Penland People – Page 11 – The Penland Sketchbook

Posted on February 21, 2022 by Penland

Wearable Black History

A young, African American woman working at a jewelry bench — Nancy Sanderson working in the Penland metals studio during the 2022 winter residency.

Nancy Sanderson did not have the typical reaction to the souvenir shop at Mount Vernon. Nancy is African American, and she was visiting the home of President George Washington with her husband’s family. She had been thinking about souvenirs because the metals class she was taking at Virginia Commonwealth University had given her an assignment to create a souvenir. (That class was taught by Adam Atkinson, who is currently a Penland resident artist.)

She had been thinking about the people who were enslaved at Mount Vernon and how some of them were the laborers who built the place. “And then I just thought, it’s crazy that there is a souvenir shop here,” she remembers. “To me, and I know this is a big jump, it was like if there was a souvenir shop at Auschwitz or Guantanamo Bay or some other place where people have suffered, and people are like, hey, let’s grab a shot glass or a needlepoint. I do understand that the institutions have to have income if they are going to preserve these places, but I would like to see it done in a more respectful way.”

Souvenir for the Enslaved by George Washington at Mount Vernon

A previous metals assignment already had her thinking about architectural elements as jewelry components, and so she responded to the souvenir assignment with her brooch called “Souvenir for the Enslaved by George Washington at Mount Vernon.” The piece includes a small profile of George Washington’s house made from painted wood. This is seen through a barred window in a brick wall made of copper. Chains, ending in a shackle, hang from the wall. The shackle, she explains, is silver, because that’s the part that would have touched the body.

Making this piece caused Nancy to imagine a series of jewelry works inspired by the estates of other slaveholding American presidents. Her studio access is limited currently as she is on hiatus from VCU, caring for her newborn daughter and navigating the pandemic with her family. But she was able to participate in Penland’s winter residency, giving her the opportunity to start work on the second piece.

A sheet of copper with a relief image and three holes sits in front of an architectural model made from small copper bars — Components in progress for Souvenir for the Enslaved by John Tyler at Sherwood Forest Plantation

More ambitious in scale and complexity than the first, this piece will be the “Souvenir for the Enslaved by John Tyler at Sherwood Forest Plantation.” The John Tyler house is a 301-foot-long structure that is essentially seven buildings attached end-to-end and is claimed to be the longest frame house in America. Nancy’s piece will be a three-finger ring with a simple model of the whole house sitting on top of it.

The ring itself will be a hollow form that contains a relief image of an enslaved man with arms crossed and head bowed. Two children stand in front of him. “It’s a play on Atlas,” she explains, “and the house will rest on his back. There are children in the image because it’s not just about the enslaved, it’s also about that legacy and how it goes to the next generation and the next generation.”

A sketch on graph paper — Nancy’s original sketch for the John Tyler piece

“It’s truly heartbreaking,” she continues, “to imagine that you’d probably be proud of what you contributed to that house and that plantation, but then to not be allowed to be proud and to not have any type of ownership of your contribution. To live your whole life and to know that no matter how hard you work, you will never have this. It’s not allowed. That’s what I’m thinking about in making this.”

Nancy is rendering these ideas as jewelry because, she explains, “I want them to be wearable and not just sculptures because I want people to touch them and interact, and that’s how they bring you in.” She hopes to complete five pieces in the series; she already has a vision for a piece based on James Monroe’s Highlands. “I think that enslaved people are just overlooked in their contributions to architecture and building,” she says. “So I want to highlight the architecture that enslaved people helped create and combine this with what I enjoy doing with metals.”

A man and a woman in a grassy field in winter, pulling a sled with a baby sitting in it — Nancy with her husband, Adam, and their daughter, Mary-Sue, at Penland

Posted on February 9, 2022February 20, 2022 by Penland

Penland Trustee Sharif Bey Named 2022 USA Fellow

Portrait of Sharif Bey with a large sculpture — Sharif Bey with his piece Louie Bones-Omega, which is in the collection of the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Penland is excited to report that ceramic sculptor and educator Dr. Sharif Bey, who is a Penland trustee and friend, has been selected for a 2022 USA Fellowship from United States Artists. The US Artists website describes this prestigious, $50,000 award as celebrating “artists and cultural practitioners who have significantly contributed to the creative landscape and arts ecosystem of the country.”

Sharif, who is an associate professor of art at Syracuse University, grew up in a large African American family in Pittsburgh. He says that, while many of the men in his family left school for jobs in industry, he had a pivotal experience at Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild while he was in high school. That organization gave him a foundation of skills and connections in the ceramics world that helped chart his life’s path.

Among those connections was ceramic artist Norman Schulman, a long-time Penland neighbor and instructor. It was from Norm that he first heard of Penland. “We stayed in touch on and off,” Sharif remembers. “He screened his calls, and it always made me feel special that aging Norm remembered me. I could hear him in the background saying, ‘Gloria, I’ll take Sharif’s call.’”

He also met Penland instructor Winnie Owens-Hart during a studio visit in 1989, and in 2000, he took a workshop with her at Penland. “She was surprised that this kid from 11 years prior was still working in clay,” he remembers. A few years later, he was teaching at Winston-Salem State and arranged several times to bring groups of students to Penland for a visit. In 2007, he taught his own workshop at Penland.

Raptor Quilt series #2, 2021, Earthenware and mixed media, dimensions 24 × 23 × 4 inches. Photo courtesy of Albertz Benda, New York.

Fast forward to 2108 when Sharif, now in his current position at Syracuse University, was one of four artists featured in an exhibition titled “Disrupting Craft” at the Renwick Gallery in Washington, DC. At that show’s opening, he met Penland staff member Yolanda Sommer (she is currently manager of diversity, recruitment, and partnerships). They were talking about Penland’s efforts to attract students of color, and he pitched the idea of the school partnering with several historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) to bring groups of students and instructors for multi-day visits to Penland.

This conversation was the genesis of Penland’s HBCU tour (read about it here and here), which had its third iteration in 2021. Sharif was one of the artist/mentors for the first tour in 2018. Around that same time, he was invited to join Penland’s board of trustees.

Sharif describes his ceramic sculpture as inspired by functional pottery, Oceanic and African art, and art of the African diaspora, and investigating the cultural and political significance of adornment and the symbolic and formal properties of archetypal motifs while questioning how the meaning of icons and function transform across cultures and time.

He holds a BFA from Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania, an MFA from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, and a Ph.D. in art education from Pennsylvania State University. He’s had residencies at the McColl Center in Charlotte, NC, the Archie Bray Foundation in Montana, and the Kohler Arts Center in Wisconsin. In addition to the USA Fellowship, he has received a Pollock-Krasner grant and a Fulbright scholarship. His work is in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum among others.

Congratulations, Sharif, on this well-deserved honor!

Participants in the 2019 Penland HBCU tour, an idea originally suggested by Sharif Bey, who is seen at the far right.

Posted on February 8, 2022 by Penland

The Kent McLaughlin Scholarship for Working Potters

Kent McLaughlin

First: A reminder that the application deadline for summer scholarships is February 17. Details are here.

Second: Penland School is thrilled to announce the Kent McLaughlin Scholarship for Working Potters.

Kent McLaughlin was a wonderful potter, neighbor, human, and friend of the school. He succumbed to pancreatic cancer in 2021. Kent had a vision for a Penland scholarship that would meet the needs of studio potters who make their living selling their work, and in five short months, with contributions from 117 donors, Kent’s friends and family have created a $100,000 endowment to fund this scholarship in perpetuity, The first scholarship will be awarded this summer.

The scholarship will cover the full cost of a Penland summer workshop—in any studio—and will grant a stipend of $1,000 per week to offset the artist’s time away from their studio production. The scholarship does not have a work requirement. To be eligible, applicants must have had a full-time studio practice for at least one year and will need to provide a résumé that demonstrates that they have been making their living solely by selling their work. They will also be asked to provide five images of their work.

In announcing the successful fundraising for the scholarship, Kent’s wife and studio mate, Suze Lindsay, said, “I am unable to find the words to say how much this means to me personally and to our family and community as we honor Kent’s legacy as a working potter and workshop instructor. Penland School is near and dear to our hearts. Kent and I both trained there early in our careers and found the experience an invaluable gift.”

Please share this information with anyone who might benefit from the opportunity.

General summer scholarship information and the link to the application form can be found here.

Here’s how to apply for the Kent McLaughlin scholarship.

Open the scholarship application form in Slideroom.
Fill out the first two pages, which are required for all applications.
If you would also like to be considered for non-merit scholarships, fill out page three.
Go to page four, answer Question 1, and upload five images of your work.
Click the button under Question 5. This will open a number of secondary questions.
Check Box 5.7, which applies only to this scholarship.
If you would also like to be considered for other merit scholarships, check any other boxes that apply to you.
Submit your application by 11:59 ET on February 17.

About Kent McLaughlin

In the early 1990s, Kent (a.k.a. Chet, Chester) worked at Penland as services coordinator and then as facilities manager. In 1995, Kent and Suze bought a farmhouse in Bakersville, added a studio, and opened their doors as Fork Mountain Pottery in 1996.

Kent taught at Penland a number of times, sometimes by himself and sometimes with Suze. He also taught at Haystack, Anderson Ranch, Arrowmont, the Curaumilla Art Center in Chile, and the Jingdzhen Ceramic Institute in China. He helped start the Potters of the Roan, Spruce Pine Potters Market, and MICA Gallery.

Kent made functional pots in stoneware and porcelain. He described the look of work as “simple and quietly decorated surfaces made with a wax resist technique, layering glazes while using my own studio-made deer tail brushes.”

But most importantly, he was a funny, warm-hearted, positive person who always had time for other people and welcomed everyone into whatever he was doing. Any day that involved seeing him was a better day.

Kent McLaughlin memorial — In September 2021, many of Kent’s family and friends gathered at Penland for a beautiful celebration of his life.