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Learning Greenwood Turning with Raul de Lara

Raul de Lara is a newly-minted bowl turner. 

Invited as a Penland Winter Residency Distinguished Fellow, the New York-based sculptor knew exactly what he wanted from his residency in the Penland wood studio: to learn everything he could about  turning bowls on a lathe.

Red oak logs from a fallen Penland tree await the lathe. 

A solo show coming up in May will feature Raul’s iconic botanical sculptures, supported by large, lathe-turned bowls and vases. Raul was a quick study, and it was a lot of fun to watch him get better and better, turning a pile of Penland red oak into a beautiful body of work.

A work in progress in the Penland wood studio

Raul’s Penland stay even included a trip to visit “wooden potter,” David Ellsworth, who lives an hour away. “I learned so much from David’s book and I use his signature tool,” said Raul. “I was able to show him some of my new work and we became friends immediately.”

Raul will spend the next two months preparing for his show at Reynolds Gallery which opens on May 3.

Raul’s work on display at show and tell

We asked Raul to share a few tips about greenwood turning… Enjoy!

My advice would be to make sure to have friends around who can help you load/unload the big, heavy wet logs onto the lathe. For me, it was important to learn the basic techniques from David Ellsworth’s book before jumping into more intricate forms (like the ones you’ll see in my solo show). David also makes his own signature tool, which is what I used to make my work here at Penland.

Raul makes his way up to show and tell with his newly-turned vessels.

Thank you for sharing your practice with us, Raul! You can find more of his stunning work HERE


Raul de Lara is a 2024 Penland Winter Residency Distinguished Fellow, one of eleven individuals receiving an award to attend the residency at no cost and with the support of a stipend, made possible with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Penland’s Winter Residency program is a short-term residency opportunity for artists seeking to work independently in one of our sixteen studios during Penland’s quiet season. This year, nearly 150 residents brought their studio practices to Penland’s teaching studios for for two to four focused weeks.

We are excited to share more Penland Winter Residency stories. Please stay tuned for more…

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Announcing New Core Fellows

Welcome, new Core Fellows!

We’re excited to announce and welcome our three newest Penland Core FellowsErin Addie, Mia Donalson, and Jan Rybczynski. They will join returning fellows Kimberly Jo, Brandon Lopez, Nicholas McDonald, Grace Anne Odom, and Amal Tamari. For two years, they will live together, take classes, expand their practices, and help run Penland.

Learn more about the Penland Core Fellowship here.

Erin Addie is an artist currently living and working in Philadelphia, PA. Their work is primarily metal and wood, often exploring themes of home and identity. They look forward to expanding their understanding of craft and materials as a core fellow. 

Clamp III (Bread), poplar, cast iron, bread, 11 x 6 x 16 inches

Check out Erin’s website and Instagram.

 


Mia Donalson‘s work references craft objects found in the home from the scale of furniture to jewelry. They utilize autoethnographic practices and subversion of expectation in form and materiality to investigate concepts of belonging.

Hold Your Tongue , sterling silver, human mouth, 4 x 2 x 3 inches

Check out Mia’s website and Instagram.

 


Jan Rybczynski loves experimenting with all kinds of materials and processes and is excited to be able to think creatively surrounded by such a wonderful community! 

Torsion Chair, patinated steel and rope, 30 x 22 x 20 inches

Check out Jan’s website and Instagram.

 


Selection Panel

Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to apply. Penland received 200+ applications to the core fellowship this year. The selection process was thoughtfully undertaken by the following panel, in conjunction with Penland staff.

Tom Huang holds an MFA in Furniture Design from the Rhode Island School of Design and is an Associate Professor of Design at The University of Kansas. He has exhibited nationally and is a Fellow of the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship.   He has held exhibitions at the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art and other nationally acclaimed art centers, has been published in American Craft Magazine, in E. Ashley Rooney’s Bespoke: Furniture from 101 International Artists,  Eduard Broto’s Bamboo Design Guide & 59 Case Study, and Pablo van der Lugt’s Booming Bamboo.  His love for paddling and his local waterways in Kansas inspires his most recent work.

Kento Saisho (he/him) is an artist and metalworker currently based in Los Angeles, CA. He makes vigorously textured and tactile sculptural objects, vessels, and contemporary artifacts. He graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 2016, where he was a Windgate-Lamar Fellowship recipient from the Center for Craft. Following this, he completed the Core Fellowship at the Penland School of Craft from 2018-2020. He was also a recipient of the inaugural Emerging Artist Cohort from the American Craft Council (ACC) in 2021 and the 2022 Career Advancement Grant from the Center for Craft. He has exhibited nationally  and internationally and currently shows at Citron Gallery in Asheville, NC and Reisig and Taylor Contemporary in Los Angeles, CA.

Originally from Yokohama, Japan, Sayaka Suzuki has been residing in the US for the past 35 years. She received her BFA from Tulane University in New Orleans and her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. She has been a workstudy student, scholarship recipient, teaching assistant and a teaching artist at Penland over the course of 20 years. Her work explores her deep roots in Japanese culture in conjunction with her new adopted identity as an American immigrant. She has had solo exhibitions at the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art and Pensacola Museum of Art (FL) and been included in group shows at the Washington Project for the Arts-Corcoran (DC), New Mexico Museum of Art ,Czong Institute for Contemporary Art (Korea), and Museo Crocetti (Italy) among others. She is a recent recipient of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship and was a recent fellow at the Vermont Studio Center. 

Christina Shmigel is a Ukrainian-American artist working in sculptural installation and drawing. Shmigel studied painting at the Rhode Island School of Design (BFA 1980), sculpture at Brooklyn College (MFA 1987), metalsmithing at Southern Illinois University- Carbondale (MFA 1995) with additional training in blacksmithing at the Penland School of Craft. Since 1994, she has been active at Penland in various guises: student, studio assistant, resident artist, instructor, and board member. She is an educator and maker who has participated in numerous solo and invitational exhibitions both nationally and internationally.

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Announcing Five New Penland Resident Artists

We are excited to introduce five extraordinary artists who will be joining the Penland Resident Artist Program next spring. This year, Penland added the option of a one-year residency to the traditional duration of three-years. Geoffrey Bowton and Kimberly Thomas will come as three-year resident artists; Adam Grinovich and Annika Pettersson (collaborating partners) and Sarita Westrup proposed to spend one year and were selected to help us launch this new residency model. All five will arrive in March 2024 and will join current residents Daniel Garver, Sean O’Connell, and Sarah Vaughn who each have another year in the program.

Penland’s resident artists are full-time artists who spend one to three years living on campus and dedicating themselves to a proposed project or career transition. Many residents use this time to explore new ideas and directions, undertake ambitious projects, or develop new bodies of work. Please join us in welcoming Geoffrey, Kimberly, Adam, Annika, and Sarita! We are looking forward to having them join the Penland community in March.

Meet the artists!


Geoffrey Bowton

“Standing for the disabled veteran community, I feel my voice can become an inclusive vehicle and deliver new conversations to social spaces…I believe that Penland supports individuals who address critical issues in their communities and prove meaningful change through creative and cultural expression.”


Adam Grinovich and Annika Pettersson

“We see this residency as an opportunity to fully focus [on our studio practice rather than teaching] and create bodies of work—both individually and collectively—to become engaged with craft communities and participate in the conversation of contemporary craft.”


Kimberly Thomas

“I am part of a new generation of contemporary glass artists. The support of and connection to a community who shares similar professional, intellectual and creative goals [will] offer me opportunities to inspire others and learn from them.”


Sarita Westrup

“Rooted in weaving techniques and bricolage, my sculptural basketry works are inspired by where I was born and raised, the Rio Grande Valley on the Texas-Mexico border…I feel there is a momentum right now in my work that requires the attention and care which the Penland residency [will] provide.”


Selection Committee

Resident artists are recommended by a national committee of artists, curators, educators, and professionals who are knowledgeable about material-based work and understand what it takes to be successful in a self-directed residency. Panelists rotate frequently to bring a range of perspectives to the application review process. We received an outpouring of excellent applications this year, and it was a challenging task to select only five artists. Penland would like to extend a huge thank you to our review panelists who generously offered their collective insight to lively discussions and nuanced decisions.

Cristina Córdova, studio artist and educator; 2015 USA artist fellow; author of The Figure in Clay; former three-year Penland resident artist.

David Clemons, studio artist and educator; 2021 James Renwick Alliance Master of the Medium; former head of the metalsmithing and jewelry department at University of Arkansas in Little Rock.

Sarah Darro, curator, writer, and visual anthropologist; curator and exhibitions director at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft; 2019 American Craft Council Emerging Voices Scholar awardee; 2020 Curatorial Research Fellow in Modern and Contemporary Glass at the Corning Museum of Glass

Wendy Maruyama, furniture maker, artist and educator; professor emerita at San Diego State University; 2020 US A Fellowship; Penland board of trustees.