Penland lost three neighbors this winter and spring. Each
of them had a significant role in the history of the school
and the community which surrounds it. The remem
brances shared here by their friends touch on many things
w'hich are woven into the tapestry that is Penland.
Jack Neff was a Penland Clay Residentfrom 1972 to 1916 and
then made his home nearby in Bakersuille. He supported himself
with landscape work and continued with painting and drawing,
which replaced clay as his artistic expression. Jack remained apart
of the Penland community, drawing his friendships equally from
his mountain neighbors and from the increasing number of
Penland artists who settled here. Douglass Rankin, whose time
as a Penland student overlapped with Jack’s residency, was back
at Penland teaching Concentration with her husband Will
Ruggles when Jack died this spring. As theirfriendship came full
circle, Douglass shared this remembrance.
REMEMBERING JACK NEFF
Penland can make you kind of crazy. But usually it’s a good
form of insanity. The kind where you drop all your habit
energy from the daily realm and totally merge—with
wood, with steel, with melted silica, with mountains,
people, cby, starlight.
I think we both began to lose ourselves at the same time,
twenty years ago when I came for Cynthia Bringle’s clay
concentration, and you were a pottery resident. The world
for us both was glowing with the white radiant light of total
immersion, as dense as swimming underwater surrounds
your whole body.
We took a lot of “ten-minute Zen walks” when you’d stop
by the pottery and find me and show me something—a
vine of blood-red Virginia creeper—and we’d sit quietly
with it for ten minutes.
We buried pots; remember the raku covered jar under the
holly tree near the bamboo grove? I can’t even dredge up
the logic on that one now, but it made perfect sense then.
The church bell rang a lot back then, your announcement
of celebration. You made the plates for the first Mexican
dinner and everybody from the school came down to the
bams and decorated them. Somebody loaded the kiln, and
it was firing when you woke up. The cooks made a big
Mexican feed, and everyone took home a cup and plate.
With the donations you bought a telescope for the school.
One August you organized stargazing for the Perseid
meteor shower, and a dozen of us lay watching falling stars
on the knoll. Everything back then had a preciousness that
exploded the ordinary.
Eventually we both ended up as residents of Mitchell
County, sometimes hard-pressed to see the wild glory of
those years as we figured out how to return to the daily.
Sometimes you worked for us; the steps we walk up to our
house; the crocus that line the path and pop up first thing
in stripes of purple and gold; the dent in the pickup where
you shpped into that white pine; iris by the stream; you on
the bank taking a break with your cherry blend; and the
Roan.
FRIENDS REMEMBER FRIENDS
The cancer part was hard. Hospitals, needles, treatments
were some part oflife we hadn’t bargained on. But when
we came to visit you and spend the evenings together,
once again you let me into another world. Conversations
about paintings—yours and other masters—Plains Indians
and their slant on the cosmos, regrets and changes we
would make: always we came away bigger and enriched.
So this year when Will and I came again to Penland to
teach Concentration we left you on Cane Creek. And you
died and returned again to Penland, and we spent spring
together. As I watched, the crazy bright light was back in
full force making the knoll glow and the copper green
church roof shine like neon and the church bell ring clear.
As I walked to sit in meditation at six-thirty in the drawing
studio, a crow would fly up with me or be sitting in the
dead tree outside Northlight. I think you were out
checking around, letting me know Penland was a place
where you could live, but also die, in brightness.
Adelaide Beck Chase was born in 1911, grew up in Chatta
nooga, came to Penland to study pottery when she was about 40,
and stayed on to teach. She met and married photographer
Harvey Chase, who was also a Penland instructor. They built a
home close to the school and remained for the rest of their lives.
Adelaide continued teaching until 1963. Her cousin Olivia
Snider and close friend Katherine Califf chatted about her with
me one day this spring.
REMEMBERING ADELAIDE CHASE
Olivia recalled that Adelaide exhibited, demonstrated,
and taught pottery for many years and made a specialty of
glazes. Her connection to Penland was through her
pottery, but that was not the only artistic expression she
pursued. She was a seamstress of some repute who made
all her own clothes; she made Battenburg lace and other
hand work. She loved to cook and developed a reputation
as a gourmet in the kitchen. Although not an especially
social person, she often invited close friends for an
excellent meal served on handmade pottery set on a
handmade cloth.
After her husband’s death, Adelaide made a home for her
brother-in-law, who had been a farm hand before he
retired. She taught him to embroider, for which he had
quite a talent. Adelaide finished off the pieces and pre
pared them for sale.
Katherine and Olivia described her as shy, self-contained,
generous with her friends, a good bridge player—and
they added with an affectionate chuckle, very hard to
please.
Sculptor Al Vrana lived near Penland and was associated with
the school from 1963 to 1985 as an instructor, mentor, and
champion of the sculpture program. Bill Brown Jr. was a child
when he first got to know Al. He writes about him from the
vantage point of one who followed in his footsteps. Bill returned
to Penland last summer to teach sculpture in the forge.
REMEMBERING AL VRANA
Al Vrana was a sculptor, extremely powerful in spirit,
body, and action and this was reflected in his approach to
sculpture. He did huge concrete architectural pieces
working directly on the structure’s facades. Al also worked
in bronze, steel, stone, aluminum—just about any me
dium which served his artistic needs and expression. I
quickly got the impression that, in whatever he at
tempted, he believed in doing it right or not doing it at all.
He believed that there was a true need for sculpture.
When he came to Penland he knew that it belonged here.
He saw Penland’s need for a studio which focused on
sculpture where the technical craft of the making could be
taught and the art of sculpture could be properly nurtured.
Al felt that it was important to know the fundamentals
before moving into more abstract work. One of his earlier
classes created concrete relief panels for the walls of the
old sculpture studio. That building has long since been
tom down, but the fundamental need for sculpture still
remains. The foundation for sculpture at Penland was
built by Al Vrana and other sculptors who came to share
their art. Their spirit and energy for sculpture at Penland
is just waiting to be rekindled and rebuilt.
On the personal side, I knew Al when I was just a boy in
the sixties. He had the most massive hands of any person
I had ever known. His manner showed a sense of purpose
and determination, and when he spoke, people hstened or
got the hell out of the way. In his later years, with graying
hair and beard, I thought that if there was a Noah, he
would look like Al Vrana. He had a look of confidence
and knowledge that was shaped by many life experiences.
His family and those privileged to have known him, such
as myself, must continue our own journey, but we will
surely all have been shaped by having shared a part of Al’s.