Category: Penland People

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Featured Auction Artist: Yoonmi Nam

Yoonmi Nam is a printmaker and a sculptor who was born in Seoul, Korea and is a featured artist in this year’s Penland Benefit Auction. Her first connection to Penland was being invited to contribute work to a Penland Gallery exhibition in 2009. She taught a drawing/painting workshop the following year. “I remember driving from Kansas and making my way up the final bit of a very narrow road,” she said. “It opened up to a meadow with a cluster of studio buildings in the distance. I remember chatting with people while waiting in line to get food. I remember that my workshop had both the youngest and the oldest participants that week. I remember going back into the studio at night to see several students chatting, laughing, and working together. I remember our class covering the entire wall with their works on the last day when all the workshops came together to display what everyone made.” 

She returned in 2016 as a student in a glass casting workshop taught by Jason Chakravarty. “At that time, I had just started to do some basic mold-making and casting using plaster, wax, and clay in my own studio. My background is in printmaking and painting, and I didn’t have a lot of experience with three-dimensional processes, but my studio practice had evolved. I began making sculptural forms that depicted disposable objects such as styrofoam containers made with porcelain and plastic grocery bags made with Gampi papers. I had an idea that I should make clear deli containers using glass. But how? It was May of that year, and I started to research glass casting workshops. There was a workshop that I was looking for at Penland scheduled for July! And there was one spot left! So that was the second time that I made it back to Penland. The two-week workshop was incredible, and it was such a treat to be a student again.” 

Yoonmi teaches at the University of Kansas. Her recently scheduled Penland printmaking workshop was cancelled because of the pandemic; we hope she will be back to teach in the near future. Check out the video above to learn more about Yoonmi and her work. 

Video by Elizabeth Stehling Snell. 

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Featured Auction Artist: Shoko Teruyama

Ceramic artist Shoko Teruyama, whose work is featured in the 2021 Penland Benefit Auction, was introduced to Penland when she and her husband, Matt Kelleher, were selected as resident artists in 2005. “The hardest I ever worked on my practice,” she remembers, “was during the three years of the residency. When I left Penland, I was confident to step into the real world.” 

Shoko grew up in Mishima, Japan. She taught elementary school before coming to the U.S. to study art at University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1997. She received an MFA in ceramics from Wichita State University in 2005. Shoko and Matt shared a studio at The Barns during their three-year residency, which they completed in 2008, and they have taught several Penland workshops together. These days, they live and work in Alfred, NY. Matt teaches at Alfred University and Shoko continues her studio practice making densely patterned functional ware along with charming narrative work.

“The pottery I make begins with bisque molds, slab construction, and coil building to make thick, heavy forms,” she explains. “White slip is brushed over the red earthenware to create depth and motion. I carve back through the slip exposing the red clay, and I apply multiple layers of translucent glazes. Ornamentation is important to my ideas. I have created motifs called vine patterns to lead your eye around the work. Patterns run continuously to create narrow borders or to fill large amounts of space. They can flow into tight curves just as easily as they can bend around the belly of a form. The patterns create visual movement representing water, wind, and clouds.”

Shoko says that she is 100% a Japanese potter and 100% an American potter. In the video above, by Tyler Bopp, she makes a large platter (similar to the one in the Penland auction) as she talks about how her cultural heritage has influenced her work in ceramics.