timber framing class posing on the frame they raised

Penland’s eight-week concentrations are known for being intense and immersive workshops that leave students with new ideas, new skills, and new friends. This spring’s timber framing concentration was all that, but it also left a permanent mark on the Penland campus. In just eight weeks, the class, led by instructor Raivo Vihman and studio assistant Tom Shields, raised a full timber frame that will become the permanent home of a historical display just behind the Craft House. It took weeks of work to prepare the beams and fit them all together, but the raising took place in just one exhilarating day! Here’s to teamwork, cranes, and careful planning.

 

The first two walls of the frame going up
The two long walls of the structure were assembled on the ground before being raised into place.

 

Lowering a beam into place
A crane helps lower the first cross beam into position. Nice hard hats, all!

 

pounding a peg into place
The raising called for big pegs and big mallets. Unlike standard dimensional lumber frames, the timber frame isn’t held together with metal screws and braces.

 

The frame before the roof beams
With each new beam, the frame took on more and more of its final shape.

 

Thank you, timber framers, for this gorgeous structure! It will be a cherished part of campus for years and years to come.

 

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Counting Down to Summer

In less than three weeks, summer workshops will be underway at Penland! If you’re not registered for a workshop already, there are still lots of classes with open spaces, and even a few that have work-study scholarship positions available. Here are a few to get your creative juices flowing…

 

Belt buckel and brooch made by Lola Brooks
“Etruscan Horse” and “cut steel brooch (belly)” by Lola Brooks

 

In session 1, students in Lola Brooks’s workshop Storytelling & Belt Bucklery will tie together a wide range of metalworking techniques through narrative. The class will use stone setting, soldering, forming, fabricating, marriage of metals, and more to create pieces that are at once functional, beautiful, and full of meaning. It’s the perfect opportunity for beginning metalsmiths to get a solid footing in technique and for more advanced students to develop their ideas and artistic voice. Register now.

 

photograph by Emma Powell
“Against the Storm” by Emma Powell

 

During session 2, Fiction in Photography with Emma Powell will combine traditional 19th century printing processes with current digital technologies. Through a mix of theatrical photography, digital manipulation, and hand-printing, students will create images not of what is, but of what could be. If you’d like to to create images that are expressive, surreal, or even gravity-defying, this workshop is the one for you. Register now.

 

glass sculpture by Rebecca Arday and David Schnuckel
“com / mensural” (detail) by Rebecca Arday and David Schnuckel

 

Session 3 offers intermediate glass students an opportunity to deepen the content of their sculptural works in Logic & Lyricism with Rebecca Arday and David Schnuckel. By emphasizing conceptual intent, the workshop will encourage students to develop techniques in the hot and cold shops that amplify their ideas and artistic goals. For anyone who is ready to take their glass beyond simple forms, Logic & Lyricism provides a chance to make work with poetic appeal as well as technical skill. Register now.

 

These three workshops are just a small sampling of what Penland students will be learning this summer in the studios. To see all the other workshops across our fifteen studios and seven sessions that still have spaces, take a look at the open workshop list. Once you’ve found your perfect fit, you can register right here.