Category: Penland People

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Elizabeth Brim, Outstanding Artist Educator

Elizabeth Brim will be honored at this summer’s Penland Benefit Auction.

If anyone can be said to be one of “Penland’s own,” it would be blacksmith and sculptor Elizabeth Brim. Although she started out working in ceramics, a Penland jewelry workshop in the 1980s sparked a lifelong interest in metals that quickly turned into a passion for working with hot steel.

Elizabeth was Penland’s iron studio coordinator from 1995–2000 and then settled permanently into a house and studio just a mile from the school. Over three decades, she has taught many workshops at Penland and other craft schools including Peters Valley in New Jersey and Haystack in Maine. She has demonstrated at numerous blacksmithing conferences, organized two symposia at Penland, and been a role model and inspiration for countless aspiring blacksmiths.

Elizabeth Brim is known throughout the craft world for her life-sized, steel replicas of traditionally feminine objects such as hats, dresses, pillows, and flowers; for her expressive and fluid use of the material; and for her facility at inflating steel forms with compressed air.

Her work has been exhibited at the Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina, the North Carolina Museum of Art, The Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, and the Metal Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, which named her as their 2009 Master Metalsmith.

We are proud to honor Elizabeth Brim as this year’s Penland School of Craft Outstanding Artist Educator. In honor of the occasion, we asked her a few questions about her long relationship with Penland.

“Gothic,” inflated steel pillow by Elizabeth Brim

INTERVIEW WITH ELIZABETH BRIM

Did you always like to make things?

Yes! My mother and grandmother made frilly dresses for me and my sister. We played with the scraps of fabric they had left over and made things from those. Our mother encouraged our creativity, and we took private lessons in painting. Instead of commercial paper dolls and coloring books, Mama got blank paper for us to draw on and cut up. When I majored in art in college, I thought teaching at the college level would be the ideal job for me. So I continued my studies to get an MFA in printmaking.

Young Elizabeth celebrates her birthday

How did you end up at Penland?

The head of the art department in my hometown told me that there was going to be a job available teaching ceramics and encouraged me to go to Penland to learn how to make pots. I did that in the spring of 1980 and I got the job teaching. I also fell in love with everything about Penland. I loved the mountains and being fully immersed in making things. I especially loved and became addicted to being around interesting, creative and fun people from places all around the world. So I came back as often as possible and started taking classes in metal and jewelry making.

Elizabeth Brim and her first metals instructor, Marvin Jensen

How did you discover blacksmithing… and when did you start wearing your iconic pearl necklace?

In the spring of 1985, I was taking a concentration with Marvin Jensen in metals. A core student who was in my class got an opportunity to apprentice with an artist and decided to leave the core program early. I was asked if I could stay at Penland for the summer and fill in as a core student. My job was to get dinner out on weeknights and clean up the kitchen afterwards. I could take classes during the day. Without that opportunity, I doubt if I would have ever taken a class in blacksmithing! When I told my mother, a very proper Southern woman, that I was signed up to take a blacksmithing class she got quiet for a minute and then said, “Elizabeth, I DO NOT approve of that. Blacksmithing is NOT a ladylike thing to do.” I was concerned but still wanted to take the class. I told my friend, Tom McCarthy, who was also a core student, what Mama had said. Tom immediately replied, “Elizabeth, just wear a string of pearls and you will be ladylike.” I’ve been wearing them ever since.

Elizabeth wears her iconic pearls in the Penland Iron studio in the eighties, while working on one of her sculptures.

How did you help grow the Penland iron program?

In 1987, I heard from Penland’s leadership that they were concerned about low enrollment in blacksmithing classes and that the future of the program was far from secure. Hunter Karhier was assistant director at the time and thought it would be a good idea to host an iron symposium to demonstrate national interest in the creative aspects of ironwork and get attention for the Penland  iron program. It was to be a unique opportunity for blacksmiths to get together formally to discuss art and ideas in iron. I was hired to facilitate the project and was very enthusiastic about promoting iron at Penland. The symposium, “Expressive Design in Iron,” was a huge success and received attention from ironworkers internationally.

Tell us about your time as the Penland Iron Studio Coordinator.

I became the studio coordinator of the Penland Iron Studio in 1995. That’s when I finally moved to Penland full-time. The studio was thriving with a full schedule and diverse range of courses. Jean McLaughlin, who became Penland’s Director in 1998, recognized the activity and success of Penland’s Iron program and began fundraising to provide a worthy studio. We moved into our new iron studio in the fall of 2000. The first project there was to build the iron gate out of forged scraps from the old iron studio and pieces donated by artists and instructors who had been important to the development of the program. I was building my own little studio at the same time Penland’s new studio was being built. So, with the Penland iron studio and program vigorous and successful, I left the job to concentrate on my own artwork. I still teach at craft schools occasionally, with Penland, of course, always being my favorite and my home.

Shortly after the inauguration of Penland’s current iron studio, students came together to create this beloved gate out of examples of forged scraps from the old iron studio and pieces donated by artists and instructors who were important to the development of the Penland iron program

What work are you most known for and how do you create it?

The first sculptural piece I forged was a pair of steel high-heeled shoes. I’m known for making objects out of steel that look soft, like fabric. It’s probably due to the influence of my mother and grandmother and their sewing. I have made several aprons, camisoles, and ballerina tutus. I enjoy the challenge of making ruffles, bows, tassels, fringe, and fancy trim in steel. I guess I’m most known for inflating steel forms to look like pillows. I also love to forge things that look like flowers and botanical elements. In these forms I employ forge welding. This involves heating metal parts until they get to the state I call “Slobbering Yellow “ and hitting them with a hammer to join the pieces together. I have a lot of fun making my forged sculptures!

Elizabeth painting petals for her “Serviceberry Tree” sculpture.

 

Elizabeth’s “Serviceberry Tree” in Spruce Pine, NC  features petals created by friends and guests (with help from Elizabeth) at one of the first Fire on the Mountain blacksmithing festivals.

 

“Mama’s Hat”

 

“Dancing Shoes”

 

Join us as we celebrate Outstanding Artist Educator Elizabeth Brim under the tent at the Penland Benefit Auction. LEARN MORE.

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Spring with the Rothshanks

Nine weeks with these wonderful humans.

It was a joy to share space with the Rothshank family this spring. Both parents taught a workshop and the kids lit up the campus with their curiosity and energy as they learned, explored the surrounding area, and inspired us all.

Justin Rothshank taught an eight-week clay workshop titled “Decals, Soda Firing, and Pottery,” and Brooke Rothshank taught “Tiny Gratitudes,” a workshop in miniature painting during the spring short session.

Justin said, “It has been an especially inspiring and enriching time for each of us and we’re all grateful for the opportunity to be a part of this community for a short time.”

We are honored to have shared this special time with you, Rothshanks. Come back soon!

Collaborating on great pottery designs

Custom chess set

Making knives

Participating in “Mending Day” with Celia Pym and her mending workshop

“Free Painting Station”

Visiting Mount Mitchell

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Aya Oki: Learning from Mistakes


This video caught the moment.

Glass instructor Aya Oki had a heart-stopping moment near the end of her recent, six-week fall workshop. It was, she told us later, the second time she had screamed in the Penland glass studio. The first time was in 2019, and it involved a large spider. Aya’s second scream came when a large glass sculpture she and her students had been working on for many hours fell off the pipe and hit the concrete floor.

“The piece was large and heavy,” she said, “and it rolled around causing scratches and cracks. One of my students and I put a wooden paddle under it to protect it from thermal shock as we waited for another student in a heat-resistant suit and gloves to grab it to put it in the annealing oven.”

Seeing the piece fall was a shock, but she added, “it gave me, my students, and the audience watching an opportunity to think a bit about what is important in education, learning, and life.” She explained that she had planned this demonstration as a way to bring the eight students in her workshop together as a team, working  with each other to create a large, complex piece under her direction.

Aya and some of her crew, about four hours earlier

“It’s physically demanding, and it’s different from working solo or with one or two assistants,” she explained. “There are things you can only learn by working on a team. Despite the difficulty, the work went so smoothly that it was hard to believe that we were a new team.” Then, just before the piece was to be moved into the annealer (a heated box that slowly cools the glass to room temperature), it fell off the pipe. “The fall added an unexpected dimension and more learning for us.”

There were a number of factors that led to this moment. The first was that the finished piece was at the outer limit of what the punty would hold—the punty being the piece of glass that bridges the piece and the pipe. There’s a lot of heating that has to happen just before the piece is finished. The timing on this is tricky, Aya explained, and the piece got a little off center, creating additional stress on the punty. And, as part of the teaching, she had the students trade roles throughout the process rather than having each person specialize. “Working with a new team,” she said, “I should have been more careful in everything I did as a supervisor. It was a great learning experience for me in that area.”

“It also helped me understand the frustration students feel when things don’t go well, and I believe that taking care of their feelings is an important role for an instructor. This kind of accident also teaches us that it’s OK to make mistakes. We can face them without fear, learn from them, and try not to make the same mistake twice. This is how we grow. And we always thank everyone for their hard work and praise their unity. So I hugged each person after the piece was in the oven.”

Failure Teaches Success

As Aya was hugging everyone in the room, the final outcome was unknown. Remarkably, the piece survived, although she had to spend several days polishing out the scratches. “There is a Japanese proverb that says, ‘Failure teaches success.’ I think this is an essential aspect of human nature. What remains as a result of failure is accumulated skills and wisdom, which are great assets that you cannot buy. Penland encourages us to learn from our mistakes in this way, and so people want to come back again to to learn and to teach.”

Aya was a warm and welcoming presence during her two months in the Penland glass studio. We are grateful to her for her teaching and for sharing this story. Our program is built on learning by doing, and we couldn’t do this without generous instructors who show our students what it looks like to succeed and also how to pick up and move on (sometimes literally) when things go wrong.

–Special thanks to metals instructor Hiroko Yamada for the video.