I dwell in Possibility

Curator’s Statement

“Abandon normal instructions” is a cryptic suggestion from Oblique Strategies, a set of flashcards developed by musician Brian Eno and artist Peter Schmidt to break creative constraints and encourage lateral thinking. Other suggestions,“remove the middle, extend the edges” and “discover your formulas and abandon them,” are part of studio lexicon across Penland’s campus—as infinite doors open to creative possibility.

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.

In her poem “I dwell in Possibility” Emily Dickinson uses the house as a metaphor for comparing prose to poetry—it’s a house with many entrances, exits, and windows wide open for her ideas to pass in and out, and no one right way to interpret her words. Which brings us back to Brian Eno’s prompt to dispense with the rules for the sake of revelation—this is Emily’s “endless roof” and something the artists in this exhibition have made part of their studio practice. Creativity—how the artist mines ideas, interprets inexplicable thoughts, transforms material to make something tangible to share—that is both mysterious and exquisite.

For Occupation – This –
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise –