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Congratulations, MCAR

Artists and dogs
These are just a few of the local artists who support Mitchell County Animal Rescue.

Congratulations to Mitchell County Animal Rescue, who have been named the 2014 Nonprofit of the Year by the Mitchell County Chamber of Commerce. MCAR operates an animal shelter and offers low-cost spay/neuter and vaccination services. Many Penland staff members and Penland-affiliated artists have been involved with MCAR as volunteers and board members and have also donated their work to numerous MCAR art sales. Thank you, MCAR, for your valuable service to our community.

 

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Dance of the Blue Neo Glass

How it begins: a sketch on the studio floor, a plan to make this vessel in two parts.
Brian Corr and assistant Suzie Ririe shaping the body.
Assistant Nick Fruin and Pierre Bowring making the elongated stem of the vessel.
Like a pas de deux, with fire.
Bob Lamontagne with camera prepares to photograph from strange vantages.
Ready for the join. Behind Brian is Izach Hyde.
The pas de quatre in white tee shirts.
More fire, please.
Shaping the top.
Perfection is not just about control. It's also about letting go.--Black Swan.
Yes, we quoted the movie Black Swan in the last slide.
Finale: almost.
And then off to the annealer. Bravo to all.

 

There’s a ballet school in my neighborhood. When the sun hits the glass a certain way, the front window of the studio dims from where I view it from my car, and all I see are legs and feet, sweeping and stuttering together. Walking into the glass studio yesterday I was reminded of the feeling: catching sight of a group of bodies acting and reacting to each other as part of a plan. Students in Brian Corr’s concentration workshop moved in slow and quickening formations: standing, starting, leaning, kneeling, turning, crossing, holding and dropping and wiping off singed tools. Not a fluid dance (is there such a thing?) but a strategic and elliptical choreography as mesmerizing to me as any big-time production of Swan Lake. As Frank Sinatra played in the background, Brian’s students scuffed and stepped, keeping the object–a large, blue vessel composed of two parts to be joined–alive on the punties. Above are some shots of the moment.–Elaine Bleakney