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Artist Spotlight: Wendy Maruyama

The Penland community is like the galaxy: ever expanding and made up of stars.

Wendy Maruyama standing next to a wooden shrine with elephant masks behind
Wendy Maruyama with her Penland Gallery exhibition “The wildLIFE Project” in 2016

Recently, when the latest episode of Craft in America was released, we were thrilled to see Penland artists Wendy Maruyama and Cristina Córdova both featured. And more recently, when the prestigious 2020 United States Artists Fellowships were announced, we were excited to see Wendy’s name on the list again, this time with fellow Penland instructors Aaron McIntosh, Del Harrow, and Linda Sikora.

Wendy Maruyama has been creating innovative furniture, sculpture, and installations for over forty years, and she’s taught generations of woodworkers as a professor and mentor. Her work is technically masterful and deeply personal. For any of you who aren’t familiar with it, we thought we’d take this opportunity to introduce you to Wendy and her craft.

Wendy first learned furniture making as an undergraduate at San Diego State. She says she was drawn to the program because of the free thinking and the organic forms—“the furniture didn’t look like furniture,” she remembers. At that time, the woodworking field was almost entirely male dominated. “I felt like we women had to be three times more amazing to even be counted,” Wendy recalls. Nevertheless, she went on to Rochester Institute of Technology and graduated with a Masters degree in furniture making, one of the first two women to ever complete the program. And from there, she just kept pushing herself. While her earlier work was built around traditional craft objects, she has since moved beyond the boundaries of studio craft and into the realm of installation and social practice. “Wendy reached a level of mastery, saw the boundaries of technique, and kept pushing beyond them,” says curator Diedre Vissar.

Wendy’s more recent collections include Executive Order 9066, an installation of mixed-media wall cabinets and sculptures that explores the World War II-era persecution and internment of over 100,000 Japanese Americans, and The wildLIFE Project, which addresses issues of poaching and wildlife protection. This later installation (pictured in the first photo above) was one of the first exhibitions to show at the Penland Gallery after it reopened in 2016. Wendy filled the space with exquisitely-crafted wooden shrines and a series of imposing and majestic elephant masks, each between eight and twelve feet tall and stitched together from dozens and dozens of wooden panels. For visitors, the experience of the show engaged the senses and the emotions, masterfully bringing together artwork and advocacy.

Wendy has been involved with the Penland community for over thirty years. She taught her first workshop in the wood studio in the summer of 1982, and since then she’s returned occasionally as an instructor. More recently, she joined us here for her Penland Gallery show and to be the featured artist at the 2016 Penland Benefit Auction. Dozens of Penland artists, including our own director Mia Hall, count Wendy as a teacher, mentor, and friend. As Penland instructor Adam John Manley remembers, “The thing that she instilled in me and generations of students is—don’t ever settle on the thing that you just did as the final product. Keep pushing that.”

Wendy’s latest work has taken another turn, pivoting from emotionally-laden advocacy to the colors, history, and aesthetic of the Bauhaus. Her series of “wooden weavings” inspired by Anni Albers will be part of an exhibition to mark the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus. And from there, who knows what Wendy will create next? “I feel like I’m an emerging artist again,” she says. “You can’t go back in time age wise, but I think creatively I feel like I’m young again and I’m doing this new work.”

Congratulations, Wendy, on two very well deserved honors! We’re lucky to count you as part of this community.

Six new "wooden weavings" by Wendy Maruyama
Six pieces from Wendy Maruyama’s new series “The Color Field”

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Japanese Metalworking Techniques at the Penland Gallery

Over hundreds or thousands of years, cultures across the globe have developed their own ways of working with basic materials such as clay, fiber, and metal. This global nature of craft is brought to light in a new exhibition at the Penland Gallery, which presents a brilliant exploration of traditional Japanese metalworking as it is practiced today. The show, titled Tradition of Excellence: Japanese Techniques in Contemporary Metal Arts, runs through November 17.

Featuring work by twenty-two Japanese and seven American artists, the exhibition was curated by metalsmith Hiroko Yamada, a jeweler and teacher who divides her time between Wisconsin and Japan. All of the artists make work based in historical techniques and approaches: some of them adhere strictly to tradition, while others reinvent or reinterpret it through contemporary practice. Among the artists are three who have received the highest honor in being designated as Japanese Living Treasures. Also part of the exhibition are three artists who live at or near Penland: Marvin Jensen, a longtime Mitchell County resident and former Penland employee; Seth Gould, a recent Penland resident artist; and Andrew Meers, a current Penland resident artist.

Curator Hiroko Yamada has taught at Penland School regularly since 2005. Over the past five years, she has helped organize several exhibitions and workshops aimed at introducing Japanese metal work to Western audiences and metalsmiths. “My mission,” she says, “is to bring together artistic skills and knowledge that will help both Japanese and American artists grow in their work and achieve new levels of excellence.”

What is hard to convey about this show is the astonishing level of excellence displayed by this work—in technique, design, and sheer artistry. The exhibition includes vessels, jewelry, and small sculpture. All of the work could be called decorative, with each piece creating its own special kind of beauty. Although few people who see this exhibition will arrive familiar with terms such as shakudo, kinkeshi, or mokume-gane, it’s unlikely that anyone will leave unmoved by this display of the incredible work that can be made by artisans committed to the highest levels of craft.

Also currently on view at the Penland Gallery is a small show of glass work by Shane Fero and photographs by Deb Stoner. Around the building are outdoor sculptures by ceramic artist Catherine White and steel sculptors Daniel T. Beck and Hoss Haley and an interactive mixed-media installation by Jeff Goodman.

The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 AM-5:00 PM and Sunday, Noon-5:00 PM; it is closed on Mondays.

Yoshio Ueno | Mokume-gane Kettle | 2018 | Copper, silver, shakudo, gold; mokume-gane, rokusho patina | 8.25 x 6.75 x 5.5 in

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Hoss Haley | Correction Line

When visitors walk into the new exhibition at the Penland Gallery, they may feel a bit overshadowed. The six large steel sculptures by Hoss Haley are almost out of scale with the room, and their complex forms seem precariously balanced—as though they might tumble, roll, or shift at any moment. Titled Correction Line, the show runs through September 15.

The exhibition’s title refers to a land-surveyor’s technique that Haley was familiar with from his childhood on a Kansas farm. Beginning in the late 18th century, Midwestern land was divided into 640-acre squares that did not take into account the curvature of the earth. The solution was to periodically shift the placement of the squares, introducing what was called a “correction line.” Haley remembers this as a feeling that the orderly geometry of his family’s fields did not quite reflect the shape of the earth. “I had a sense as a child that I was on an orb even though everything around me was flat,” he says. The forms in this show are characterized by planes and straight corners that resolve into sections of spheres, possibly evoking the geometric and geographic tension that was addressed by the correction lines.

Haley’s farm roots also connect directly to his choice of material. Steel is ubiquitous on a farm, and farm steel is constantly rusting and being repaired. Early in life, Haley developed a facility for working with the material, and he has retained a lifelong love for the aesthetic of rust. This aesthetic and a remarkable level of skill are both evident in the pieces in this show, all of which Haley and his assistant fabricated in his Mitchell County studio.

Although these pieces are large for a gallery exhibition, they are not the largest that Haley has executed during his more than 20 years working in North Carolina. He designed and built the beautiful fountain in Asheville’s Pack Square, and he has created large public works for Mecklenburg County, the Charlotte Area Transit System, and the Charlotte Douglas International Airport. His work is also in the collections of the Asheville Art Museum, the Mint Museum, and North Carolina State University. He has had a long relationship with Penland School of Craft as a resident artist and instructor.

Also currently on view at the Penland Gallery is a show of contemporary jewelry made from a variety of materials. Around the building are outdoor sculptures by ceramic artist Catherine White and steel sculptor Daniel T. Beck and an interactive mixed media installation by Jeff Goodman.

Stop by to see it all with your own eyes the next time you’re at Penland! The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 AM-5:00 PM and Sunday, noon-5:00 PM (closed on Mondays). For more information call 828-765-6211 or visit penland.org/gallery.