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Photo of the Week: Glass-Furnace Builders

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This is the gang that just finished building a new furnace for the glass shop. The furnace-building workshop was lead by Mac Metz, Pablo Soto, and Jasen Johnsen.

 

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Here’s what they built. The new furnace incorporates a number of energy-efficiency improvements, allowing it operate with a significantly smaller burner than the furnace it is replacing.

 

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Action shot from Dave Somers, Penland’s director of facilities.

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40 Candles

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Photo above courtesy of Dan Price. Photos below by Elaine Bleakney.

 

This month, former core fellow Dan Price returned to Penland as a winter resident to make forty candles in the iron studio. Of course, we needed to know why.

 

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Dan, would you tell us about the piece you’re making? 

It’s part of a series of sculptures I am making that involve contingencies. In the works, the components are all interconnected–tied together, stacked, leaning and interdependent–and the components are lifted from memorable moments in my life. This one is about my wild 40th birthday party.

 

How did Penland fit into your plans for making this piece? 

I actually do have a forge in Chicago, but no power hammer, so I needed to use the smithy at Penland to make the candles.

 

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What are the next steps in your process with the sculpture? 

I am going to a manufacturer in Chicago to have a bunch of plate glass cut with a water jet cutter for the next part of the piece: a cake.

 
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Okay, we have to ask: what was “wild” about your 40th birthday party?
 
 
 

It was two years ago. My neighbors roasted a lamb in the backyard. They built up a fire pit out of firebricks, and I made a steel spit in the smithy at school. We roasted the lamb and invited about 80 people. It was generally a kind of a wild party. The craziest guest shot off fireworks, throwing lit bottle rockets with her bare hands–that kind of thing. My brother was good enough to drive her home, and returned with a funny look. “Never again,” he said.

 
 

Dan Price lives and works in Chicago, where he is Chair and Assistant Professor of Sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Read more about Dan and his work here.

 
 

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Penland Down Under

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Jemima Parker, Undefined (wearable) object, hand-printed calico, sewing thread, 2012

 

This June, Penland will turn Australian for two weeks when seventeen artists and educators from Australian National University’s School of Art in Canberra take over our fifteen studios–all during the same summer session, June 7-19, 2015.

 

Richard Whiteley, head of the glass at Australian National University, and Ashley Jameson Eriksmoen, ANU’s head of furniture, developed the all-Aussie session with Penland programs director Leslie Noell. Both schools share an innovative, practice-centered philosophy, and the session presents an unprecedented chance for makers to study with ANU faculty in the U.S.

 

Students who attend the session will work with Australian artist-educators at the height of their craft. These artists include Richard Whiteley, gold- and silversmith Simon Cottrell, textile and installation artist Jemima Parker, book and multimedia artist Nicci Haynes, and the artists listed in the teaching studios below.

 

“There is always an easy, open conversation between studios at Penland, and I hear from students and instructors all the time that this creative exchange across media is one of the things that, in addition to the daily focused classroom experience, makes their time at Penland even more rich, said Leslie Noell.

 

“Now imagine what this conversation will be like with seventeen vibrant instructors who have all known and worked together for years. (Not to mention the accents!) I expect the entire campus to crackle,” Noell said.

 
Ashley Eriksmoen, who ​previously ​taught at Penland​ ​and will teach woodworking during the 2015 session, sees a progressive synergy between ANU’s ​hands-on ​approach to​ teaching​ craft in the academy and Penland’s intensive workshop context.

 

“[ANU’s] ​undergraduate and graduate programs​ are centered on thinking through a material,” said Eriksmoen. “Our workshop discipline​​s​ involve art, craft, and design–and​ are closely aligned with those at Penland. We offer a high-caliber program Down Under. At Penland, we’ll offer it to students who wouldn’t otherwise make the antipodal journey.”

 
 
Among the Australia-based artist/educators who will be teaching during the session are:

 

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Simon Cottrell’s jewellery and objects have been extensively published and exhibited worldwide since 1996. He is currently a researcher and professor in the Gold and Silversmithing Workshop, School of Art, at ANU. Metalsmith magazine published an 8-page feature article on his work and practice, which can be read here.

 

 

 

 

 

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Nicci Haynes stretches the definition of book arts to include prints, costumes and performance, video, projection, and spoken word collaboration. Her work explores the idea of the inner world being described physically. Nicci teaches in the Print Media and Drawing discipline at ANU. Nicci’s work was included in the 2014 exhibition Behind the Personal Library: Collectors Creating the Canon at the Center for Book Arts, NYC.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jemima Parker, whose wearable work is shown at the top of this blog post, is a Canberra-based artist and screenprinter using traditional textile materials and methods, along with drawing and printmaking processes to create work that moves between disciplines and blurs boundaries of creative practice. She teaches textiles at ANU and more of her work can be seen here.

 

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Richard Whiteley is a glass artist renowned for his restrained yet monumental cast glass sculpture. Employing mass, negative space, transparency and translucency, Richard’s work and teaching career have helped shape the current state of contemporary glass. After several years of teaching and studio-based work, he is back in Canberra as Head of the Glass Workshop at the School of Art at ANU. He also maintains his own practice from his studio in Queanbeyan.

 

 

 

 

 

Apply for a scholarship or assistantship by February 17.

Not applying for a scholarship? Register in our summer lottery by February 11.

 

 

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All-Aussie Penland Session 2: June 7-19, 2015

Click here for full course information.

Click on the names below for websites of the artists.

 

Books: Nicci Haynes

Printmaking: John Pratt

Letterpress: Caren Florance

Upper Clay studio: Greg Daly

Lower Clay studio: Michael Keighery 

Painting: Ruth Waller

Glass: Nadege Desgenetez

Glass casting: Richard Whiteley

Upper metals studio: Simon Cottrell

Lower metals studio (3-D design): Gilbert Riedelbauch

Iron: Suzie Bleach & Andy Townsend

Photography: Matt Higgins & Denise Ferris

Upper textiles studio: Jemima Parker

Lower textiles studio: Valerie Kirk

Wood: Ashley Eriksmoen