Two pieces that will be on view at the HOW Space. Left: Thomas Campbell, Right: Luke Gnadinger
The HOW Space at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC is a gallery and education space that seeks to advance creativity, collaboration, and community. It’s used for workshops, talks, social events, and, this week, for an exhibition of work by Penland’s core fellows.
Core: Contemporary Selections from the Core Fellowship at Penland School of Crafts will open April 5 and run through April 12, 2018. The exhibition will feature Penland’s current and recent core fellows: Stormie Burns, Thomas Campbell, Luke Gnadinger, Rachel Kedinger, Elliot Earl Keeley, Kyle Kulchar, Sarah Rose Lejeune, Alexandra McClay, Corey Pemberton, Kento Saisho, Katherine Toler, and Devyn Vasquez. The work will range from clay and metal to paper and print, with the common thread being the creative exploration and inquiry that are at the heart of both Penland and the HOW Space.
Please join us at HOW this Friday, April 6 from 6:00-9:00 PM for a reception to celebrate Core and the work of these Penland artists. The HOW Space is located at 182 Howard Street in Boone, NC. More information here.
On Monday morning, these friendly UFOs were spotted over the knoll delivering the first batch of Penland winter residents to campus—or maybe they were just a trio of stop-in-your-tracks-for-a-photo lenticular clouds?
Penland’s Table in a Day participants with their (mostly) finished creations.
The process of designing and making an object can be a slow and laborious one. Good craft takes time. But once a year in the Penland wood studio, time is in very short supply. For the annual Table in a Day Challenge, now in its third year, wood studio residents have only one day to craft a table from start to finish. Pre-planning and sketching are allowed, but all the cutting and construction must happen between 9 AM and 9 PM.
This year, ten seasoned furniture designers rose to the challenge. Armed with donuts, pump-up tunes, and designs (or not), they quickly spread out around the studio and got to work cutting, planing, jointing, and gluing. Meanwhile, up in Baltimore, Penland session 7 instructor Sarah Marriage was taking part remotely, hard at work on her own speed-table.
Core fellow Kyle Kulchar shapes a leg for his table (the black one in the center, above).
With this much focus and intensity, pieces take shape quickly. By early afternoon, tabletops had been glued up, legs had been shaped, and the energy was palpable. A few hours later, the parts were starting to come together into three-dimensional forms that looked an awful lot like furniture. By 8:45 PM, the artists were in a final flurry of activity brushing paint, wiping finish, and laying the final boards into place. Somehow by 9 PM (or just a few minutes after), a collection of furniture stood where there had only been open floor at the beginning of the day.
Left: Studio coordinator Ellie Richards adding color to her design. Right: Winter residency studio assistant Christina Boy finishing her table as it nears 9 o’clock.
As impressive as the participants’ speed and skill was the variety in the pieces they made. The tables ranged in scale from chihuahua-sized to large enough to seat six for dinner. Some highlighted the grain and natural color of the wood, while others employed bright paint and striking textures. Angela St. Vrain, a winter resident, used a piece of blown and slumped glass she’d made as a tabletop; studio coordinator Ellie Richards covered a whole face of her table with quotes she collected from protest posters at the Women’s Marches over the weekend. The legs on winter resident Zoe Alexa’s table were solidly joined at various non-right angles, and core fellow Elmar Fujita mixed and matched a pair of turned legs with two straight, square ones.
Core fellow Elmar Fujita attaching the legs to her Table in a Day creation.
All told, it was a day full up with some of the best the studio can bring: camaraderie, creativity, costumes, big skill, and lots of energy. Just don’t ask them to do it again tomorrow.
See more photos from Table in a Day in the slideshow below. (If you are reading this post as an email, we recommend viewing it on the blog.)
