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Marc Maiorana’s Metal: The Absence of the Extraneous

Close-up views of two pieces by Marc Maiorana. Left: “Wine Rack” (detail), right: “Bend Coatrack with Brass” (detail).

To work with iron in a spartan and ascetic fashion requires courage. Rather than the addition of some trademark technique or design element, it is the absence of the extraneous in Marc Maiorana’s work that is his methodology. Surfaces are pristine, with little suggestion that a heavy tool or a formidable machine played any part in forming the steel. The courage is that of exposure—the vulnerability of immaculate design.
— from “Inspired,” a book about Penland’s core fellows and resident artists

This summer, we are excited to welcome former resident artist Marc Mairorana back to Penland to lead our first session iron workshop. Marc will teach Form Follows Steel, two weeks of forging, fabrication, and design that will run May 26-June 7. He will draw on his background as a blacksmith, sculptor, and designer to introduce students to a selection of the techniques he uses in the creation of his elegant, functional pieces. Whether you’re interested in sculptural forms or household objects like vessels and utensils, a session in the Penland iron studio with Marc is sure to inspire you with new skills, new ideas, and new ways to approach design in metal.

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Scholarships are still available for this workshop. Applications are being taken on a first-come, first-served basis. Submit yours and join us in the studio! More information.

Two railings Marc Maiorana made for the Penland campus during his time as a Penland resident artist.

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Photo of the Week: Filming for Craft in America

Cristina Cordova starting on a new head sculpture with a videographer filming her process

Last week, while we had visiting artists Cristina Córdova and Jaime Suárez working here on campus, we also had some other special guests: a film crew from the PBS documentary series Craft in America! The team was here to get footage of Cristina and Jaime for an upcoming episode themed around identity. This week, they all traveled to Puerto Rico to do more filming in the place that Cristina and Jaime call home.

We’ll share the episode when it premieres, because you may recognize a place or two in it! In the meantime, you can watch the “Community” episode of Craft in America, which also features scenes shot here at Penland.

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Jaime and Cristina in the Clay Studio

Puerto Rican artist Jaime Suarez paints on a large piece of paper with watery red clay while students watch

Visiting artists are part of every spring and fall concentration at Penland. They help enrich our sessions by bringing new perspectives, skills, and approaches to our studios and sharing their experience with our students. This spring, we’ve been doubly lucky to have two visiting artists, Jaime Suárez and Cristina Córdova. They spent this week working side by side in the studio, pushing clay in very different directions.

In addition to their public lectures at Northlight, both Jaime and Cristina opened up their processes to the community through an afternoon of demonstrations. Jaime walked us through two of his recent experiments with making marks in clay. In one, shown above, he applied a watery clay slip to a crumpled sheet of paper. As the slip pooled and dried, it captured the topography of the paper surface in layers of clay, creating the possibility for a two-dimensional print of a three-dimensional surface. In another process, shown below, Jaime demonstrated how he creates monoprints with just a clay slab and water, altering the image by varying the moisture levels and the impressions on the clay. Like the clay paintings, these prints captured the data of the surface using the inherent colors and qualities of his material.

Artist Jaime Suarez giving a demonstration to a group of students on how to monoprint with clay and water

Cristina, for her part, focused on clay’s incredible sculptural potential. She gave a demonstration of her process for sculpting the human head, starting with a flat slab of paper clay that she formed into a cylinder and then refined. Over the course of half an hour, we watched with awe as the cylinder first took on the rough shape of a human head through pushing and paddling, then developed a ridge at the brow, cavities at the eyes, and protrusions for the nose and lips. To build up the features further and add unique expressions, Cristina built onto them with smaller additions of clay. All the while, she explained the shapes she keeps in mind to guide her sculpting—the egg shape of the head, the teardrop shape formed by the side of the nostril, the three different planes of the lips.

Cristina Cordova sculpting a head from red paper clay while a ring of students looks on

Even though none of our current workshops deal directly with figurative sculpting or painting or making prints, there is a lot of inspiration to be drawn from these demonstrations. We hope all the students who attended will return to their benches, their wheels, and their torches with ideas about how to take advantage of the inherent qualities of their materials to move them in new directions. Thank you, Jaime and Cristina, for being here and sharing so generously!

Cristina Cordova refines the features on the side of the clay head she is sculpting