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Penland’s Five New Resident Artists Arrive this Month!

Back in March, we announced the newest additions to our resident artist lineup: Adam Atkinson, Everett Hoffman, Ellie Richards, and Adam Whitney. And today we’re excited to share the final name in that all-star artist crew: Julia Harrison!

Together with Adam A., Everett, Ellie, and Adam W., Julia will join our Resident Artist Program to set up her studio for a three-year residency at The Barns this month. These newest residents will be joining current residents Nate Cotterman, Jason Hartsoe, and Kit Paulson. Please get to know them below, give them a follow, and say hi!

Julia Harrison

portrait of Julia Harrison (left) and an image of her work (right), a sculpted human mouth

Julia is a sculptor, jeweler, and public artist. Woodcarving is her core practice, but she also enjoys experimenting with a variety of materials and techniques. Recently she has been carving amber, casting concrete, building paper lamps, and creating installations out of cookie cutters. Julia earned an MFA in Metals from the University of Washington and a degree in Metalwork Conservation from West Dean College (UK). She teaches regularly and was the Jewelry/Metals Studio Manager at Pratt Fine Arts Center in Seattle for five years. Julia has previously participated in residencies at the Center for Art in Wood and the Bunnell Street Arts Center.

juliaharrison.net
@byjuliaharrison

Adam Atkinson and Everett Hoffman

Adam and Everett in black and white
Adam (left) and Everett (right)

Adam Atkinson and Everett Hoffman are cross-disciplinary artists and collaborative partners, whose studio practices intersect in their shared connection to craft, adornment, and identity. Having both grown up in the Pacific Northwest, their individual artistic paths question the hyper masculine tropes associated with the wild west. From the perspective of a queer male experience, they make work through mixed-media installations, wood carvings, photography, and body adornment. Atkinson and Hoffman both graduated with a BFA from Boise State University in 2013, and an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2018 (Hoffman) and East Carolina University in 2019 (Atkinson).

Atkinson and Hoffman have participated in a number of exhibitions nationally and internationally including the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh, SOIL Gallery in Seattle, Wayne Center for Contemporary Craft in Pennsylvania, the Benaki Museum in Greece, and Nogoya Zokei University in Japan. They are co-curators of Spectral Matter Projects, an annual exhibition platform for LGBTQIA+ artists navigating queer perspectives in craft. Slippery and Subversive marked the first exhibition in this series, highlighting artists whose work takes a position of slippage and ambiguity as a way to redefine body-object relationships.

adornments by Everett Hoffman and Adam Atkinson
Work by Everett (left) and Adam (right)

adamatkinsonart.com  |  @adamatkinson_art
everetthoffman.net  |  @everetthoffman

Ellie Richards

Ellie Richards portrait and installation of broom sculptures

Ellie Richards looks to the tradition of both woodworking and the readymade to create eclectic assemblage, installation, and objects exploring intersections of labor and leisure. In addition to mining the histories of furniture and forestry as cornerstones in her research, she has traveled extensively to investigate the roles that play and improvisation have on the artistic process. Her work, both furniture and sculpture, has been included in exhibitions at the Mint Museum, Center for Craft, SOFA Chicago, and the Society of Contemporary Craft. After receiving an MFA at Arizona State University, Richards participated in residencies, fellowships, and teaching appointments, respectively, at Anderson Ranch, Peters Valley, the Vermont Studio Center, and Appalachian Center for Craft. From there she was Penland’s wood studio coordinator from 2015-2019. This year Richards was awarded Windgate residencies at the Center for Art in Wood and in the wood/furniture design programs at San Diego State University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

ellie-richards.com
@ellieinthewoods

Adam Whitney

Adam Whitney portrait and raised copper box with embellished lid

Adam Whitney is a metalsmith who focuses his work on forming and shaping sheet metal into volumetric forms by means of raising, chasing, and repoussé. He is constantly exploring and pushing his understanding and knowledge of the craft. When not in his studio, Adam travels for various projects and to teach workshops, bringing his passion for metalsmithing wherever he goes.

Adam received his BFA in Crafts / Materials Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University, where he concentrated in metalsmithing. He has worked as a bench jeweler and metals studio coordinator, taught jewelry design at Raffles College in Kuala Lumpur, and now runs his own studio, AW Metalsmith.

aw-metalsmith.com
@awmetalsmith

 

For more information about Penland’s Resident Artist Program, please visit our residency page.

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Creation to Celebration: 6 Cs of Winter Residency

Every winter, we begin the new year with a month of short, intense residencies at Penland. Winter Residency is a time when we invite artists to arrive with their own ideas and projects and bring them to life in our studios. There is no instruction and we don’t give assignments—we just ask that each resident dive in, explore, and connect with the energy and creativity of this community. It’s the best start to the year we could hope for.

Below, we highlight a few photographs and themes from this year’s residency. Find out more (and learn how to apply to join us next year!) on the Winter Residency page.

Creation

Mary Raivel at the bench in Penland metals

Winter residency is a time to create. It’s a time to actually work on those ideas that just won’t keep quite and see what’s really there when you give them a chance. Here, metals resident Mary Raivel is continuing a series of pieces that incorporate old lenses and watch crystals. She says, “I would never have managed to devote the necessary time to this new work on age and ageism using new (to me) materials, were it not for my time here.”

Concentration

Potter Ronen Yamin trimming a vessel

No meal schedules, no work-study schedules, no class projects, no daily slide talks. There is less structure to Penland’s Winter Residencies than there is to our workshop sessions, which means you can work how and when it works for you. It’s amazing how much our residents accomplish in just a couple weeks of deep concentration! Here, potter Ronen Yamin focuses while trimming a series of vessels.

Collection

Katie St. Clair working on a collection of paintings

With half as many people but just as much space, winters at Penland provide a quieter, more expansive atmosphere than the all-in exuberance of our summer workshops. Here, painting and drawing resident Katie St. Clair spreads out during the first two weeks of residency to put the finishing touches on a collection of paintings for an upcoming exhibition. Winter residency is the perfect time to take a step back from individual pieces and think about your work as a whole.

Challenge

a collection of spoons made by Penland winter residents

Mostly, it’s personal challenges that our winter residents set for themselves, but there are always a few fun group challenges, too. The annual Table in a Day competition is one we’ve written about repeatedly on the Penland blog (2020, 2018, 2017). This year, residents introduced a new one: Spoon Before Noon. Above are just some of the results from the morning in a variety of materials and even more styles!

Collaboration

Sasha Baskin screenprinting

When you get 80+ artists together in an open studio environment, there’s bound to be a lot of discussion, sharing, and building on each other’s ideas. Often, these interactions lead to new collaborations, such as this one between textiles residents Sasha Baskin and Alyssa Salomon. Together, they used Alyssa’s screenprinting knowledge to turn Sasha’s lace designs into prints on fabric.

Celebration

view of the final winter residency show and tell

To end it all, we ask everyone to participate in one of our oldest, most cherished traditions: Show and Tell. It’s a time to explore what everyone else has been up to while you’ve been head down in the studio, to catch up with old friends and say hi to new ones, and mostly to marvel at the sheer creative force that is the Penland community. Winter residents, you amaze us! Thank you for giving this month your all and sharing it so generously with us.

Want to see even more? Head to our Winter Residency Facebook album.

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Everything Must Go

Core fellows from left to right: Devyn Vasquez, Katherine Toler, Joshua James Fredock, Stormie Burns, Sarah Rose Lejeune, Kento Saisho, L Gnadinger, Corey Pemberton, Elliot Earl Keeley
Programs director Leslie Noell addresses each core fellow at the opening reception.
A view of the show during viewing hours in Northlight
"Everything Must Go" viewed from the back of the gallery
Students, family, friends, and community members enjoying the show during the opening reception
Viewing hours run through November 14!
Stormie Burns and Sarah Rose Lejeune, “Just Some Baskets,” porcelain, glaze, luster, cotton, linen
Stormie Burns, "Triangle Bowl and Dash Cup," cast glass
Joshua James Fredock, “Bubble Cage,” steel, glass
Joshua James Fredock, “Vessel and Vase,” raised copper, hot glass
L Gnadinger, “Smaller Dangers 2,” layered abaca and cotton, graphite, wax, found danger
L Gnadinger, “Memorial 2,” cast bronze, housings
Elliot Earl Keeley, “Not in Use,” steel, wood, plastic, mixed media
Elliot Earl Keeley, “Divisions 2,” mixed media on paper
Sarah Rose Lejeune, “Worry Dolls,” cast bronze, copper
Sarah Rose Lejeune, “Loads,” handwoven cotton, silk, stainless steel
Corey Pemberton, “Untitled,” acrylic, inkjet print, sumi ink, panel
Corey Pemberton, “I have nothing to wear,” acrylic, bamboo parquetry, inkjet print on panel
Kento Saisho, “Still life,” ambrotype
Kento Saisho, “Untitled,” forged and fabricated steel, graphite
Katherine Toler and Devyn Vasquez, “Dog Party” (detail), plywood, found objects
Katherine Toler, “window seat,” monoprint, chine collé
Devyn Vasquez, “Checkered Brush,” birdseye maple, horse hair; “Bubble Brush,” ash, goat hair
Devyn Vasquez, “Passing Through,” airbrush on paper

Every year, the annual Core Fellowship Exhibition is a highlight of fall concentrations and an exciting opportunity to peek into the worlds of our core fellows as they explore new materials, ideas, and techniques across studios. This year’s, titled Everything Must Go, was certainly no exception. It featured the work of 2018-2019 core fellows Stormie Burns, Joshua James Fredock, L Gnadinger, Elliot Earl Keeley, Sarah Rose Lejeune, Corey Pemberton, Kento Saisho, Katherine Toler, and Devyn Vasquez. They curated and installed the show themselves in the Gallery North space of the new Northlight complex. The work ranged from delicate pâte de verre vessels to airbrushed paintings, with a strong unifying thread of experimentation and craftsmanship. 

Congratulations on a beautiful installation, core fellows!

Everything Must Go will be on display through November 14, 2018. Viewing hours are Wednesdays noon – 3:00 PM, Saturdays noon – 3:00 PM, and Sundays: 1:00 – 4:00 PM.