NON-PROFIT
ORGANIZATION
US POSTAGE
PAID
PENLAND, NC
PERMIT # 1
PENLAND
LINE
PENLAND SCHOOL OF CRAFTS
PENLAND NORTH CAROLINA 28765
FALL 1991
lORTH CAROLINA HONORS RILL RROWN
N. C. AWARD FOR FINE ARTS
We are pleased to share the news that Bill Brown,
Director Emeritus of the Penland School of Crafts, has
been chosen to receive the 1991 North Carolina Award
for Fine Arts. This award is the state's highest honor. It
has been given annually since 1961 to citizens who have
distinguished themselves in Literature, Public Service,
Science and the Fine Arts. Bill will be honored at a
reception hosted by Governor and Mrs. James Martin at
the Executive Mansion on November 22, 1991. At that
time he will receive the North Carolina Award Metal.
Bill was nominated for this award by his many friends
and colleagues, the people who have been touched by
his unique educational philosophies during more than
21 years as director of the School. Letters of nomination
for Bill were received from 160 individual artists and
educators from across the United States and from as far
away as Japan and Tasmania. Each letter expressed, in
personal terms. Bill's tremendous contribution of love,
intellect, and spirit, to the people who have made up the
contemporary craft movement.
The news of the award was celebrated in Penland on
August 11 with a covered dish picnic held at the home
of Linda Darty and Terry Smith. -Jan Ritter
Bill's health is failing and the family was especially
delighted that the award and the letters in support of it
came at a time when Bill is still able to enjoy them. Jane
Brown has written to express appreciation on behalf of
the entire family. In her letter she wrote:
Bill and 1 together with our immediate family (Billy, Elizabeth and
five-year-old Whitney and Jerry and Lori) send our deepest thanks
to each one of you for writing such very special letters to the state of
North Carolina recjuestin^ that Bill be given an official honorary
award. ...The heartfelt expressions in each of your incredible letters
is truly the highest honor of all.'! And the daily honor was in that
each of you came to assist Bill year after year in proving "that
education could and should be the greatest thing since sliced bread."
We thank you for every day of expertise and caring that you
shared with us a With much love and appreciation we will go to
Raleigh to receive the award which is for Bill but also for our entire
Penland Family.
BILL BROWN:
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
When Miss Lucy Morgan decided to retire in 1962,
with the support of the Board of Trustees, she selected
Bill Brown to be Penland's second director. A graduate
of Cranbrook with both bachelor's and master's de
grees in design. Bill had taught in universities and crafts
schools and had been assistant director at FJaystack.
From the beginning of his tenure. Bill began to invite
the finest crafts teachers and practitioners in the world
to come to Penland. Under his leadership, these teach
ers helped to change Penland from a school that taught
traditional or folk crafts to one which advanced the
professional skills of the artist/craftsman. Although
time-honored methods were still taught, there was a
shift toward the development of techniques, innova
tions, design and to foster the marriage of craft with art.
Up until 1962, Penland School had been in full opera
tion only during mild weather, with a very few students
resident in the spring and fall. Students paid by the
week, or even the day, and came for varying lengths of
time to take part in an ongoing curriculum with resident
teachers. Applying the traditional mountain system of
barter, instructors were never paid, but received room
and board and a chance to live and work in beautiful,
congenial surroundings.
Bill recognized that the time was right to move away
from offering instruction in crafts as a leisure time
activity to the study and practice of crafts as a profes
sion. Instead of a pattern of continuous instruction, he
established summer sessions of two or three weeks each
and added the longer fall and spring concentrations
when fewer students could work with greater intensity.
FJe formalized a visiting artists program, established the
Penland Residents Program and the Core Student Pro
gram and introduced glass, graphics, iron, painting,
photography and fine woodworking, as well as the
movement program.
During his twenty-one years as director, he expanded
the physical facilities and increased the acreage by
acquiring the assets of the Appalachian School when it
closed after more than a half a century of educating
mountain children.
Also during those years, Penland became a magnet for
craft artists who came to teach or study and later
decided to move to the area and become a part of a crafts
community which today numbers over a hundred artists
in Mitchell and Yancey counties The existence of this
"Penland Community" is a direct result of the vision and
commitment of Bill Brown.
Bill set out to show that education could be fun. FJe did
that and a whole lot more. H