Exhibition Archive List_new

EXHIBITIONS | PAST

2023 EXHIBITIONS | John & Robyn Horn Gallery and FOCUS Gallery

FOCUS GALLERY

ELUSIVE WORLDS | Justin Rothshank and Heinrich Toh

February 28 – April 1, 2023

This exhibition features work by Justin Rothshank and Heinrich Toh; two artists who use layered imagery to evoke elusive worlds full of memory and longing. 

Justin Rothshank’s functional ceramics combine custom-made metallic luster and floral decals, particularly a ubiquitous red poppy, with atmospheric, wood-fired surfaces. The result is a collection of eccentrically dreamy mugs, bowls, and vases that reflect Rothshank’s interest in both the natural environment where he lives and the larger social justice movements of his surrounding world. Through imagery, form, and surface, Rothshank’s ceramics capture the beauty, energy, fuel, and resources provided by his Indiana land. Deadfall wood is harvested to fire his kilns, and the surfaces are decorated with ash and flame created within the kiln during the firing process. The poppy flower represents remembrance and honor for those who have served, the artist’s opposition to war, and his interest in working towards positive social change through relationship building. 

Heinrich Toh’s unique works on paper synthesize multiple printmaking techniques into a single image. Monotype, paper-lithography, and collagraph processes are combined to create images that explore the complexities of travel, displacement, and longing. Originally from Singapore, Toh produces works that blur the boundaries between Western and Eastern cultures. His rich layers of color, abstract patterning, and representational imagery combine modern and traditional imagery with overlapping cultural elements. The floral imagery is derived from silk brocade and sarong fabric from his Perankan heritage, while the tree lines, taken from National Parks, underscore the definition of ‘home’ here in the United States.

JOHN & ROBYN HORN GALLERY

WITNESS | holding time

March 28 – June 4, 2023

Time as an abstraction—a moment or an eternity—visualized by six artists. 

Participating artists Dan Bailey, Marianne Dages, Morgan Hill, Erica Iman, Kento Saisho, and Amy Tavern, with works in video, photography, book arts, textiles, ceramics, painting, steel, and paper. 

FOCUS GALLERY

COLOR | Mary Carroll, Rojer Serpas, Alyssa Salomon + Gretchen Carder

April 18 – May 20, 2023

COLOR is a group exhibition, featuring a collection of work by ceramicist Mary Carroll, glass artist Rojer Serpas, and the collaborative screenprinter/quilter team of Alyssa Salomon and Gretchen Carder. Color has the ability to spark recollection, inspire pleasure, and energize. Mary Carroll creates nostalgic ceramics that employ a retro color palette and are inspired by graphics found on her dad’s old tank tops and vinyl albums. Rojer Serpas makes playful, hand blown glassware meant to spark a smile and bring joy into people’s homes. Screenprinter Alyssa Salomon and quilter Gretchen Carder combine their talents to create radiant, vibrantly patterned quilts that express their exuberant interest in bold color. For everyone who shares a love for everyday functionality and the power of color, this exhibition is for you.

FOCUS GALLERY

THE SWEDISH CONNECTION | Tobias Birgersson and Andrew Hayes

June 6 – July 8, 2023

In 2019, Swedish artist Tobias Birgersson and North Carolina artist Andrew Hayes started a conversation, making plans to work together in Sweden. As the pandemic sealed the world’s borders, Tobias and Andrew instead found ways to work remotely, ultimately forming a relationship that illuminated their artistic practices and reactions to a drastically changing world. In early 2022, Andrew traveled to Stockholm to meet Tobias in person for the first time. After touring Stockholm’s museums and artist studios, the two artists convened at Metal Art Sweden in Dals Langed, a remote forested town, to work on the studio component of their collaboration. Following this in-person residency, Tobias and Andrew have continued to pass ideas back and forth while working in their respective studios.

THE SWEDISH CONNECTION includes drawings, sculptural shelves, and a large steel and paper sculpture – evidence of a multi-year, collaborative conversation that is sure to continue in the years to come.

Kim Cridler
Lisa A. Frank
Nancy Blum

JOHN & ROBYN HORN GALLERY

wild and precious life

June 20  – September 2, 2023
Opening reception: Friday, June  23rd, 4:30 – 6:30 PM

On view, this summer in the Penland Gallery’s John & Robyn Horn exhibition gallery,  wild and precious life. The exhibition features the work of three highly respected artists with sculptural works in steel, works on paper, and photography. 

Kim Cridler’s studio practice focuses on the fabrication of sculptural forms in metal, creating delicate compositions that explore our fragile relationship with the natural world. Cridler writes, “My practice is inspired by the patterns of nature and the way objects can record and extend our lives. My work, based on familiar forms like trees and vessels, argues for the pleasure found in beauty, and the power of material and form. Using a process that is accumulative and direct, joining small parts together into a larger body, I work to create a sense of movement within still objects. Within this structured movement, there resides the potential for change. These works serve as a reminder of our place in the natural world; no matter how carefully we construct and manage our daily experiences, life will not leave us alone or untouched by change.”

Brooklyn-based artist Nancy Blum is well known for her large-scale botanical drawings, sculptures, and public art commissions. For this exhibition Blum works on paper, rendering bold and lush botanical landscapes which she describes as her intent to conjure the ‘flower’ as an active, forceful agent, subverting a point of view that often places the ephemeral and organic as less powerful and of limited value.  The artist writes, “My large‐scale works on paper, rendered in ink, colored pencil, gouache, and graphite, portray a fantastic realm in which flowers own the space. I use a variety of 16th and 17th-century botanical images, from Chinese plum blossoms to German botanicals, as starting points for each drawing. Rather than alluding to an actual landscape, I instead combine species of plants in the same drawing that would not customarily exist together in nature.”

Photographer Lisa A. Frank will be showing images from her recent series Captive Splendor. In November 2020, Frank began a project photographing animals living in zoos and wildlife sanctuaries in the United States. Her intention was to stage these animals within images of the Thorne Miniature Rooms that are on permanent exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, to create updated natural history dioramas that juxtaposed the wild with the cultivated. “The rooms become intimate performance settings waiting for a narrative to unspool. Now—even for an instant—we can breathe life into them with a story and characters of our own making.” The Thorne Miniature Rooms have been reimagined as a gallery of natural history dioramas, all populated with digital taxidermy. They have been newly anointed with contemporary discomfort.

The thread that ties these three artists together is their ability to narrate the boundaries and edges of our coexistence with nature.

FOCUS GALLERY

WEAR | Contemporary Jewelry

July 25 – August 26, 2023

The Penland FOCUS Gallery presents WEAR, our annual exhibition exploring current interpretations and material usage in the field of contemporary jewelry.  The exhibition includes both emerging and established makers from throughout the US.  

Participating artists: Adam Atkinson, Lynn Batchelder, Suyu Chen, Funlola Coker, Kat Cole, Tanya Crane, Janna Gregonis, Charity Hall, Julia Harrison, Morgan Hill, Everett Hoffman, Mi-Sook Hur, Maya Kini, Tara Locklear, Lydia Martin, Robert Thomas Mullen,  Jina Seo, Katja Toporski, Francesca Vitali,  Laura Wood, Dongyi Wu

FOCUS GALLERY 

MOTION CAPTURE | Yael Braha and Bridget Conn

September 19 – October 21, 2023

This exhibition features work by Yael Braha and Bridget Conn; two artists who capture motion within physical form. 

Yael Braha creates functional ceramics with bold black and white designs. Lines, curves, and patterns both distort and add movement to the surface of her work while physical seams – where two clay slab edges meet – create contrast and tension within the form. The way the graphic patterns are cut, assembled, overlapped and framed produces a stimulating visual experience while the surface pattern reliefs provide an equally interesting tactile one. Braha’s ceramic pieces are illusions of movement that you can hold, touch, and use. 

In an increasingly digitized world, Bridget Conn celebrates the physicality of analog photography through the medium of photographic chemigrams. Created without a camera or negatives, Conn’s chemigrams are made by exposing silver gelatin photo paper to light, resists, and traditional darkroom chemistry. The pieced and sewn images in this exhibition begin as an exploration of gestural marks made by drawing through resists on photographic paper. Through the process of cutting these chemigrams into strips and piecing them back together again with sewing thread, Conn introduces structure to her intuitive mark making, highlights the materiality of her images, and gives emphasis to the edges where one captured motion meets another.

JOHN & ROBYN HORN GALLERY

ENDLESS GROUND | Michael Hunt and Naomi Dalglish

October 3 – December 9, 2023

Presenting material explorations by work and life partners Naomi Dalglish and Michael Hunt, this exhibition frames their functional ceramic forms as a process of investigation. Viewed as a group, the individual pieces are seen as a study of line, form, and surface. Their holistic practice draws on the material qualities of locally dug red earth and wood-fired pottery, creating visually potent work.

FOCUS GALLERY 

FOUR SQUARE | Jen Allen, Kurt Anderson, Maia Leppo, and Bryn Perrott

November 7 – December 9, 2023

For ceramicist Jen Allen, collaboration creates awareness of artistic processes and tendencies, opening the mind to ideas and pursuits otherwise unconsidered. In 2019, she wrote an article for Ceramics Monthly, detailing her collaborative work with artists Kurt Anderson, Maia Leppo, and Bryn Perrott. FOUR SQUARE features their individual and collaborative artwork from the past year. 

Jen Allen is a studio artist residing in Morgantown, West Virginia. Although her primary medium is utilitarian ceramics she also dabbles in sculpture and mixed media jewelry.

Kurt Anderson creates functional ceramics and figurative 2D art at his home studio in Spruce Pine, North Carolina.

Maia Leppo is a jewelry artist residing in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Bryn Perrott currently lives in Morgantown, West Virginia. Her work consists of highly detailed, graphic woodcuts.

Creating together allows artists to explore different techniques, mediums, and themes, fostering individual development and growth. FOUR SQUARE celebrates and continues a Penland tradition that everyone learns from each other.

2022 EXHIBITIONS | John & Robyn Horn Gallery and FOCUS Gallery

FOCUS GALLERY

SIGNS OF SPRING

March 22 – April 23, 2022

In the mountains of Western North Carolina, March is the month when we begin searching for signs of spring. The early daffodils make an appearance, often getting a dusting of spring snow, and hints of green blades and blue skies break through the grey of winter. 

Poet Billy Collins describes the feeling of spring anticipation in Today, “If ever there were a spring day so perfect, so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze, that it made you want to throw open all the windows in the house….”

Signs of Spring is our FOCUS Gallery collection inspired by the colors and poetic visualization of warmer days to come. Works on paper, clay, glass, and painting.

JOHN & ROBYN HORN GALLERY

INSTILL  |  The Art of Making and Teaching

April 19 – June 25, 2022

What takes place in Penland School’s educational studios is an intersection of creativity and generosity.  Penland’s instructors are all makers – some are full-time studio artists, some have woven together a vocation that oscillates between studio and classroom, and others balance being a career educator with making.  These artist-educators have all committed to openly sharing their skills and techniques, to lead and inspire, and most importantly, to be generous with their creative practice. The artists in the exhibition are all scheduled to teach at Penland this summer.

FOCUS GALLERY

IN/FINITE: Process, Pattern, Play

Jason Burnett and Adrienne Eliades

May 3 – June 5, 2022 

This exhibition brings together the work of Jason Bige Burnett and Adrienne Eliades; two artists who share a passion for colorful graphic patterns that evoke attitudes of joy and play. IN/FINITE: Process, Pattern, Play will feature functional ceramic work by Eliades and screen-printed textiles by Burnett.

Jason Bige Burnett received his BFA from Western Kentucky University in 2009. He has completed artist residencies at the Archie Bray Foundation (MT), Belger Crane Yard Studios (MO), Northern Clay Center (MN), Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts (TN), and a Core Fellowship at the Penland School of Crafts (NC). Jason is the author of Graphic Clay: Ceramic Surfaces & Printed Image Transfer Techniques and he was named an Emerging Artist by Ceramics Monthly magazine in 2013. In recent years his studio practice has shifted away from clay, bringing his bold, colorful patterns to screen-printed and quilted textiles.

Adrienne Eliades earned a B.A. in Studio Art from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington in 2008 and an MFA from the University of Florida in 2016. Adrienne has been an artist-in-residence at Ash Street Project (OR), Guldagergaard International Ceramic Research Center in Denmark, and the Bright Angle (NC). Her works and writing are featured in numerous publications including UPPERCASE Magazine, Craft in America, Ceramics Monthly, and Pottery Making Illustrated. Ceramics Monthly named her an Emerging Artist in 2018. In addition to maintaining a vibrant studio practice, Adrienne is the HOT CLAY Program Coordinator for Idyllwild Arts Summer Program (CA) and has presented over 20 workshops nationwide.

FOCUS GALLERY

WALK TALKS | Stormie Burns and Courtney Martin

June 21 – July 30, 2022 

This exhibition features work by Stormie Burns and Courtney Martin, clay artists local to Penland School of Crafts. As friends and neighbors, Burns and Martin enjoy spending time together taking morning walks on the dirt road near their homes. It’s a chance to move, walk the dogs, and to catch up. Often they find themselves talking about their work and what they could do with each other’s pots. These conversations led them to start collaborating a few years ago.

Walk Talks will include recent collaborations, combining the clean lines of Stormie’s slipcast porcelain pots with Courtney’s wood fired patterns, as well as individual work by each artist.

Stormie Burns is a ceramic and glass artist utilizing the processes of mold making and casting. Originally from central Florida, Stormie moved to Western North Carolina in 2015 to work as a ceramic assistant for artists Jason Burnett and David Eichelberger, and from 2017 through 2019 participated in Penland School’s Core Fellowship program. She has also participated in an artist residency at Haystack School of Craft and the short-term Winter Residency at Penland School. Stormie originally began her studio practice while living in Asheville, NC, before returning to the Penland area to establish herself as a full-time studio artist.

Courtney Martin is a studio potter living and working in the mountains of North Carolina near Penland. She grew up just outside of New York City on Long Island. After high school, Courtney went to college at the University of New Mexico where she discovered clay and graduated with a BFA in Ceramics. In 2001 she moved to western North Carolina to work with and apprenticed for Terry Gess, Michael Kline, Cynthia Bringle, and others. In 2005 she and her husband (glassblower John Geci) bought a property with an old farmhouse on it near Penland School of Craft. By August of 2007 she had completed building her wood fired cross draft climbing kiln.  Currently Courtney shows in galleries and institutions throughout the US. She has taught workshops at Penland School of Craft, and Arrowmont as well as several universities. Courtney is represented by Schaller Gallery, Penland Gallery, and Signature Shop (among others), and is a founding member of Spruce Pine Potters Market, a juried member of ArtAxis, and an organizer of Clay to Table.

JOHN & ROBYN HORN GALLERY

RETOLD  |  Chronicles and Other Stories

July 5 – September 17, 2022

Jennifer Ling Datchuck
Colette Fu
Karen Hampton
Anne Lemanski
Stephanie Santana

Stories we live with, construct from our past experiences, shape from our culture, and fashion from our dreams and aspirations; the story is given form by the artist.   Narrative art gives visual form to our human chronicles and imagined realities.  The artists in this exhibition communicate through their lens of culture, ancestral, and familial experiences.  Image: Colette Fu’s “Uyghur Food” Pop-Up Book

FOCUS GALLERY

WEAR | Contemporary Jewelry

August 16 – September 10, 2022

The Penland FOCUS Gallery presents WEAR, our annual exhibition exploring current interpretations and material usage in the field of contemporary jewelry.  The exhibition includes both emerging and established makers from throughout the US.  

Participating artists: Melis Agabigum, Adam Atkinson, Lynn Batchelder, David Chatt, David Clemons, Tanya Crane, Aaron Decker, Ben Dory, Brian Fleetwood, Morgan Hill, Everett Hoffman, Joshua Kosker, Michal Lando, Lydia Martin, Bryan Parnham, Ruta Reifen, Rachelle Thiewes, Georgina Trevino, Marlene True, April Wood, Laura Wood, Devyn Vasquez, Francesca Vitali, and Danni Xu.

FOCUS GALLERY 

MATERIAL EMPATHY

September 20 – October 20

Bringing together the work of ceramicist Ingrid Bathe, papermaker Hannah O’Hare Bennett, and woodworker Keun Ho Peter Park, this exhibition celebrates the deep, empathetic relationships that form between maker, material, and finished object. 

Ingrid Bathe makes handbuilt, functional porcelain pottery with a sensitive touch. The delicate appearance and fingerprint dimpled surfaces of her pieces encourage a heightened sense of awareness. 

Hannah O’Hare Bennett uses natural pigments and layers and layers of handmade paper to create very thin, very light wall pieces. Her work is influenced by the plants and rural landscape from her past as an organic farmer.

Keun Ho Peter Park creates anthropomorphic, hand-carved wooden centerpieces, bowls, and trays. Inspired equally by nature, the human body, and the natural properties of wood, Park’s forms combine elegant functionality with a touch of animated whimsy.

JOHN & ROBYN HORN GALLERY

TENDER PRESENCE

October 4 – November 26, 2022

Guest curated by Adam Atkinson and Everett Hoffman, Tender Presence, travels to two additional venues (Chicago, IL and Richmond, VA) over the summer before its final showing in Penland’s Horn Gallery this fall. 

Artists who exemplify or resist the softer side of human interaction from a queer perspective. Through their work, each of the artists presents an individual interpretation of tenderness. The exhibition reflects material research via a multitude of processes, objects, and ideas.

Participating artists: $ulo Bee, Vivian Chiu, Margo Csipo, J Taran Diamond, Mattie Hinkley, Taylor Zarkades King, Andy Lowrie, Wyatt Nestor-Pasicznyk, Corey Pemberton, Kento Saisho, Hansel Tai, Scott Vander Veen

FOCUS GALLERY

WELL MADE GOODS | Kitchen + Table

November 8 – December 10

WELL MADE GOODS | Kitchen + Table is a group exhibition highlighting objects and tools for the kitchen and table. This exhibition is for everyone who has a love for functional design where quality craftsmanship and utility go hand in hand.

Participating artists: Christina Boy, Sanam Emami, Sherród Faulks, Dana Fehsenfeld, Isaac Feuerman, Morgan Gilbreath, Christopher Kerr-Ayer, Anna Koplik, Meghan Martin, Erica Moody, Lisa Nguyen, Sean O’Connell, Em and Sarah Parkinson, SaraBeth Post, Suzanne Pugh, Ellie Richards, Alyssa Salomon, Lars Shimabukuro, Amy Tromiczak, Hayden Dakota Wilson

 

2021 EXHIBITIONS | John & Robyn Horn Gallery and FOCUS Gallery

FOCUS GALLERY

CANDY SHOP

March 9 – April 11, 2021

A delectable collection of work inspired by iconic candy colors. Jordan Almonds, Red Hots, Lemon Heads, M&Ms, Orange Slices and Peach Rings, Jelly Beans, Blue Rock Candy, and Blue Raspberry Sour Patch Kids…..Break out of the ordinary….It’s too good for kids.

Participating artists: Sara Ballek, Vivian Beer, Ashley Buchanan, Jason Bige Burnett, Courtney Dodd, Rachel Donner, John Geci, Morgan Hill, Sarah Holden, Homebody Textiles, Jodie Masterman, Marc + Kari Petrovic, SaraBeth Post, Jay Ryan, Alyssa Salomon, Brad Vetter, and Holly Walker

 

JOHN & ROBYN HORN GALLERY

SUSIE GANCH
Different Land | Different Sea
April 14 – June 19, 2021

Susie Ganch is a first-generation American artist of Hungarian heritage. She is a sculptor, jeweler, and educator living in Richmond, VA where she is an associate professor and metal arts lead for the Department of Craft/Material Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. Ganch received her MFA from University of Wisconsin-Madison. Part of her practice is directing Radical Jewelry Makeover, an international jewelry mining and recycling project that continues to travel across the country and abroad. Issues of waste and cultural habits of consumption are imbued through her work. Her work has been included nationally and internationally in museum exhibitions including: Smithsonian National Museum for Women in the Arts (DC), MFA Boston (MA), the Design Museum (London), the National Gallery of Victoria (Australia), Ueno Royal Museum (Japan), Kohler Art Center (WI), and the Milwaukee Art Museum (WI).

This exhibition includes new works by Ganch, including the sound installation Drift, and her signature constructions from post-consumer waste.

 The days of the isolated studio practice are gone. Sourcing materials from all over the world, artists are economically and politically connecting to the global community even when not thinking about it. I am conscious that every action has a reaction and every decision has a ramification whether good or bad. These ideas inspire me both as a member of the global community and as an artist. Through my work I am able to join my voice and opinions to ideas that affect us all. I do this through community-centered collaborative art, an individual studio practice, and education.

FOCUS GALLERY

RAMEN + RICE  | the idiosyncratic bowl

April 27 – June 6, 2021

The bowl is a humble form, yet it plays an essential role in our daily life. Artists who have chosen to be a maker of bowls, know it is far more idiosyncratic than you and I might imagine. A bowl has innumerable uses, and with each comes a multitude of creative interpretations. For this exhibition, the artists have been asked to imagine a bowl for ramen or rice – for which there are notable traditional parameters defined by the use, the hand that holds it, and cultural traditions. The bowl is, not surprisingly, a subject for scholars and poets.  

 

FOCUS GALLERY

Two Headed Diver  | Lynne Hobaica + Rickie Barnett

June 23 – July 31, 2021

This exhibition brings together the work of Lynne Hobaica and Rickie Barnett; ceramic artists who work both independently and collaboratively in their creative practice – while sharing one small studio. Two Headed Diver will feature ceramic sculpture and functional work from each artist, as well as a collection of their wildly imaginative collaborative pieces. Both Lynne and Rickie construct characters that are rooted in mythologies and fairytales, relationships, and their own personal narratives.

Lynne’s work centers on storytelling, her characters portraying life’s complexities with humor and relatable gestures. The surfaces utilize the ceramic drawing technique of sgrafitto, along with layered slips, glaze, and china paint.  Rickie’s elaborate figurative sculptures are a marriage of light-hearted and dark accounts of life lessons. Reinvented folklores form his cast of characters – playing accordions, carrying shovels, and riding odd four-legged pull toys.  Their collaborations are cohesive and thoughtful, gracefully balancing humor and human struggles with vulnerability that encourages the viewer to look closer.

 

JOHN & ROBYN HORN GALLERY

A CURIOUS YEAR
New work from Penland resident artists and core fellows
July 7 – September 11, 2021

This exhibition featuring work by Penland resident artists and core fellows will place one ambitious work by each of the artists in our John & Robyn Horn Gallery. Additional works will be featured in a virtual exhibition August 17 – September 5.

Penland resident artists: Adam Atkinson, Nate Cotterman, Julia Harrison, Jason Hartsoe, Everett Hoffman, Kit Paulson, Ellie Richards, Adam Whitney

Penland core fellows: Sarina Angell, Molly Bernstein, Mia Kaplan, Maria Fernanda Nuñez, SaraBeth Post, Tony Santoyo, Erica Schuetz, Hannah Mitsu Shimabukuro, and Scott Vander Veen

FOCUS GALLERY

WEAR | contemporary jewelry

August 25 – October 16 

The Penland Gallery presents WEAR, our annual exhibition exploring current interpretations and material usage in the field of contemporary jewelry.  The exhibition includes both emerging and established makers from through the US.

 

 

JOHN & ROBYN HORN GALLERY

I is another.
Corn Wagon Thunder + Shae Bishop
September 29 – December 5, 2021

I is another. continues the Penland Gallery’s series of exhibitions, pairing two artists in a synergistic association or conceptual conversation. Shae Bishop’s sculptural ceramic garments disrupt assumptions about function and draw attention to the role of dress in visual communication and personal identity. With her photographs, Corn Wagon Thunder alters her own self-identity, recreating a personal narrative through invented portraiture.

FOCUS GALLERY

JUST A MOMENT | Corey Pemberton + Michelle Ettrick
October 27 – November 27, 2021 

Corey Pemberton received his BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2012. He has completed residencies internationally at institutions including The Pittsburgh Glass Center (PA), Bruket (Bodø, NO), and a fellowship at the Penland School of Crafts (NC). He currently divides his time between his painting studio and a production glassblowing team in Los Angeles. Corey’s mixed media paintings are personal intimate narratives, where objects and ordinary human gestures coalesce to form an evocative story. 

As humans we make assumptions about people based on things like race, gender expression, socioeconomic status, etc. but preconceived notions can be one dimensional and ultimately quite harmful. When you feel the world wants to ‘other’ you or put you in a certain box, home is often the only place where you feel safe and can truly be yourself.

Michelle Ettrick is a maker of both functional and sculptural work in ceramics. Michelle has an MFA from Pennsylvania State University, and a BFA from the University of Florida. 

My ceramic sculptures and vessels present stories about my childhood, family and my time and struggles as a homeless and disabled person. I use surface imagery to function as a diary to record people, places, and events. Sgraffito, screen printing, and laser decals are used to create the portraits and or narratives on the surfaces to start conversation among the viewers.

 

2020 EXHIBITIONS | John & Robyn Horn Gallery and FOCUS Gallery

JOHN & ROBYN HORN GALLERY

ADAPT  |  Resilience Through Craft
Penland Resident Artists
August 1 – 15, 2020

Virtual exhibition featuring work by Penland’s 2020 resident artists:  Eleanor Annand, Nate Cotterman, Jason Hartose. Andrew Meers, Kit Paulson, Matt Repsher, and Laura Wood

JOHN & ROBYN HORN GALLERY

HOLDING PATTERNS  
2020 Penland School Core Fellows
August 1 – 15, 2020

Virtual exhibition featuring work by the 2020 Penland Core Fellows: Sarina Angell, Molly Bernstein, Mia Kaplan, Maria Fernanda Nuñez, SaraBeth Post, Tony Santoyo, Erica Schuetz, Hannah Mitsu Shimabukuro, and Scott Vander Veen

JOHN & ROBYN HORN GALLERY

QUESTIONS + ANSWERS
Selected works by 2020 Penland School instructors
March 24 – May 3, 2020

Group exhibition featuring innovative, inspirational works by summer 2020 Penland School instructors. Media includes paper, wood, clay, steel, photography, painting, and glass.

FOCUS GALLERY

PLEASE SERVE YOURSELF | Craft + the Home Kitchen

October 9 – November 15, 2020

Cooking, eating, mixology, and making coffee is a creative outlet for many artists. A bit of science, a good color palette, and minimal rules make for great edible craft potential. They choose their dinnerware and cooking tools like they are curating an exhibition – shapes, colors, and textures all in the mix to complete the picture. 

This year we imagine you are finding yourself in the kitchen and at your table more than in the past. We noticed you are also making that experience special, connecting to the arts community with artist-made wares – a new ramen bowl or the perfect plate for toast with jam. “Please Serve Yourself” is a curated collection for your inspired days at the stove, kitchen counter, table, and TV tray.  

Always remember: If you’re alone in the kitchen and you drop the lamb, you can always just pick it up. Who’s going to know? ~ Julia Child

FOCUS GALLERY

WEAR | contemporary jewelry

August 1 – September 6, 2020

Contemporary jewelry is made to be worn; to live out in the world on a person, where it is seen and considered, existing alongside other adornments that shape and reflect personal style. To put on a piece of jewelry is to make it whole, to participate in its completion, and to become a wearer of art.

Artists inspire us to be the vehicles for their work as we express ourselves through our clothing and jewelry choices. This exhibition endeavors to make connections between artist and wearer – to know their names, the inspiration behind the pieces, and the techniques used.

Forty-two artists are participating in our largest jewelry exhibition to date, featuring all of our currently represented jewelry artists and invited guests. The range of materials and processes used by these artists covers some new and unexpected territory, along with traditional techniques.

FOCUS GALLERY

Porcelain Reconsidered

May 29 – July 5, 2020

This exhibition brings together six artists who work with the ceramic material of porcelain. Collectively these artists balance both the fragile elegance and strength of porcelain with their fresh ideas and modes of working. Individually they have stepped outside the traditional porcelain practices, and have incorporated inventive techniques to harness the best of the material’s qualities. 

Porcelain Reconsidered celebrates the artists’ attention to the materiality and history of porcelain while forging ahead with contemporary processes and viewpoints.

FOCUS GALLERY

AT HAND | Tools for Everyday Use

March 27 – May 3, 2020

If you’re human, you use tools all day, every day. And the more you consider them, the more interesting tools become. – Monica Moses, American Craft Magazine

Tools exist in almost every facet of our everyday lives. Whether in the kitchen, the studio, or the garden, each tool is essential to doing our work, finishing the job, or creating something we are proud of. This exhibition features expertly crafted tools by sixteen artists that work across a range of materials and that have arrived at tool making from varied backgrounds and training. Each tool is as functional as it is handsome, and is as enjoyable to use as it is to look at.

2019 EXHIBITIONS | John & Robyn Horn Gallery and FOCUS Gallery

FOCUS GALLERY

SHANE FERO + DEB STONER | Like Hummingbirds to Nectar
October 4 – December 8, 2019

With flame-worked glass, artist Shane Fero crafts featherweight, mythical, abstracted birds – incorporating them into tableaus, placed atop vessels, or as a single bird paused before flight.  For this exhibition the space will be shared with photographer Deb Stoner’s lush floral images – dense arrangements that lure the viewer into the foliage for closer exploration.  Rich color and careful attention to detail pairs these artists and creates a verdant aviary for this exhibition.

JOHN & ROBYN HORN GALLERY

TRADITION OF EXCELLENCE | Japanese techniques in contemporary metal arts
Curated by Hiroko Yamada
October 1 – November 17, 2019

Curated by metalsmith Hiroko Yamada, this exhibition brings together twenty-nine artists: seven American and twenty-two Japanese, three of whom have received the highest honor to be designated as Japanese Living Treasures. The artists’ work represents a broad view; based in historical techniques and approaches, they range from strictly adhering to tradition to reinventing or reinterpreting tradition through a contemporary practice.

FOCUS GALLERY

WEAR | Contemporary Jewelry 
August 3 – September 9, 2019

wear| wer | verb (past wore | wôr | ; past participle worn | wôrn | ) 
[with object] have on one’s body or a part of one’s body as clothing, decoration, protection, or for some other purpose: he was wearing a dark suit | both ladies wore a bunch of violets.

The Penland Gallery 2019 WEAR exhibition highlights the brooch as sculptural adornment. In the spirit of “wearing your heart on your sleeve”, the brooch is the perfect conveyance of both style and state of mind.  The 2009 book “Read My Pins” featured Madeleine Albright’s famous collection of brooches. Before long, and without intending it, I found that jewelry had become part of my personal diplomatic arsenal. Former president George H. W. Bush had been known for saying “Read my lips.” I began urging colleagues and reporters to “Read my pins.”

JOHN & ROBYN HORN GALLERY

HOSS HALEY | Correction Line
July 30 – September 15, 2019

This country was born during the Age of Enlightenment. As a result, an intellectual pragmatism struts the foundation. One early example: federal land surveys west of the Appalachians planned by Thomas Jefferson and his contemporaries. They intended to make even, easily dividable parcels of land to ensure all citizens could be landholders. They segmented the land into 6-mile-square townships and 640-acre parcels of land, called “sections.”

This approach to land division did not account for the fact that the earth was round and therefore could not neatly divide into quadrants. To accommodate the curvature, surveyors frequently entered at intervals of 24 miles a “correction line,” an east-west latitude point where they reoriented themselves, slightly shifting the plots of land along the tapering longitudes. Today, we experience this on the ground as a sudden bend in an otherwise straight road.

FOCUS GALLERY

SHOKO TERUYAMA | Ceramics 
May 31 – July 7, 2019

Shoko’s handbuilt work is made of red earthenware with white slip and sgraffito decoration. She has developed a variety of patterns and a cast of characters based on experience with human relations. As the characters interact, Shoko wants the viewer to find their own stories. The work is seemingly whimsical, but reveals itself to be something more devious and interesting.

JOHN & ROBYN HORN GALLERY

FURTHER EVIDENCE | The Art of Natural Dyes
Curated by Catharine Ellis
May 28 – July 14, 2019

While the term “natural dye” sounds simple and straightforward, it belies the complex depth of knowledge and passionate research that Catharine Ellis and others have devoted to the resurgence of this discipline. In a way that parallels the interest in slow food and molecular gastronomy, textile artists today have the tools and the desire to be both innovative and deeply analytical. They want to be good citizens of their culture and environment and still remain true to their artistic vision. They want their work to reflect a deep understanding of their materials. Thank you, Catharine, for shining the light on this group of explorers of natural dye.

FOCUS GALLERY

JOSEPH PINTZ | Simple Things
Friday March 29 – Sunday May 5

The stubborn physicality of my pots forces one to slow down and pay close attention to the meal, the moment, and the company around the table. By creating a dialogue between the vessel and the user, the value of quality and aesthetic experience over efficiency is reinforced. My goal is to celebrate the poetics of the commonplace by sharing a sense of abundance, substance, and community through my work.

JOHN & ROBYN HORN GALLERY

COMPOSE | DECOMPOSE
Conversation: Eleanor Annand + Make Noise
Tuesday March 26 – Sunday May 12

For Compose | Decompose, the fourth installment in the Penland Gallery’s  Conversation series, Annand proposed showing her work alongside the instruments and music of Make Noise. Their conversation is about exploration within defined systems. Annand makes modular sculptural elements from cardboard and cast paper; Make Noise makes modular systems for electronic music composition. In both cases modularity is not about creating predictability, it’s about providing a framework in which to cast expression and, sometimes, disruption. In works like Entropic, Annand avoids the purity of mathematical tessellations. She opts to create arrangements that contain disorder, making them analogous to human lives in their unpredictability and the possibility of playfulness within constrained systems. Make Noise takes this concept further with Synthesizer for Two Coasts,  a conceptual instrument that only plays Bach’s Invention No. 4 in D minor. However, even within this narrow scope the user can find expression by manipulating  timbre and injecting random notes into the music. Their systems are not designed for traditional composition, but for the “discovery of unfound sound.”

2018 EXHIBITIONS | John & Robyn Horn Gallery and FOCUS Gallery

FOCUS GALLERY

BRIGHT HOUSE | Eleanor Anderson + Ellie Richards
October 5 – November 18, 2018

Eleanor Anderson is a multi-faceted artist unconstrained in her material choices. She works across a broad range of media including ceramics, textiles, prints, and collage. Anderson uses bright colors in combination with graphic patterns as a signature throughout her work. 

Ellie Richards creates contemporary wood furniture and mixed media sculpture with a fervent love of color and texture. Richards is focused on the intersection between work and play and aims to blur the line between the two working modes.

JOHN & ROBYN HORN GALLERY

CONVERSATION | Pneuma
Christopher Colville + Maggie Jaszczak
October 2 – November 18, 2018

FOCUS GALLERY

WEAR | Contemporary Jewelry
August 4 – September 9, 2018

This exhibition includes 18 artists that explore new uses for common materials and skillfully exploit the material qualities to produce exceptional wearable pieces. The exhibition also includes a number of artists that use more traditional materials and techniques – altered and refined with a contemporary sensibility. We are very excited to bring you a collection that celebrates the crossing of boundaries and new technical skills in the ingenious field of adornment.

JOHN & ROBYN HORN GALLERY

ALCHEMY | Contemporary Studio Glass
July 31 – September 16, 2018

Penland School’s studio glass program was set in motion in 1965 by a fortuitous meeting between glass artist Harvey Littleton and Penland’s director Bill Brown. An intersection of science and art found a home at Penland thanks to some willing and inspired artists led by Littleton to build equipment and experiment with the concept of glass art made on a studio scale. During a turbulent year that included the Selma to Montgomery march, the Vietnam war, and the Watts riots, young artists at Penland were seeking new freedom with a new material.

With no instructions, no rules to follow or break, studio glass was a field wide open for discovery. In 1971, Penland hosted the first gathering of what would become the Glass Art Society—a highbrow name for a devil-may-care group of inventive and fearless glass artists. More than fifty years later, the influence of and lineage created by Penland’s glass program is remarkable. What has remained constant is the presence of innovators: makers who investigate, challenge, and cut new trails.

The word alchemy seems appropriate to capture the quality of glass that is deeply scientific and yet inexplicable to most. The twelve artists in this exhibition are each in their own way using a deep understanding of the material to take it in new directions—they are alchemists.

FOCUS GALLERY

JENNY MENDES | Ceramics   
June 1 – July 8, 2018

As a ceramic artist with exceptional skill and experience, Mendes invites the viewer into her memories and opens a dialogue with her subconscious through the use of narrative drawings and intricate patterns. The exhibition includes both highly decorated functional ceramics and sculptural work focused on animal and human forms.

Jenny is a full time studio artist who teaches workshops throughout the world. She has participated in both the Core Fellowship and the Resident Artist programs at Penland School.

JOHN & ROBYN HORN GALLERY

PERSONAL | Universal
Narrative work in craft
May 29 – July 15, 2018

Over my many years spent in a gallery environment, recurrently I see how a narrative or ‘story’ embedded in the artwork is an emotional and powerful force that connects the artist and viewer. This is a unique narration without text, narration without a sound, and without the artist-storyteller being present.  Mining deeper – when the artist pulls from their own life experiences and uses their personal narrative as well as their hands to craft the work – the resulting piece has a distinct and soulful energy.

FOCUS GALLERY

GATHER | Eat, Drink, Enjoy
Courtney Dodd + Nickolaus Fruin 
March 30 – May 20, 2018

Courtney and Nick’s artistic aspiration is to make technically proficient, well-designed objects that people covet. They believe handmade objects have the ability to ground people and to connect the owner to the maker as well as their community. In a culture so fast-paced, surrounded by disposable goods, the importance of the handmade is pivotal. Perpetuating the importance of the handmade, their goal is to continue this practice and to spark conversation about the importance of living with quality over quantity. “Gather | Eat, Drink, Enjoy” embodies these ideals.

JOHN & ROBYN HORN GALLERY

I dwell in Possibility
Unconventional work by Penland Instructors
March 27 – May 13, 2018

This exhibition focuses on Penland instructors who have erased dividing lines or untethered themselves from material and creative constraints. They make discoveries within their media and then push beyond the expected. The artists in this small group exhibition are selected from the Penland 2018 workshop schedule. One of threads that runs through the pages of every Penland catalog is that of unfettered creativity—artists allowing themselves to take chances or tread on new ground in pursuit of their ideas. Penland not only embraces that sort of behavior, but also encourages it from both student and instructor.

2017 EXHIBITIONS | John & Robyn Horn Gallery and FOCUS Gallery

FOCUS GALLERY

MARC MAIORANA | Iron Design
October 6 – November 12, 2017

JOHN & ROBYN HORN GALLERY

CONVERSATION | What Remains
Rachel Meginnes + Kelly O’Briant
October 3 – November 19, 2017

speaks to both visual and conceptual depth – of the inherent memory embedded in the works of both Rachel Meginnes and Kelly O’Briant. Actual material, in the form of reclaimed textiles forms the foundation of Meginnes’s process, a physical and metaphorical layering of wear and re-adapting, moving forward and revealing the past. For O’Briant, the remainders are often phantom forms – a chimera or abstraction of scientific theory. Her work in ceramics has explored the notions of dark matter, light and shadow, the passage of time. For this exhibition O’Briant mines the emotional effect of unsettlement and reconstruction – the physical act of carrying the past forward. Paired in this “conversation” exhibition, their work has the potential to create a powerful resonance with the viewer. 

FOCUS GALLERY

WEAR | Contemporary Jewelry
August 4 – September 10, 2017

JOHN & ROBYN HORN GALLERY

PARCHED | Inverted Landscapes
Susan Goethel Campbell
August 1 – September 17, 2017

This exhibition contains formal expressions of our relationship with the physical environment. From picture to process, the complex system we know as earth is portrayed through a variety of materials and formats. Our attention is focused on familiar materials i.e. grass, earth, seeds that are decontextualized from their natural environment and molded into unnatural forms. Our perception toggles between object and field, solid and void, nature and culture. There are moments of confusion, what we are looking at is not easily defined as landscape in the sense of the Picturesque. Uncertainty may be uncomfortable but it offers up the possibility of mystery. Not being able to name something realigns imagination with the body.

FOCUS GALLERY

ABECEDARIUM | ENVISIONED
Holly Walker
June 2 – July 9, 2017

The word abecedarian refers to the alphabet. The abecedarian is an ancient poetic form guided by alphabetical order. Abecedarian poems are word games for children. An abecedarium is something arranged alphabetically.

In this exhibit, I have envisioned my abecedarium as a conversation. I’ve displayed the plates as a story with a light, playful banter that drifts off into tangents, and then returns to a point at the end. I’ve used one letter of the alphabet as a design starting point for each plate; some remain obvious, some become completely obscured. I scrutinized the letters for clues. What is each letter’s signature? What movement does it suggest, what color calls out, how can it be manipulated into pleasing designs? By enlarging the vowel plates and simplifying their colors, then condensing the consonant plates and enriching them with vibrant color, the wall conveys a spicy rhythmic meter.

JOHN & ROBYN HORN GALLERY

WITHIN THE MARGINS | Contemporary Ceramics
Curated by Steven Young Lee
May 30 – July 16, 2017

This exhibition includes work by 17 artists who, while residing within one set of perceived margins or another, are working from within to expand or redefine those boundaries, ultimately shifting the lines of ethnicity, race, gender, sexuality, cultural identity or material association.

JOHN & ROBYN HORN GALLERY

INSPIRED | Work by 32 Artists from Penland’s Resident Artist
and Core Fellowship Programs

March 28 – May 14, 2017

Penland School of Crafts is best known for its total-immersion, residential craft workshops that have created transformative educational experiences for thousands. Not quite as well known, but no less significant, are the school’s multiyear residencies—the Core Fellowship and the Resident Artist Program—that have been incubators for hundreds of artistic careers.

FOCUS GALLERY

Well-Designed Objects
March 31 – May 7, 2017

2016 EXHIBITIONS | John & Robyn Horn Gallery and FOCUS Gallery

FOCUS GALLERY

CHRISTINA BOY | Wood
September 23 – October 23, 2016

JOHN & ROBYN HORN GALLERY

CRISTINA CORDOVA | Cerca y Lejos
Sculpture + Drawing
September 20 – November 20, 2016

Deep in the realm of primal codes there is an instinctive connection to the place where our neurological infrastructure is first laid. Likewise, there is an involuntary vinculum to that core group of individuals that first mold our existence. I am often impressed by the active influence these places and individuals have on my day to day. Near and far—they are beacons to my identity, some tying me back to a specific geography and the sediment of generations. For better or worse they persist and perpetuate themselves through my actions and my willingness to explore the liminal space between two cultures. Through image and form, “Cerca y Lejos” explores these deep-rooted and inexorable human and geographic connections.  – Cristina Córdova

FOCUS GALLERY

KREH MELLICK | Painting
July 15 – August 14, 2016

JOHN & ROBYN HORN GALLERY

WENDY MARUYAMA | The wildLIFE Project
Organized by the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft
July 12 – September 4, 2016

Furniture maker, artist, and educator Wendy Maruyama has been making innovative work for forty years. While her earlier work was built around traditional craft objects, in recent years she has moved beyond the boundaries of studio craft and into the realm of installation and social practice. The wildLIFE Project was inspired by a trip to Kenya where she saw elephants and other large animals in the wild and met with wildlife advocates to learn about the impact of poaching.

JOHN & ROBYN HORN GALLERY

CONVERSATIONS | UNSPOKEN LANGUAGE
Kensuke Yamada + Leigh Suggs
May 17 – June 26, 2016

The unusual pairing of work by Kensuke Yamada and Leigh Suggs in this exhibition creates an opportunity for a deeper understanding of each artist’s work— a view made possible by this context. We, the viewers, are part of the wholly visual conversation. We react and respond instantly to the intense color, the reflected light, the fluid movement, and the human gestures. Without a single word or sound, visual art is capable of eliciting our participation in the exchange of ideas.

FOCUS GALLERY

FORREST MIDDELTON + ADAM FIELD | Ceramics 
May 20 – June 19, 2016

FOCUS GALLERY

SHARED CONCERNS | Special Group Exhibition | Contemporary Jewelry
April 26 – June 5, 2016

 

FOCUS GALLERY

BROOKE ROTHSHANK | Painting
March 25 – April 24, 2016

Painting one object per day for a year (2015), I experienced creating as ritual and discipline.  All the paintings were posted on Instagram and Facebook, making this a daily exercise in the vulnerability of communicating thru the unlimited access of social media, responding to anonymous group critique and feedback.  This focused and consistent painting has allowed me to more fully embrace the time in life where I need to feed both my artistic self and my family. 

JOHN & ROBYN HORN GALLERY

THIS IS A PHOTOGRAPH | Exploring Contemporary Applications of Photographic Chemistry
Curated by Dan Estabrook
March 22 – May 1, 2016

This is A Photograph, curated by artist-educator Dan Estabrook, considers the fascinating subject of chemical and physical photography in the digital age and how we might now define a photograph. Handmade images created through the complex alchemy of light and chemistry are the common ground of the artists invited by Estabrook for this exhibition. Each of these contemporary image-makers eloquently reaches forward with their ideas and imagination and back in time to retain their connection to historical processes. The works themselves speak volumes about creative minds that disregard boundaries or definitions and seek only to realize their visions.

The Penland Gallery exhibition programming was on hiatus from 2013-2015.
The Focus Gallery was on hiatus in 2015.
2014 EXHIBITIONS

FOCUS GALLERY

MICHELLE MOODE | Works on Paper
October 3 – November 6, 2014

Michelle C. Moode is a mixed media artist currently living in Spruce Pine, North Carolina. She makes books, bookish objects, complicated installations, and draws lots of pictures. She has exhibited nationally, and has taught a variety of Printmaking, Drawing, and Bookbinding classes, both in university and workshop settings.
Michelle grew up in Southern California, and spent her high school and college years in Murray, Kentucky. She received her BFA from Murray State University in 2003, and an MFA in Printmaking from West Virginia University in 2007. Through the years she has also learned things at the Penland School of Crafts, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, and Frogmans Print and Paper Workshops.
She moved to North Carolina from Los Angeles in 2011, seeking a drastic change of scenery. 
In addition to making books, she is currently the bookkeeper at the gallery at the Penland School of Crafts.

FOCUS GALLERY

ANNE LEMANSKI | Sculpture
July 27 – August 29, 2014

Queen Alexandra’s Flight is the scene of a battlefield. The depiction of butterflies vs. birds, narrates the age-old story of survival. Queen Alexandra’s birdwing, of Papua New Guinea, is the largest butterfly in the world, and it is endangered. I have created an army of butterflies to protect her in flight from the insect eating birds. The number dots represent point delineators…victory points that are accumulated for a final score to “win the game.”

FOCUS GALLERY

HEATHER MAE ERICKSON | Ceramics
September 19  – October 26, 2014

Heather Mae Erickson is an artist, a craftsperson and a designer. She is currently Assistant Professor of Ceramics and Studio Art at Western Carolina University in Cullowee, North Carolina.

“Pick Mix / All Sorts Collection” is a reference to the Woolworths-like candy stores where one chooses a mixture from bins of colorful sweets of bulk confections. The collection was designed to encourage the audience to look longer and make decisions about their favorite eye popping piece of ceramics.

FOCUS GALLERY

SHOKO TERUYAMA | Ceramics
August 1 – September 7, 2014

Shoko Teruyama grew up in Mishima, Japan. She earned a BA in education and taught elementary school two years before coming to the United States to study art at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1997. Shoko received her MFA in ceramics in the fall of 2005 from Wichita State University. She finished a three-year residency at the Penland School of Crafts in 2008 and is now a studio artist in Marshall, NC. Shoko’s handbuilt work is made of earthenware with white slip and sgraffito decoration. She has developed a cast of characters based on experience with human relations. As the characters interact, Shoko wants the viewer to find their own stories. The work is seemingly whimsical, but reveals itself to be something more devious and interesting.

FOCUS GALLERY

JOSEPH PINTZ | Ceramics
May 23 – June 22, 2014

“We live in a culture that is always on the go. Our obsession with time and speed is one of the defining qualities of our era. Paradigms shift over the course of a year, cultural fashions change overnight, email is instant. The truism ‘time flies’ seems truer every day. Handmade pottery forces the user to slow down and pay closer attention to the meal, the moment, and the company around the table. This dialogue reinforces the value of aesthetic experience over efficiency.” – Joseph Pintz

FOCUS GALLERY

NATHAN BLANK | Iron
June 27 – July 27, 2014

“Inspiration from nature, a fascination with the effects of time, and the driving challenge of blacksmithing provides the basis of my work. In nature, I am drawn to the rich textures, complex surfaces, and relationship of collective forms that work together in harmony. I study the micro and macro environments that consist of attributes like layers, crevices, folds, pits, and wrinkles. In understanding how these things occur naturally, I can attempt to recreate the cause and effects in metal. The cycles of growth and decay, produces an eternal relationship. Natural materials and forms that weather, erode, grow, energy, and evolve appear to convey time. Observing these things helps me to understand how I can capture a timeless quality in my work.” – Nathan Blank

FOCUS GALLERY

ELEANOR ANNAND | Paintings & Drawings
April 4 – May 11, 2014

“My process requires focus, time and presence, three things that in today’s world are not easy to come by. The works in this exhibition employ the use of repetition as a means to clear my mind and allow for focus. My intent is to translate complex emotions into marks on paper and steel that communicate raw honesty. Some of the pieces also use simplified symbols to reinforce these emotions. I believe, that though we do not encounter the same things in life, we do share similar experiences. These common themes create connections we can use to find deeper understanding in one another. In this work I am offering my honesty and rawness of emotion as an extended hand to my audience.” – Eleanor Annand

2013 EXHIBITIONS

FOCUS GALLERY

ORNAMENTS | A Penland Collection
November 1 – December 8, 2013

noun |?ôrn?m?nt|
a thing used to make something look more attractive but usually having no practical purpose, esp. a small object such as a figurine.
a quality or person adding grace, beauty, or honor to something: the design would be a great ornament to the metropolis.
decoration added to embellish something, esp. a building: it served more for ornament than for protection.
1 small tables covered with ornaments: knickknack, trinket, bauble, bibelot, gewgaw, gimcrack, furbelow; informal whatnot, doodad, tchotchke.
2 the dress had no ornament at all: decoration, adornment, embellishment, ornamentation, trimming, accessories.
verb |?ôrn??ment| [ with obj. ]
make (something) look more attractive by adding decorative items: the men and women in the Stone Age ornamented their caves
1 the room was highly ornamented: decorate, adorn, embellish, trim, bedeck, deck (out), festoon; literary bedizen.

FOCUS GALLERY

MARTINA LANTIN | Ceramics
September 20 – October 27, 2013

Committed to the joys of working in earthenware, which she describes as chocolate porcelain, Martina creates functional ceramics through thrown and altered forms.
Lantin’s asymmetrical forms are made possible with her unique method of throwing and altering her pots, as she throws her bowls upside down, capitalizing on the physics of working on the wheel.
“I seek to evoke nostalgia of the future by making pots that are reverberations of the past. I draw inspiration from early English porcelain and cream ware. I provoke a tension between the elegant handling of the material and the rugged connotations of the clay body.” – Martina Lantin

FOCUS GALLERY

RONAN PETERSON | Ceramics
August 2 – September 15, 2013

“Sweet & Salty” Ceramics

Ronan is known for his rich textures and colorful patterns on functional earthenware pieces. For his Focus Gallery exhibition he is showing his “sweet” eye-candy pots alongside his new low fire “salty” soda earthenware.

FOCUS GALLERY

MARLENE TRUE | Metals
June 21 – July 28, 2013

“My jewelry presents an ongoing passion, curiosity and exploration in material transformation. I fabricate with steel from old tin cans, toys and signs and also use them as a source for color, images, and text. These utilitarian objects have their own histories that speak to the passage of time seen through fading paint, scratches and rust. Bridging memory, these colors and imperfect surfaces are reminiscent of home of old and worn farm equipment, of work of the hand, garden, and its inhabitants. Meshing repurposed materials with an undercurrent of past and present is an act of redemption for both memory and material in the process of making.” – Marlene True 

FOCUS GALLERY

JESSICA CALDERWOOD | Enamel Jewelry and Sculpture
May 3 – June 16, 2013

“My most recent series combines flower/botanical forms with fragments of the human body in order to address the narrative of human life cycles: change, growth, metamorphosis, aging, loss. The choice to use flower and plant forms is multi-layered. Flowers have been used throughout history as symbols of the feminine. It can be found in mythology, literature, folklore and visual art. In addition, Western culture has an intricate system of flower symbolism that has been a way for humans to express and communicate complex emotions.

I created these works to be intentionally humorous and ironic. These human/plant hybrids are large, voluptuous, headless, and sometimes armless. They are intended to portray a spectrum of concepts relating to gender and identity. The Flower People are at once, powerful and powerless, beautiful and absurd, inflated, and amputated.” – Jessica Calderwood

FOCUS GALLERY

TINA MULLEN | Drawings and Paintings
March 22 – April 28, 2013

“I find that I use it often – the phrase “out of the blue” – to describe events, ideas, and the way things strike me.  I wonder if I use it more than others, or if I’m just less prepared than others and things catch me off guard.  Regardless, I enjoy contemplating the notion that things happen unexpectedly. That some of the best things in life are unplanned, unscheduled, and come to us by chance – out of the blue.  The real beauty for me is what becomes of us because of them.

In my work, “out of the blue” represents migration, journey and the stories that happen along the way. Many of the drawings are done on maps. Maps of places traveled, Maps given to me by friends and Maps that come with their own history. Represented are maps of some of the places that I love – Florida, North Carolina, and Oregon. Other points of departure for my drawings might be a piece of paper found in an old book that contains the owners’ doodles or handwriting. Those marks, the age of the paper, slight rips or tears bear witness to a past unknown to me.  I enjoy excavating through those marks, setting off on a new path – a new visual adventure.

Here’s to the journey.” – Tina Mullen

2012 EXHIBITIONS

CORE Show 2012
Work by Penland’s current Core Fellowship students
October 2 – November 18, 2012

Bob Biddletone
Zee Boudreaux
Rachel K. Garceau
Seth Gould
Liz Koerner
Mike Krupiarz
Jack Mauch
Rachel Mauser
Molly Kite Spadone

FORECAST | A New Wave of Creative Talent

July 24 – September 16, 2012

The exhibition “Forecast” features sixteen rising artists selected from a nomination process; recommendations solicited from educators, curators, collectors, and master craft artists. The title of the exhibition best describes the concept – a forecast is a prediction of what is coming. The nominators have provided insightful comments on why they felt these artists are the ones to watch, and many of the artists have included thoughtful statements about their work.
The Penland Gallery is committed to educating the public about craft – by helping our patrons to understand the processes and also by shedding some light on the artists themselves.

Michael Cepress
Christopher Colville
Andrea Donnelly
Dustin Farnsworth
Aran Galligan
Luke Haynes
Yeon Joo Lee
Melanie Mowinski
Lesley Nishigawara
Libby O’Bryan
Christopher Porcarelli
Michelle Ray
Ruta Reifen
Courtney Starrett
Laura Wood
Kensuke Yamada

Studio Practice
Studio artists: their work, their working environment, and sources of inspiration
May 22 – July 8, 2012

Paper Plate, Plastic Plate, White Plate, Artist Plate
A collection of artist made dinner plates and related insights about food
March 22 – May 8, 2012

A fun investigation into the relationship of craftspeople and food; over sixty ceramic artists and nearly 270 interpretations of the plate form. Artists responded to a series of questions about creating dinnerware, their interest in food, and how the two intersect.

The Barns: 2011
Work by Penland’s current resident artists
September 27 – November 27, 2011

LETTER FORMS | Functional and Nonfunctional Typography
Work that uses typography for both content and design
May 24 – July 10, 2011

MANY PATHS | A Legacy of Karen Karnes
Work by ceramic artist Karen Karnes and fourteen artists
whose lives and work have been touched by her
March 22 – May 8, 2011