This is instructor Timothy Maddox applying a lettering template to the outside of the door to the Penland drawing and painting studio. He was preparing to make gold letters on the door during his fifth-session sign-painting workshop.
And here are the finished letters, meticulously created by hand from gold leaf. Thanks, Tim, for classing up the joint!
Raivo Vihman was teaching a workshop in timber-frame building in the wood studio last week. For a warmup project, each student built a pair of these spanky sawhorses. At the end of the session, they turned them loose to frolic on the knoll.
What can you do in a two-week timber-framing workshop, you ask?
If you work hard enough, you can build a beautiful frame for a small building.
(Did we bury the lede there? We might have buried the lede.)
During our first summer session, sculptor and paper wizard Imin Yeh taught a beautiful workshop on designing and building forms from sheets of paper, with an emphasis on representing familiar objects. During her stay at Penland, Imin quietly placed several of her astonishing trompe l’oeil pieces in places where only a few people were likely to notice them.
This phone jack, outlet, and charger were on a wall in the paper studio, and were hard to spot even when looking for them. Yes, these are made entirely from cut and folded paper. The little balls above and below each piece are the heads of the push pins that are holding them in place. These pieces are part of an ongoing series called “Paper Power.”
We don’t know if anyone tried to plug anything into them.
