Nan Smith, "Twenty Twelve," glazed and painted earthenware, glazed porcelain, concrete, sand, wood — Nan Smith, “Twenty Twelve,” glazed and painted earthenware, glazed porcelain, concrete, sand, wood

Sculpting a figure in clay is about far more than trying to recreate recognizable form in three dimensions. That’s why instructor Nan Smith chose Personality Plus as the name of her Penland workshop this November 6-12. “I want students to investigate what transforms figure sculpture into something dynamic and alive,” she explains. “What will make a bust look like it has a story?”

If there’s anyone who can help students answer those questions, it’s probably Nan. She’s had a long and successful career as a sculptor and installation artist. She’s taught ceramics at the University of Florida for over thirty years, and she’s led workshops at universities around the country and as far away as Israel. Her work has been featured in publications like Sculpture magazine and Ceramics Monthly. She has exhibited at dozens of venues like SOFA Chicago, the Red Lodge Clay Center, and the American Museum of Ceramic Art. Perhaps most importantly, “I really do love teaching people at all levels how to sculpt a figure, and I’ve been doing that a really long time,” she says.

Nan Smith, "Spill," glazed and painted earthenware, glazed porcelain, metal, rubber, wood — Nan Smith, “Spill,” glazed and painted earthenware, glazed porcelain, metal, rubber, wood

Personality Plus will be a hands-on, high-energy week of ceramic figure sculpting that uses the bust format and self portraiture to help students develop their perceptual and conceptual skills. It may be only a one-week class, but it certainly won’t stick to one technique. “We’re going to be building sculpture, but we’re also going to be making life casts and learning to take a mold from a piece,” Nan explains. “I wanted to give the course a twist and allow students to try using molds as another tool to develop perceptual skill.”

Personality Plus is a workshop for the curious beginner and for the experienced sculptor looking for new ideas. It’s a workshop for ceramic artists interested in new ways of working with clay. It’s a workshop for anyone interested in the details of the figure and how to bring them to life. Is it a workshop for you? Registration is open now.

Nan Smith, "Mercury" (detail), glazed and painted earthenware, glazed porcelain, photo montages on fabric, metal, wood — Nan Smith, “Mercury” (detail), glazed and painted earthenware, glazed porcelain, photo montages on fabric, metal, wood

Personality Plus

Nan Smith, November 6-12, 2016
Who are you? What causes presence in the sculpted human form? By investigating questions of identity in addition to studying anatomy within the bust format, students will create a life-scale self-portrait that reflects their inner personality and self-perception. Demonstrations will cover life-casting techniques, life modeling, photo-documentation, and rendering an expressive and anatomically believable human form. We’ll create solid-built busts over metal armatures. Students will leave with a life cast and a sculpted portrait bust in wet clay. All levels. Code F03CB

Professor at University of Florida; publications: The Figure in Clay, Sculpture, Ceramics: Art and Perception, Ceramics Monthly, CFile Weekly; collections: American Express (NY), Lamar Dodd Art Center (GA), Givat Haviva Art Center (Israel), World Ceramics Exposition Korea International Collection.

nansmith.com

The following post is a photo slideshow. If you’re looking at it in email, we recommend viewing it on the blog.

Students at work in the "Artist and Weaver" concentration

The weaving studio has looked like a veritable Pantone book this spring

It takes teamwork to prepare pulp for papermaking

Learning the delicate art of Eastern papermaking

Handmade sheets of paper show their texture in the sun

The iron class started by forging spoons and other small objects

Products of an iron inflation demo in Elizabeth Brim's workshop

The glow of a coal fire in the iron studio

Taking a closer look at negatives during a 1-week workshop

Nancy Blum came to campus as this spring's visiting artist

This spring's clay concentration includes throwing, decorating, and handbuilding

Working with image transferring techniques

Students adding soda to a kiln during firing

A rainbow of inks in the letterpress studio

A few of the cloth bags that came out of one week of "Printfest!"

Just a small selection of the plates and prints that came through the studio in one week

Instructor Laura Wood in the studio during her "Make Show Repeat" concentration

For Alicia Keshishian's color theory workshop, the whole drawing studio got a colorful makeover.

Choosing palettes from a table full of color

Everything is scaled up in the wood studio this spring for the timber framing class

Working on site before the whole frame is raised

Wood students with their building-to-be!

Glass bubbles and tubes and twists before the addition of neon

Between seven concentrations and nine 1-week workshops, we’ve had a busy spring at Penland. It’s been exciting to see the progress that long classes make, whether it’s transforming straight beams into a fully-realized timber frame structure or collecting plant material to make into paper to make into books. Scroll through the photos above to get a glimpse of the colorful, experimental, detailed, thoughtful, beautiful things underway in the studios. And, if you’re in the area, please join us on May 5^th at 8pm to celebrate the end of the session at the scholarship auction in Northlight!

Stories in Clay

Personality Plus

Photo(s) of the Week: Spring in the Studios

Photo(s) of the Week: Community Open House 2016