Newspapers / Penland Line (Penland, N.C.) / Dec. 1, 1993, edition 1 / Page 7
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PENLAND SD LINE couraged exploration. As we learned to form metal or clay or glass, we shaped ourselves. Bill had a vision, perhaps not consciously articulated and fortunately not entombed in a mass of theory. The spirit of Penland was its living expression. Bill Brown 'let people be.' "Jane Hatcher ♦ ♦ ♦ Ron Carfinkel writes of his first meeting with Bill when, despite the fact that Ron had no art background, he was trying to persuade Bill to let him join the residents pro gram. Wc talked for five hours: 1, ready to pursue the 'craft life' and Bill trying to dissuade me.... As 1 was ready to leave he said that though I couldn t be a resident craftsman, he did need an assistant and I should come and do that. ... His parting comment was, 'When I pick up a hitchhiker, it's not the guy standing still, but the guy moving down the road towards his destination.'" Ron then tells of his arrival at Penland some weeks later. "As I drove into Penland in September 1969 I was excited and nervous. Accompanied by my wife and our two-week- old daughter, we were pulling a small trailer with all of our possessions into the start of a new, unknown life. As promised by Bill Brown a few weeks earlier, there was a small house waiting our occupancy. When I went to see Bill the warm September afternoon of my arrival, he said that there were two sessions left that summer and that I should join the pottery class since that is what I really wanted to do. ... After the classes ended, I often went to Bill to try to work as his assistant. Well, it soon became clear that there was no such position. He had gotten me to Penland to pursue my goals, not his goals." ♦ ♦ ♦ My wife and I were some of the last to say good-bye in Maine when Bill left Haystack School of Crafts to become director at Penland, and 1 might add, some of the first to answer his 'Hey Rube' call from the mountains of North Carolina. At this time I was teaching at the State Univer sity of New York in Buffalo, but wanting to move on. Bill made an offer,' You want to be a craftsman? You won't starve and you'll have a roof over your head.' So off we went to Penland to become part of his study for a proposal that started the very successful craftsman in residence program. " C. R. "Skip" Johnson ♦ ♦ ♦ One of the first things Bill saw when he came to Penland was the need by those who completed university training in the fine crafts for a transitional education: there were no practical courses to help bridge the gap between being a student and beinga full-time craftsman. For this purpose, in 1963, Bill inaugurated the Penland Resident Program. That spring, Ed, an art student, moved from Michigan to be the first participant in the program. In the summer, Judy, a high school art teacher with an M.F.A. from the School for American Craftsmen, came from New York to be the first participant in textiles. Bill involved area people in learning about contemporary crafts and there was plenty of enthusiastic help for the school craftsmen from local folks. As a result of advancing our practical educa tion at Penland (and being married there in 1964!) we established our home and studios in Yancey County in 1967 Ed and Judy Brinkman 1 would like to focus on the unique brand of nurturing, love and caring that Bill and Jane brought to Penland. ... Names and scenarios are many but the same scenario was played and replayed. In the spring of 1971, a young man drove up the Penland hill. His hair was long, he drove an old Volkswagen bus which was his home. At first glance one might easily mark him as a hippie protester of the '60s. In truth he was a broken human, fresh from a year in a V.A. hospital where the wounds of the flesh were partly healed, but the Vietnam War also took its toll in his spirit. With barely enough money to pay for a two-week session, he enrolled in a class in jewelry. Soon Bill had found a work/ study scholarship for him. When he expressed an interest in becoming a blacksmith. Bill found him a space, found tools, coal for the forge and, even though at that time no program in blacksmithing existed, the young man was allowed to work at his own pace in an environment of nurturing love and respect. ... Today he as an artist-blacksmith in Washington State." Richard Cunningham ♦ ♦ ♦ Bill once described coming up to a kiln firing on one of his early morning rounds that was obviously past temperature and decided to do nothing despite an immi nent meltdown of ware, kiln and building! An hour later a groggy, panicked studio monitor came racing up to find it still his responsibility to shut the kiln off. The pots were gone, the kiln was damaged, the only things remaining were the building and a tangible sense of accountability in the air for all who witnessed the event. Bill cared little for the architecture of learning (the fa cade); he devoted his life to the visceral, sometimes terrifying aspects of knowledge, no matter what the consequences." James Lawton f 1 ♦ ♦ ♦ Debra Frasier shared a quote from Bill that sums up what many people expressed in other ways, "... things never were competitive here at Penland, something about the place asked people to compete with themselves and that is where the real lessons are..." Debra goes on to say, Penland really worked like that—teaching us to set inner goals amid people working at every level of accomplish ment. Permission and commitment to explore were the foundation of life and work at Penland School." "During our second summer teaching at Penland School (early 1970's) a car load of crafts people stopped by for a visit. Bill Brown was glad to see them and, even though the session was full, made arrangements for meals and beds. He commented to us that the government should subsi dize him for keeping all the 'crazy' crafts people up on this mountain and off the streets." Oscar and Sarah Bailey ♦ ♦ ♦ "Bill laughing was a sound that made people stop and listen, as there would be a joke or story being related. The laugh was about something small but huge in joy and pleasure, and it made us incredibly happy. It still feels like there are laugh prints all over the trees, buildings and walkways, as others continue the story telling and the jokes, and the passion for conversation and working goes on. This is the real success, that others carry on the ideas, adding their own, and a fine school lives on." Lenore Davis ! . i . ■' V If ij .. fP ‘ I JP ■/j ^ If "-m zm p ' jk ■ i '4 I ' m ' ' I ' k'; In this The Year of American Craft, Penland School celebrates the legacy Bill Brown has left specifically to the school and to Western North Carolina and, more broadly, to the American Craft Movement. Many of the crafts people he nurtured through the Resident Program have remained in the area forging a community which in turn has become a network of support for the school. The roster of those residents includes artists who have added luster to the history of contemporary crafts. As for Pen- land, there are more than laugh prints on the trees. There IS a Bill Brown philosophy print in the way the school contin ues to allow education to happen by putting instructors who want to share what they know together with students who want to learn by solving problems for themselves, and then just "letting them be". gg T7T
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