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Penland LineCT
Some Thoughts on Craft Education
As part oj the interview process the three final candidates for the
director position were asked to address gatherings cf the Penland com
munity. Each forum began with the candidate sharing some thoughts
about crcft education. This is an excerptfrom Jean’s speech.
Craft education has been and will continue to be about the
sharing of technical information, the honing of complex skills,
the development of conceptual roots, and the clarification of
each person’s unique vision and identity through their work.
At the very core of every craftsperson I know, there is a deep
passion about making things—craft education enables people
to find answers to questions about making what is important
to them. So an essential part of craft education is the under
standing and manipulation of materials, but equally important
is the development of personal vision.
Meaningful craft education happens in many places and at
widely different ages. There are formal apprenticeship rela
tions, there are those who learn from the informal passing-
down of skills and beliefs, there are recreation centers and
community colleges, BFA and MFA programs, there are con
ferences sponsored by associations particular to various
media, and there are alternative schools such as Penland,
Arrowmont, Haystack, etc. All of these forms of craft educa
tion offer something valuable and are a part of a network of
resources, artists, teachers, and ideas.
Craft education is functioning in a time of extremely high
levels of accomplishment; craft artists have pushed the media
to intriguingly high levels during recent decades. Awareness of
the latest in artistic development is a crucial part of craft edu
cation, but the roots of craft/art-making lie—to some
degree—in an understanding of the antecedents and influ
ences swirling around the ideas you have.
My husband Tom is making big ceramic jars and he knows
they are rooted in the early Chinese and
Mediterranean forms he has looked at for
years. I think craft history (which is part archi
tectural history, part anthropology, part reli
gion, part sociology, etc.) is grounding and
essential to this education. When I took a class
at Penland years ago, Diane Itter showed us
slides every day that wove historical under
standing into our work.
Historic movements may also inform the
direction of craft education today. Consider
the integration of art and architecture during
the 1920s in art deco. There is a revival of
this thinking going on today. Architects are -g
looking for artists to create structural
embellishments that humanize and enliven
side the arts to stretch an idea or reach a new solution.
Suzanne Lacy has led the California College of Arts and Crafts
into new definitions of art as community intervention and sal
vation. Some of these directions challenge the need for
authorship and raise interesting questions about the power of
the individual voice versus the collective voice.*'
Technology plays a key role in craft education and it will
in the future. Each craft, of course, has its own technology to
master, but what I am really thinking about here—with its
implications for the future—is the influence of high technolo
gy on the crafts field. Many artists use computers as a design
and presentation tool, others for the creation of art, others
for communication and accounting. I think there is potential
here for artistic use and perhaps for interface with industry.
Global interconnections will be another part of craft edu
cation’s future, an exciting part because of deep historical
connections and the universality of craft. Exploris, Raleigh’s
new children’s museum about the world, has involved artists
in many of its design teams.
So, what does all this mean for Penland?
Spring Garden Gate by Joseph Miller and David Brewin at the North
Carolina Arboretum, in^IIed as part of the Artworksfor Public Buildings
Program—one (f the intersections between craft and architecture.
Penland’s challenge over the next ten years will be to
remain the place of experimentation and support, of vulnera
bility, healing, and renewal. Penland will be a training ground
for passionate learners of all ages and a networking resource
for advanced artists. At the same time, Penland will stretch to
extend its leadership of ideas, invention, eagerness, and sensi
tivity into a world of increasingly difficult social, environmen
tal, and political relations. As an educational institution
Penland will be both an anchor and a launching pad.
—Jean McLaughlin
Tom Spleth: A New Resource for Penland
the architectural space, and the Minneapolis Spleth.
College of Art and Design has recently devel
oped a new Public Art and Design Institute to train students
in this very movement.
Craft education is about interrelatedness and intersec
tions: with the design arts; with product, architectural, and
landscape design; with engineering; with humanities and
social sciences; and with the fine arts. In many places today
craft education also touches on training in practical survival
skills: business, marketing, and legal concerns.
In some places it encourages collaboration and connected
ness to the community: crossing disciplines within the arts;
design teamwork in public art; or working with people out
Tom Spleth is a deliberate man who never seems to be in a hurry, but as an artist he has covered a lot of territory. His recent
work includes slip-cast functional pottery, ceramic sculpture (both figurative and vessel forms), tile installations, drawings on
paper, and computer generated drawings. He recently moved to Penland because he is married to Jean McLaughlin, but it’s a
move he was happy to make as an artist.
Tom grew up in Oklahoma. He received a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and then got his Master’s at the New York
State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. He stayed in the town of Alfred for fifteen years, first running a pottery and then
teaching at the university. He left Alfred for a residency in the Arts Industry Program of the John Michael Kohler Arts Center
which places artists at the Kohler factory in Wisconsin. While at Kohler, he met Jean McLaughlin who was there assisting with a
show of Hmong textiles. Tom decided to move to North Carolina after the residency and he and Jean were mar
ried eight years later.
In Raleigh, he established a studio where he pursued his many artistic interests. “I think my work makes sense
from one step to the next,” he said. “But overall, it’s not one coherent story. For years that was kind of a problem
for me—in terms of how I was perceived—but it doesn’t bother me anymore.”
A good example of the way his work evolves is his current series of large coil-built jugs and bottles. These are
based on classical forms, but they grew directly out of a problem Tom was having with his figurative work. “I did a
series of drawings of a man’s head which then moved into three-dimensional ceramic heads. The heads were quite
complex and applying glaze to them was something I didn’t quite understand how to do at the time. So I thought
I’d go back to a real clear ceramic problem. That’s why I made these pots—to allow me to work with these glazes
in a certain way. Now I feel confident that I can go back to the big heads and glaze them successfully.”
He’s also planning a new line of slip-cast functional work based on
the large bottles. “That will take that work into casting which will
enable me to do different things with the forms. So one thing leads to
another.” One thing that’s remained constant in all of Tom’s work,
however, is drawing. He has a separate body of two-dimensional woik
on paper and he always uses his clay objects as a drawing surface.
Tom and Jean are eventually planning to buy land and build a
house and studio near the school. In the meantime, they are happily moved into
Bonnie’s Place and Tom will be working in the out-of-use studio behind the Bams.
It’s going to take him a while to get set up, but when he’s finished he hopes to
become integrated into the general network of Penland resources.
Tom Spleth, still moving in.
Actually, this is happening already. Tom was visiting Chris Berti’s first-session stonecarving class when Core student Andi
Steele dropped and broke a sculpture she had just completed. It was an unhappy moment, but Tom invited her to make a mold
from the pieces so she could cast the form in clay. So while Tom was unpacking boxes and building shelves, Andi produced the
first work made in his new studio.
He’s also discussed his work with several of the classes and he’s been invited to be p>art of a three-person show at the Penland
Gallery this fall. Although Tom still has a lot of moving in left to do, his overall take on this new phase of his life is simple and
positive. “I’m very happy to be here.” he said. “I think I will have the opportunity to do excellent work in this place.”