The centerpieces at this year’s 30th Annual Penland Benefit Auction were not simply festive and unique—they were also fully functional! Glass artist Sally Prasch constructed over forty elaborate glass horns, each with a glass rainstick to accompany it. In this photo, a group of auction volunteers gives some horns a celebratory toot that could be heard all across campus.
Lots more photos are now up from auction weekend. View the entire auction slideshow here.
“I feel as though I have a wealth of new knowledge to take home with me,” said Penland student Margaret Lindsay Barrick. “My time at Penland has reinforced my lifelong dream of becoming a working artist and has given me the courage to pursue that goal with fresh, renewed vigor.” Margaret received a scholarship from Penland to take a painting workshop in the summer of 2013. That workshop took place in a makeshift studio carved out of a building that had once been Penland’s woodshop. When Margaret comes back for another workshop, she’ll find a beautiful new painting and drawing studio with lots of natural light, flexible work-spaces, and an up-to-date ventilation system. This studio was built with funds from Penland’s ongoing Campaign for Penland’s Future.
Launched in 2010, this five-year, thirty-million-dollar campaign was designed to strengthen Penland’s educational programs by improving its studios, housing, and other facilities; rehabilitating historic buildings; increasing program and scholarship endowments; and establishing an elevated, sustainable goal for Penland’s annual fund. The campaign total currently stands at just over $29,000,000, representing 97 percent of the goal.
“This level of support is unprecedented in Penland’s 86-year history,” says Penland’s director, Jean McLaughlin. “People come here from all over the world for new ideas, new skills, and remarkable educational experiences. This campaign is creating improved facilities that will elevate the student experience and financial stability that will help Penland transform lives for generations to come. So many people love this school and want it to have a sustainable future.”
More than 2000 individuals and 200 organizations have contributed to campaign projects, which are being launched as funds come in. Students are currently living in two new housing buildings and using new outdoor work spaces at the clay and metals studios funded by campaign donations. The Pines—which includes Penland’s dining hall and kitchen—has been fully renovated. The Penland Gallery and Visitors Center is currently under renovation. Drawing, painting, and book arts workshops are taking place in beautiful new studios. A major information technology upgrade (partially supported by a rural broadband project funded by the USDA) has recently brought high-speed Internet access to all parts of the campus. And campaign fundraising is ongoing for several other infrastructure projects that will begin as soon as funding is complete.
Penland’s endowment has grown from $8.6 million to $17 million, including support for thirty-eight new scholarships and endowments that ensure the long-term future of Penland’s resident artist and core fellowship programs. A further goal of the campaign was to increase unrestricted annual giving from $500,000 to a sustainable $650,000 annually. Penland has met or exceeded this target for the past three years.
While the campaign is not quite complete, its impact on individual lives is already clear. “Without the incredibly generous support of this scholarship, I would never have been able to experience this wonderful place,” wrote Victoria Buchler, a ceramics student who received a scholarship supported by a campaign endowment. “It is incredibly empowering to be immersed in a community of makers, many of whom have dedicated their lives to their craft,” she continued. “Outside of Penland, being an artist can make you the ‘other,’ but here I have been able to refill my wells of confidence and creativity, preparing me to move forward with my art career.”
Detailed information about the Campaign for Penland’s Future, including stories of how the campaign is benefitting Penland’s programs and the lives of individual artists, is available at penland.org/campaign.
Although Elizabeth Aralia has been an artist most of her life, she didn’t start coming to Penland until she was fifty: the year her son turned ten. “I came in 1998 for a class with Nick Cave and it was transformative,” she said. “I said to myself, ‘I’m going to come back here every year.’ And so far I have.” Elizabeth and her husband, photographer Nick Graetz, had moved to North Carolina about ten years before that, and Elizabeth says that she heard about Penland “in the air.”
Born in Detroit, she got an English degree at Indiana University and then went on to study art at the College of Creative Studies at the University of Santa Barbara in California. “It was a fascinating place,” she said. “The teachers there were all artists, and they just taught whatever they wanted. There was no set curriculum.” After finishing that program, she headed for New York. “I ran out of money near my mother’s house in Indiana, so I stayed there. I got this grant from the NEA where they paid you to do your art and to work with kids in the schools. During that time, I met and married my husband, and eventually we settled in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.”
Elizabeth works in textiles, painting, assemblage, and collage. One of her best-known projects is a tarot deck created through carefully-constructed collage. “I’ve been doing collage since 1978,” she said. “I don’t do it using a computer. I like to use things that there’s only one of; it’s more of a commitment.” Recent Penland workshops have reignited her interest in painting and introduced her to encaustic, which she has been integrating into her work.
In addition to her years of taking Penland workshops, Elizabeth and Nick have been generous annual supporters of the school, and they have recently created a scholarship in honor of Elizabeth’s late sister, Lynn Kerr Azzam. “She’s my half sister and we wouldn’t have known her except for the Internet. We only met her two years ago. We were together a few times and then she suddenly died. I didn’t know her well, but I felt very close to her. I wanted to do something for Penland in her name.”
“My husband and I give to a lot of things,” she continued. “We pick things that are close to our hearts, and Penland is at the top of my list. I want to give people the help I didn’t get when I was struggling financially and needed support as an artist. I imagine what it would have been like if someone had given me time at Penland back then.”
“Penland is magnetic and people who have the right metal get stuck.” Elizabeth said. “It draws me back every year. When the catalog comes, I get excited, and when I first drive in, I just think, ‘There it is.’” –Robin Dreyer
