The Penland Experience
Last year The Penland School of Craft celebrated its 90th year. Located about 90 minutes from Asheville NC, the school is the creation of Lucy Morgan. During the Depression, she enabled Appellation women to augment their income by teaching them how to make and sell baskets. What began with a log cabin and a horse-drawn wagon out of which the students sold their crafts, Penland now maintains twelve studios. The school offers about a 100 courses that include weaving, ceramics, metal, glass, wood, paper, print making and more to over 1200 students a year.
During May/June 2019 I attended two sessions at Penland. The first course was engraving with Pierce Healy and the second enameling with Jamie Bennett. Going to Penland had been on my bucket list for forty years. It was a life changing experience.
Some of my engraving classmates in Metals Studio I.
Session instructors at Penland are there by invitation. They are among the leading artist in their field. Pierce Healy is a native of Dublin. His engraved jewelry of minute detail incorporates the bizarre and whimsical worlds of his imagination. Pierce has been refereed to as “the Irish Lord of the Rings” after Peter Jackson commissioned him to make ten silver rings featured in Jackson’s film, Mortal Engines.
Jamie Bennett is not only a superb enamelist , but for thirty years was also chair of the metals art department at SUNY, New Paltz; one of the foremost training programs for jewelers in the country.
Working atop enamels fired on 18K gold and fine silver, Jamie then paints and draws china glazes to create ethereal abstracts. Jamie spends as much time on the back side of a piece of jewelry as the front or as one says the “private” versus the “public” sides of a piece. See Jamie’s work
Penland is a totally immersive learning environment. Classes of about a dozen students work closely with their instructor who is supported by a studio assistant. The latter is often an advanced graduate student nearing the completion of an MFA. Many eventually become Penland instructors themselves. Most classes run ten days. Instructors generally give one demonstration each morning and another after lunch. The rest of the time students are left to incorporate these new skills into their project(s.) Classes generally begin at 9:00 AM and end at 5:15 PM with a break for lunch. It is not unusual for Penland students to put in 12-14 hour days working late into the night. Penland offers fully equipped studios.
The work environment is very collaborative and students can form life-long friendships with classmates. Penland students get three-meal/day dinning and have housing options that range from single room with private bath to thirteen-bed dormitories. Work/study and scholarships offer qualifying students affordable opportunities to attend Penland.
My Penland experience brought my jewelry making to a new level. I took these courses back to back. One month at Penland is a bit exhausting. I was, however, able to incorporate engraving into my enameling as I could texture the surface of copper or fine silver prior to firing with transparent enamels.
Florentine engraving, clear enamel over oxidized copper, silver foil and china paint.
I also use engraving when I do intaglio printmaking. Go to my e-store for my prints for sale and check out my blog on re-purposing engraving plates for jewelry.
Some artist attend Penland every year. There are seven Summer sessions lasting 1-2 weeks as well as eight-week programs in the Spring and Fall . Winter is given over to advanced artists looking for a quiet place to do their art. Penland also has three-year residency program for select artists who get private studio and living space. Each August art collectors come from all over to Penland’s Resident Artists’ art auction paying up to $500 a tickets to get a seat in the bidding hall. One-hundred percent of the auction proceeds go to the Residents.
Penland is a magical place. It calls you back. It re-energizes your creative juices. I had planed to return this August for a class on lost-wax casting and another on fusing gold foil on silver, but Covid-19 has forced Penland to cancel its Spring and Summer programs. Interested in learning more about Penland and how to enroll for courses?
PS: Visit their site for information on up-coming on-line auctions of artwork produced by faculty and students to support Penland through this difficult time.