There’s a beautiful new addition to the Penland Wood Studio, created during Ellie Richards’s spring concentration workshop “Freeform Furniture.” Ryan Lutz’sbricklay laminated swing is here to stay, so next time you’re at Penland, be sure to try it out!
Here’s a review from wood studio coordinator Kyle Little, Penland’s wood studio coordinator,
It’s wild how we just don’t do the fun things we used to do as kids very often! I swung on it and it tickled my stomach and made me laugh out loud. Maybe we should all swing every morning and the world would be better off.
Thank you for this gift, Ryan! And for answering our questions:
How did you make this awesome swing?
It’s made using bricklay lamination. You pretty much make a ton of little trapezoids and then glue all those little trapezoids together kind of in a line so it’s like a skinny piece. So it’s made out of twelve of those skinny long curves and each one is routed to a template so it gets that nice clean shape. Then just put some rope in it and now we can have so much fun out of here.
What is it made of?
It’s made of maple and then the little colored sections are recycled skateboards.
It’s a prototype? Kind of. I was using this to figure out the process of what I’m doing for my furniture piece. I wanted to make something smaller scale and Ellie suggested a swing and I thought that would be really fun.
What is the larger piece that this will lead to?
It’s a coffee table design and there’s a lot of curves in it. It will be a little more complex than this and definitely larger scale but maybe the same technique of a bricklay lamination.
How do you feel about leaving this swing here at Penland wood?
It’s so fun, it’s already gotten used so much. It’s nice to leave a little mark here that other people can enjoy.
Together with Adam A., Everett, Ellie, and Adam W., Julia will join our Resident Artist Program to set up her studio for a three-year residency at The Barns this month. These newest residents will be joining current residents Nate Cotterman, Jason Hartsoe, and Kit Paulson. Please get to know them below, give them a follow, and say hi!
Julia Harrison
Julia is a sculptor, jeweler, and public artist. Woodcarving is her core practice, but she also enjoys experimenting with a variety of materials and techniques. Recently she has been carving amber, casting concrete, building paper lamps, and creating installations out of cookie cutters. Julia earned an MFA in Metals from the University of Washington and a degree in Metalwork Conservation from West Dean College (UK). She teaches regularly and was the Jewelry/Metals Studio Manager at Pratt Fine Arts Center in Seattle for five years. Julia has previously participated in residencies at the Center for Art in Wood and the Bunnell Street Arts Center.
Adam Atkinson and Everett Hoffman are cross-disciplinary artists and collaborative partners, whose studio practices intersect in their shared connection to craft, adornment, and identity. Having both grown up in the Pacific Northwest, their individual artistic paths question the hyper masculine tropes associated with the wild west. From the perspective of a queer male experience, they make work through mixed-media installations, wood carvings, photography, and body adornment. Atkinson and Hoffman both graduated with a BFA from Boise State University in 2013, and an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2018 (Hoffman) and East Carolina University in 2019 (Atkinson).
Atkinson and Hoffman have participated in a number of exhibitions nationally and internationally including the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh, SOIL Gallery in Seattle, Wayne Center for Contemporary Craft in Pennsylvania, the Benaki Museum in Greece, and Nogoya Zokei University in Japan. They are co-curators of Spectral Matter Projects, an annual exhibition platform for LGBTQIA+ artists navigating queer perspectives in craft. Slippery and Subversive marked the first exhibition in this series, highlighting artists whose work takes a position of slippage and ambiguity as a way to redefine body-object relationships.
Ellie Richards looks to the tradition of both woodworking and the readymade to create eclectic assemblage, installation, and objects exploring intersections of labor and leisure. In addition to mining the histories of furniture and forestry as cornerstones in her research, she has traveled extensively to investigate the roles that play and improvisation have on the artistic process. Her work, both furniture and sculpture, has been included in exhibitions at the Mint Museum, Center for Craft, SOFA Chicago, and the Society of Contemporary Craft. After receiving an MFA at Arizona State University, Richards participated in residencies, fellowships, and teaching appointments, respectively, at Anderson Ranch, Peters Valley, the Vermont Studio Center, and Appalachian Center for Craft. From there she was Penland’s wood studio coordinator from 2015-2019. This year Richards was awarded Windgate residencies at the Center for Art in Wood and in the wood/furniture design programs at San Diego State University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Adam Whitney is a metalsmith who focuses his work on forming and shaping sheet metal into volumetric forms by means of raising, chasing, and repoussé. He is constantly exploring and pushing his understanding and knowledge of the craft. When not in his studio, Adam travels for various projects and to teach workshops, bringing his passion for metalsmithing wherever he goes.
Adam received his BFA in Crafts / Materials Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University, where he concentrated in metalsmithing. He has worked as a bench jeweler and metals studio coordinator, taught jewelry design at Raffles College in Kuala Lumpur, and now runs his own studio, AW Metalsmith.
We are thrilled to welcome four new artists into the Penland resident artist community! Adam Atkinson, Everett Hoffman, Ellie Richards, and Adam Whitney will arrive on campus in September 2020 to begin their residencies at The Barns. They will join current residents Nate Cotterman, Jason Hartsoe, and Kit Paulson.
Penland’s resident artists are full-time artists who spend three years living and working as part of our school’s community. The primary expectation of them is that they engage intently with their work. Many use this time to explore new ideas and directions, undertake ambitious projects, or develop new bodies of work.
Please give a big welcome to Adam, Everett, Ellie, and Adam and get to know them a bit below. We can’t wait to see what they create during their time here!
Adam Atkinson and Everett Hoffman
“We are a queer artist couple whose studio practice has been defined by the deep bond we have to each other. We work side by side in multidisciplinary practices rooted in craft, striving to grow and give more to craft communities to sustain our field and individual studios.”
Adam (left) and Everett (right)
Adam Atkinson and Everett Hoffman are cross-disciplinary artists and collaborative partners, whose studio practices intersect in their shared connection to craft, adornment, and identity. Having both grown up in the Pacific Northwest, their individual artistic paths question the hyper masculine tropes associated with the wild west. From the perspective of a queer male experience, they make work through mixed-media installations, wood carvings, photography, and body adornment. Atkinson and Hoffman both graduated with a BFA from Boise State University in 2013, and an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2018 (Hoffman) and East Carolina University in 2019 (Atkinson).
Atkinson and Hoffman have participated in a number of exhibitions nationally and internationally including the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh, SOIL Gallery in Seattle, Wayne Center for Contemporary Craft in Pennsylvania, the Benaki Museum in Greece, and Nogoya Zokei University in Japan. They are co-curators of Spectral Matter Projects, an annual exhibition platform for LGBTQIA+ artists navigating queer perspectives in craft. Slippery and Subversive marked the first exhibition in this series, highlighting artists whose work takes a position of slippage and ambiguity as a way to redefine body-object relationships.
“As an artist, I recognize freedom of expression as both a privilege and a responsibility; making objects in wood is one way I’ve found to communicate effectively and optimistically with this belief in mind.”
Ellie Richards looks to the tradition of both woodworking and the readymade to create eclectic assemblage, installation, and objects exploring intersections of labor and leisure. In addition to mining the histories of furniture and forestry as cornerstones in her research, she has traveled extensively to investigate the roles that play and improvisation have on the artistic process. Her work, both furniture and sculpture, has been included in exhibitions at the Mint Museum, Center for Craft, SOFA Chicago, and the Society of Contemporary Craft. After receiving an MFA at Arizona State University, Richards participated in residencies, fellowships, and teaching appointments, respectively, at Anderson Ranch, Peters Valley, the Vermont Studio Center, and Appalachian Center for Craft. From there she was Penland’s wood studio coordinator from 2015-2019. This year Richards was awarded Windgate residencies at the Center for Art in Wood and in the wood/furniture design programs at San Diego State University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“The greatest inspiration in my work is the process and love of hammering.”
Adam Whitney is a metalsmith who focuses his work on forming and shaping sheet metal into volumetric forms by means of raising, chasing, and repoussé. He is constantly exploring and pushing his understanding and knowledge of the craft. When not in his studio, Adam travels for various projects and to teach workshops, bringing his passion for metalsmithing wherever he goes.
Adam received his BFA in Crafts / Materials Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University, where he concentrated in metalsmithing. He has worked as a bench jeweler and metals studio coordinator, taught jewelry design at Raffles College in Kuala Lumpur, and now runs his own studio, AW Metalsmith.
