As a rule, Penland studio assistants are a hardworking bunch. They are our instructors’ right hands, helping with logistics and materials preparation and clean-ups and demos and more, while still making their own work and exploring new materials and techniques. Our fall concentration assistants have done all of that, but they didn’t stop there—this weekend, they installed an exhibition in the Flex Studio and invited our whole community to attend and enjoy it.
The show, titled 10/10, was an impressive visual testament to what is possible when energy, talent, and inspiration mix with eight weeks of immersion and experimentation in the studio. It was a beautiful, generous evening, and we couldn’t have asked for a more perfect way to celebrate before heading into the final week of the fall session.
Congratulations and a big thank you to these rad artists for a great show: Eleanor Anderson, Jake Brodsky, Eric DePan, Eric Meeker, Amy Young, Elias Sideris, Celia Jailer, DeCarlo Logan, Rachel Dominguez-Benner, and Wyatt Severs!
All photographs of the installation are from textiles instructor Tim Eads. Thanks, Tim!
Every year, the annual Core Fellowship Exhibition is a highlight of fall concentrations and an exciting opportunity to peek into the worlds of our core fellows as they explore new materials, ideas, and techniques across studios. This year’s, titled Everything Must Go, was certainly no exception. It featured the work of 2018-2019 core fellows Stormie Burns, Joshua James Fredock, L Gnadinger, Elliot Earl Keeley, Sarah Rose Lejeune, Corey Pemberton, Kento Saisho, Katherine Toler, and Devyn Vasquez. They curated and installed the show themselves in the Gallery North space of the new Northlight complex. The work ranged from delicate pâte de verre vessels to airbrushed paintings, with a strong unifying thread of experimentation and craftsmanship.
Congratulations on a beautiful installation, core fellows!
Everything Must Go will be on display through November 14, 2018. Viewing hours are Wednesdays noon – 3:00 PM, Saturdays noon – 3:00 PM, and Sundays: 1:00 – 4:00 PM.
The new exhibition at the Penland Gallery has stories to tell. Titled “Personal | Universal: Narrative Work in Craft,” the show includes pieces by eleven artists working in a variety of media who have created images or objects that hint at a story of some kind. The exhibition runs through July 15 with an opening reception on Saturday, June 2 from 4:30 to 6:30 PM.
In a sense, this exhibition is posing a question: how much does it take to make a story? These pieces are primarily visual, they don’t have sequences like a comic book, and most of them do not contain text. Yet they are filled with references and possibilities that suggest something that may have happened or may be about to happen; they may nudge the viewer toward a memory or experience of their own. Gallery director Kathryn Gremley says, “In this work, the artist provides the narrative genesis, and the viewer completes the story.”
The exhibition includes work in ceramic, glass, painting, collage, printmaking, metal, cast plaster, mixed-media, and found objects. Among these pieces is a work by sculptor David Chatt, titled “1982,” which is an iconic boom box cloaked in white beads that have been painstakingly stitched together to form a tight skin on the object. Corey Pemberton, who is currently a core fellowship student at Penland School, is represented by two wall pieces—each of them depicting a young woman sitting in a room—that combine painting with photographic images and collaged materials such as wood veneer and wallpaper. Shawn HibmaCronan has created a large wreath made entirely of used, leather work gloves that carry the patina of thousands of hours of labor. Each piece pulls the viewer into a different little world.
Running concurrently with this exhibition is a smaller show of ceramic work by Jenny Mendes. This show will include sculpture focused on animal and human forms and highly-decorated functional pieces. The Visitors Center Gallery has an ongoing display of objects that illuminate the history of Penland School, and the Lucy Morgan Gallery presents a selection of work by dozens of Penland-affiliated artists. On display outside the Penland Gallery are large sculptures in stone and steel by Daniel T. Beck, Hoss Haley, and Carl Peverall, plus a structure designed by artist Meredith Brickell that invites visitors to stop for a few minutes and observe the clouds.