Newspapers / Penland Line (Penland, N.C.) / June 1, 1994, edition 1 / Page 1
Part of Penland Line (Penland, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION US POSTAGS paid PENLAND, NC PERMIT # I I IlPenIdnd Line II PENLAND SCHOOI OF rRAFT; • PFNI AMD • NOD' PENLAND SCHOOL OF CRAFTS • PENLAND • NORTH CAROLINA 28765 Summer 1994 FALL CONCENTRATION: SITE AND STUDIO Site & Studio, Penland’s fall Concentration, developed out of the desire to augment our emphasis on studio production with work that is oriented toward the landscape as a source of imagery, materials, and, poten tially, as a location for installation. It is an attempt to connect the studio aspect of what we do as craftspeople with the realm of architecture, landscape architecture, in terior design, and sculpture, as well as heightening our awareness of the relation ship of our work to environmental issues. Concentration is traditionally a time when students can do sustained studio work with a group of like-minded people, and this fall, for the first time, the eight-week session will have a unifying theme. From September 26 to November 18, students will have the opportunity to investigate issues of design, structure, and installation in book arts, clay, glass, iron, photography, weaving, and wood. The instructors have been chosen with the overall goals of the session in mind: many of them are adept at multimedia and assemblage work; a number of the teachers work with landscape imagery or unaltered materials; several classes wiD be led by artists who do very large scale, outdoor work. As craft develops in its relationship to the design community it is good to consider the nature of this relationship. The vital element of crafts in personal and human expression is inherent in our work. One intention of Site and Studio is to explore the tremendous potential for the craft community to contribute to design on a broader scale. The integration of the hand made—of the hand—into the wider world is essential. Fall Concentration is a unique opportunity for the studio craftsperson to explore these issues. DESCRIPTION OF CLASSES All of the studios will have visiting artists, and several will make presentations to the whole school. In addition to craftspeople, visitors will include landscape architects and designers—people with an understanding of the soil and the climate who use plants in a sculptural way. The consideration of the landscape will no doubt be en hanced by the dynamic quality of the season. Classes will begin as the first color touches the leaves and continue through the glorious collage of color on the mountains. But, as always in Concentration, exploration of tech niques and materials plus the development of skills in the studio will be central to the instruction. Landscape as a source of imagery will be explored in all of the studios but particularly in the photography and book arts classes which will incorporate images and narrative about our surroundings. The nature of site- specific installations will also be explored in the studio— some more than others. One example is terra-cotta work in the clay studio, oriented toward functional objects such as benches, walkways, walls, or fireplaces as well as sculptural clay work designed for outdoor installation. We anticipate that all of the studios will incorporate mate rials that remain unaltered from their natural state. Several installations on Penland’s campus, including one by Patrick Dougherty, will use materials as simple as saplings or rock. These installations will give students a chance to become directly involved with Penland as a landscape. As students comment on their experience at Penland, the sense of place has always loomed large, but it is often in terms of the air, the view, the mountains, or the walks in the woods. This fall, one aspect of the work will be a consideration of the immediate surroundings and the local ecology with oppor tunities to develop areas on the Penland campus. In the past, many individuals and classes have expressed a desire to leave something behind when they go, and the campus already has an interesting array of objects hanging in trees or tucked into garden spaces. Other installations have been ephemeral and exist now only in photographs. Site and Studio will lead to similar gifts to the community and to future Penland students, but as an outgrowth of this educa tional intention. The principal instructors for the clay class, Site-Specific Ceramic Sculpture, will be Gloria Kosco and Mimi Strang. To gether they established a collaborative studio, Decoratta Ornamental Terra Cotta, in 1985 with a focus on the application of ceramic tiles, pottery, and sculpture as architectural ornamentation. The class will build on their experience to explore and expand the understanding and vision of art in public space. In addition to their projects, students will partici pate in the construction of a permanent site-specific ceramic sculpture at Penland. Materials will be cast concrete and handmade ceramic tiles. Visiting Artists Elizabeth MacDonald and Angelica Pozo will join the class for two weeks each. Elizabeth will investigate the relationship between studio work and the demands of the landscape. Angelica will shift the focus to architectural work and will explore artistic and technical challenges involved in designing a site-specific architec tural piece. In the fiber studio, Gregg Johnson will be teaching The Nature of Weaving. The emphasis will be on careful observation and interaction with nature, and the manipu lation of the tools and variables of weaving to capture the essence of the selected aspect of the natural world in woven pieces. Students will work on imagery for the wall or floor, wearable or domestic cloth, or on freeform shapes for the environment. Installation fiber artist Chris Allen-Wickler will be a part of the class for two weeks Concentration story continued on page 3'
Penland Line (Penland, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
June 1, 1994, edition 1
1
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75