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A highlight of every year at Penland (except 2020, because…) is the core show: an exhibition of carefully selected work made during the year by our wonderful core fellows. The evening starts with a beautiful, quiet dinner made by their friends. This is followed by a reception and moment for honoring each of these hardworking artists. This year’s exhibition was in Gallery North, which is part of the Northlight complex.
The Penland Core Fellowship is a two-year work-study residency that has brought generations of hard-working, dedicated artists into the Penland family–taking workshops, covering important work assignments, and inspiring everyone around them. We are also delighted to say that many core fellows continue to have a long-term relationship with the school after their fellowship comes to an end. We are always delighted to welcome them back as instructors, staff members, and in other roles.
Thank you, Erica, Mia, Mitsu, Mo, Molly, SaraBeth, Sarina, Tony, and Scott (who left for grad school before this event) for everything you have brought to Penland. Because everything was canceled in 2020, we got to keep this group for an extra year, and it’s getting hard to imagine the place without them!
Penland’s resident artists are full-time artists who spend three years living and exploring their studio work as part of our school’s community. Many use this time to explore new ideas and directions, undertake ambitious projects, or develop new bodies of work.
We are thrilled to welcome Daniel, Sean, and Sarah, and we look forward to watching their progress over the next three years!
Daniel Garver “I approach my casting process with the notion that each piece is unique and stands as a canvas into which I can apply casting slip with a variety of methods from incising, painting, or inlaying colors and designs. In addition to ceramics, I maintain a dedicated drawing practice that stands alone in finished pieces, but also plays a vital role when designing my ceramics.”
Sean O’Connell “One of my most sincere beliefs is that ‘Making is Thinking’, in other words, the act of learning is not strictly a function of the mind acting independently, but instead responding to what our body is experiencing. I have an immense appreciation and feeling of gratitude for the skills I’ve learned and can express through my hands.”
Sarah Vaughn “I have devoted myself to learning techniques to manipulate the remarkable material of glass—but I truly found my voice through casting and cold forming processes…I [create] sculptures that balance technique and concept, subtly pausing to reveal unexpected moments and visualizing the precarious balance of life.”
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A huge thank you to our 2021 review panelists who generously offered their collective expertise and insight to rich discussions and difficult decisions.
Susie Ganch, head of metals in the Department of Craft and Material Studies, Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond); metalsmith/sculptor; former Penland resident artist.
Ché Rhodes, head of studio glass at University of Louisville, (KY); glass artist; Penland trustee
Abraham Thomas, Daniel Brodsky Curator of Modern Architecture, Design, and Decorative Arts in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC); Penland trustee.
Sarah Turner, president of North Bennet Street School (Boston); educator/craft artist/designer.
Right at the moment, Ellie Richards’s Penland studio is a riot of color, texture, and a bit of chaos. Her large shop tools are tidy and in order, but the tables are strewn with garden tools, toys, games, hoses, and other materials not usually found in a wood studio. On the wall behind her bench are a group of hybrid objects including a shovel that is completely covered with magnetic plastic letters.
Ellie is making work for a two-person show at the Vision Gallery in Phoenix, Arizona titled Play Hard. Each piece, she explains, combines a tool (of the DIY suburban garage variety) with materials of play (the kind that might be part of summer games: bubbles, blocks, balloons etc.), in an effort to create something new, maybe something absurd, certainly something imaginative. “Ten years ago,” she says, “I started exploring how the opposing worlds of work and play could be interrelated. Since then, my work has gone in many directions, but each series seems to maintain a connection to each and their effect on the other. This exhibition is an opportunity to explore this exchange more directly, working in the format of ready-mades and altered found objects.”
Works in progress in Ellie’s studio.
“Life’s responsibilities and too many other barriers stand in the way of simply allowing oneself to have ‘free’ time,” she continued. “In other words, play doesn’t always come easy and usually there is a cost. However, it is my belief that free time, free from expectations and free from obligations or even an agenda, makes way for an increased sense of curiosity and connection with the tangible world.”
Ellie joined the resident artist program in September, 2020, and she was Penland’s wood studio coordinator from 2014 to 2019. Needless to say, she’s a highly skilled woodworker, so this current work might be surprising to some. “For a time all I wanted to do was learn how to build well made structural objects, and in that pursuit I picked up some valuable technical skills. It has always been my intent and one of my biggest challenges to have those skills supplement and support my ideas but not overstate themselves or hinder a more raw form of expression. This balance of seriousness and spontaneity is at the core of my practice.
Works in progress in Ellie’s studio.
“In this work, the place where two objects merge is the site where I’m focusing on the specifics of craft. Whether that happens with a traditional joint, JB Weld, or a special knot, these tactics of making connections are done with an equal amount of care and sensitivity toward the intent and outcome. This language used to transition one object into another serves as a conversation starter between the materials and new forms created.
“My identity as an artist has always been rooted in using wood as a raw material and woodworking as a field for its historical and technical context. At this juncture, I’m keen to use these experiences in woodworking as a framework for translation into other materials and modes of expression.”
With Ellie at at the beginning of her three-year residency, we can’t wait to see where this takes her.
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Ellie also just concluded an imaginative multimedia sculpture/furniture installation in Charlotte, which is featured on her website.
