PENLAND Ib3 LINE
THE VEAlt OF ANFRICAN CRAFT?
A Giie.it Editorial by Pauliui Beren.tohn
New Trustees
I mistrust what I speculate to be the thinking behind the
earnest efforts of The Crafts Report Educational Fund to
have 1993 designated The Year of American Craft. I
question, as well, the use of the word educational in the
sponsoring organization. In my thinking public relations
is what they mean and how they behave. This is not a bad
thing, for sure, but different, very different, than to
educate, especially when to educate means to tell the
story, to pass on the story, as it has come to mean to me.
Despite my mistrust, 1 do, whole-heartedly, welcome The
Year of American Craft. 1 intend to celebrate it, to include
some experience and/or discussion of it in all the talks and
workshops 1 give this year. But 1 will need to make two
changes — a deletion and a connection — to better serve the
enthusiasm 1 carry to these occasions for the behavior of
craft and its obvious role and responsibility in the healing
of the eco-catastrophe we are now living in and dying of.
What I will delete is the "American" in the "Year of
American Craft." Even though by "American," North,
South, Central and Native are included, that is still too
exclusive for me. Our passion for named boundaries is
causing too much toxicity in our world as it is. Just look at
whats happening in the former state of Yugoslavia, for
instance. I believe that life thrives on diversity, but a
uniting and interconnecting diversity. We know now that
when we look down upon ourselves and our world from
space, boundaried nations do not exist. They exist only as
adolescent conceits of our very young, out-of-balance,
power-dominated species. Nationalism kills. Craft is trans
national, inclusive, part of a continuum, the genius of our
species: to make dialog with primary materials and each
other, to create and support life.
The connection 1 see might be a coincidence of back-to-
back timing, but for me it's no accident that 1992 was
designated "The Year of Indigenous Peoples" worldwide.
I m encouraged by this appropriate and propitious syn-
chronicity, especially now when the voices of the first
peoples, the first crafts peoples, our ancestors, are calling
for our attention, reminding us of the source of our work
and its connection to our continuous creation.
Indigenous peoples all over the world are breaking their
long and oppressed silences, not to scold but to admonish
us about the "denial of denial" we practice in relationship
to our environment and to our all-too-often cancerous
creativity. While we have fallen asleep to our origins in
earth and cosmos and our ongoing communion with
them, first peoples have kept the faith. While a whole
generation of potters, for instance, now assume that clay
is stuff you purchase in 25 lb. plastic bags from ceramic
supply houses. Native Americans speak of "picking clay"
as one would pick flowers, delicately and with gratitude.
While we study careerism and post modern aesthetics in
university craft art departments, the Kogi Indians of
Columbia sing the same song now being articulated by
quantum physics: how our entire universe is weaving and
woven, strings connecting, losing connection and
reconnecting (transforming energy into matter into en
ergy). Have you noticed how close the much-talked-
about paradigm shift from the world as machine (inert and
mathematical) to world as developing organism (as em
bryo, as both particulate and wave) resembles the creation
myths of indigenous peoples and the stories mystics tell ?
In recent years. I've been drawn to study, visit and pay
attention to some indigenous peoples: the Balinese, the
Kogis, Native Americans, Native Hawaiians and the Ab
original peoples of Australia. I'll be making my third trip
to Australia next September. On an earlier trip, I heard
Dr. Jean Huston say that the Aboriginal psyche is "earthed",
that their consciousness is not trapped in personal ego
as ours is, but constantly flowing and balancing from
the personal to the transpersonal from, as Dr. Huston puts
it, inscape to landscape . This lived connection to the
soul of the world and the living body of the earth is
achieved through the behavior of art. The Aboriginal
Australians are the first crafts people. They have been
practicing crafts and making art (like making love) longer
than any other people, possibly for 120-150,000 years.
They hunt and gather two, maybe three hours a day,
leaving twelve to fourteen hours a day for making things that
speak of and encourage their felt connection to the
formative forces of life in the dreamtime.
So, it is my intention to keep my ear (i.e. my imagination)
focused on indigenous peoples during this "Year of Craft"
and to pass on what comes to me from them. How to
behold rather than to possess, for instance. I would urge
all my fellow craft persons to find your own way to em
body the celebrations of this year of craft and not leave it
to The Craft Report Educational Fund" and "The Ameri
can Craft Council" to organize and orchestrate still more
exhibitions of objects intended to stimulate the craft
economy. There is a story we need to experience and
share before it is too late. This is the year. EH
(Paulus was formerly Penland's Program Director. He is a self-
described amateur artist, a passionate deep ecologist and a profes
sional Fairy God-Father. He also ^ives many hands-on workshops)
Penland School welcomes these five new trustees who were elected
to four-year terms at the Annual Meeting in October.
♦ In her spare time, Heidi Hall Jones is restoring
AN OLD GAS STATION IN ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA WHERE
SHE MAKES HER HOME. IT WILL EVENTUALLY BE A SHOP AND
STUDIO. A METALSMITH, HEIDI HAS BEEN A STUDENT AT
Penland and bubbles with enthusiasm when she talks
ABOUT IT. She is also a part of the corporate world,
CURRENTLY SERVING ON THE BOARD OF A CONSTRUCTION
COMPANY. She works with it and with other corpora
tions AS A VALUES CONSULTANT-TRYING TO INTRODUCE
DIMENSIONS OTHER THAN MARKETS AND PROFITS INTO
THE CORPORATE BOARD ROOM.
♦ Harvey Littleton returns to Penland’s board
AFTER THE REQUISITE REST. HE SERVED ON THE BOARD
FROM 1983 TO 1991 AND WAS PRESIDENT FROM 1 984 TO
1 987. HARVEY IS ONE OF THIS COUNTRY’S PRE-EMINENT
FIGURES IN GLASS ART TODAY, AND HAS SHARED HIS KNOWL
EDGE, INSPIRATION AND ACUMEN WITH COUNTLESS PENLAND
STUDENTS AND GLASS RESIDENTS. HiS HONORS INCLUDE
A GOLD MEDAL FROM THE AMERICAN CRAFTS COUNCIL AND
THE RAKOW award FOR EXCELLENCE IN THE ART OF GLASS
FROM THE Corning Museum.
♦ A PAINTER AND EDUCATOR, CLARENCE MORGAN HAS
BEEN A DRAWING INSTRUCTOR AT PENLAND ON SEVERAL
OCCASIONS. After seven years on the faculty of East
Car-olina University, Clarence has recently moved
TO Minneapolis where he is a professor in the Studio
Art Department of the University of Minnesota, his
WORK IS SHOWN IN SOME HALF-DOZEN EXHIBITS ANNUALLY
AND HIS NUMEROUS AWARDS, INCLUDE AN NC ARTS COUNCIL
Visual Arts Fellowship and an Individual Artist Grant
FROM ART MATTERS, iNC. IN NEW YORK.
♦ The Lucy Morgan family representative is Laurel
Radley, Miss Lucy’s great-niece, from Fairfield,
Maine, who studied weaving at penland in 1976. She
HAS AN M.S. IN OCCUPATIONAL Therapy administration
FROM BOSTON UNIVERSITY. LAUREL IS A MEMBER OF THE
Maine Occupational Therapy Association Executive
Board and is an alternate representative to the
NATIONAL ORGANIZATION AND WORKED FOR MANY YEARS
AS AN OCCUPATIONAL THERAPIST IN PSYCHIATRIC SETTINGS.
♦ A FORMER Penland Resident and frequent instruc
tor, Richard Ritter shares a studio with his wife Jan,
TWELVE MILES FROM THE SCHOOL. HE ORIGINALLY CAME TO
Penland to study with Mark Peiser. “l worked with
Mark for three weeks,” he says, “and decided to sign
UP FOR THE TWO-YEAR RESIDENT PROGRAM, ... I ENDED UP
STAYING SEVEN YEARS.” ORIGINALLY FROM MICHIGAN, HE
MADE A PERMANENT MOVE TO THE PENLAND AREA IN THE
EARLY BO’S. His work is IN MANY COLLECTIONS INCLUDING
THE CORNING MUSEUM OF GLASS, THE HIGH MUSEUM AND
THE Vice-President’s Residence Collection.
T7T