Juvana Soliven casting bronze using the awesome power of gravity in this session’s metals workshop taught by Suzanne Pugh. Suzanne decided to focus the workshop on gravity casting rather than centrifugal or vacuum casting because it’s cheaper to set up in a home studio and also opens the possibility of making larger-scale work.
Summers at Penland can be seasons of frenetic energy, while winters here have a more independent, reflective mood. Between them, springs and falls are seasons of sustained inquiry, exploration, and growth. The 8-week concentrations that take place during these times combine the length of a college term with the intensity of fully-immersive workshop education. For artists looking to make great strides in their work or dive deeply into new techniques, Penland concentrations are an unmatched opportunity. The application deadline for fall scholarships is August 1, 2016.
Clay
Birdie Boone and Matt Repsher will lead students in their “pot-centric” workshop to develop wheelthrown and handbuilt pieces with stronger connections between form and surface.
Glass
In “The Cane Ladder,” Claire Kelly and her students will dive deep into glassblowing techniques, covering cane and murrine as well as sculpting, hot and cold assemblies, and cold work.
Iron
Blacksmith Jay Burnham-Kidwell will take students through eight weeks of fire and iron: forging, bending, splitting, punching, welding, finishing, and more.
Metals
In Kristina Glick’s workshop “Counterbalance: Enameling, Electroforming & Found Objects,” students will use liquid enamels on metal to produce finished pieces of jewelry, wall panels, and other exquisite objects.
Print
Georgia Deal will lead her students in an exciting mix of monoprinting and hand papermaking to develop layered prints and rich visual vocabularies.
Textiles
Recent resident artist Rachel Meginnes will teach “The Thread Between,” a workshop focused on textiles and artistic development that will include weaving and surface exercises as well as readings, writing, and group discussions.
Wood
In “Books, Relics, Curiosities,” Daniel Essig will lead students in an exploration of wood and bookbinding techniques to create book-based sculptures.
Each of our fall concentrations are open to students of all levels, and scholarships are available for every concentration. The deadline to apply for a fall concentration scholarship is August 1, 2016. Read more about Penland’s scholarship program, and then apply online through Penland’s slideroom site.
Join us for eight weeks of creative energy and artistic growth this fall!
In less than three weeks, summer workshops will be underway at Penland! If you’re not registered for a workshop already, there are still lots of classes with open spaces, and even a few that have work-study scholarship positions available. Here are a few to get your creative juices flowing…
In session 1, students in Lola Brooks’s workshop Storytelling & Belt Bucklery will tie together a wide range of metalworking techniques through narrative. The class will use stone setting, soldering, forming, fabricating, marriage of metals, and more to create pieces that are at once functional, beautiful, and full of meaning. It’s the perfect opportunity for beginning metalsmiths to get a solid footing in technique and for more advanced students to develop their ideas and artistic voice. Register now.
During session 2, Fiction in Photography with Emma Powell will combine traditional 19th century printing processes with current digital technologies. Through a mix of theatrical photography, digital manipulation, and hand-printing, students will create images not of what is, but of what could be. If you’d like to to create images that are expressive, surreal, or even gravity-defying, this workshop is the one for you. Register now.
Session 3 offers intermediate glass students an opportunity to deepen the content of their sculptural works in Logic & Lyricism with Rebecca Arday and David Schnuckel. By emphasizing conceptual intent, the workshop will encourage students to develop techniques in the hot and cold shops that amplify their ideas and artistic goals. For anyone who is ready to take their glass beyond simple forms, Logic & Lyricism provides a chance to make work with poetic appeal as well as technical skill. Register now.
These three workshops are just a small sampling of what Penland students will be learning this summer in the studios. To see all the other workshops across our fifteen studios and seven sessions that still have spaces, take a look at the open workshop list. Once you’ve found your perfect fit, you can register right here.