Tuesday Featured Artist - Cynthia Bringle

A living artist who's a master of pottery.

Cynthia seems to have a lot of fun in her life...here letting me shake her hand, just to take a photo.

Saturday, March 19, 2011C

Spruce Pine Potters Market 2018

What is a pot
a pot is not
just any gray
little bowl of clay
a pot is a pot
for daffodils
or a porridge pot
or a pot for pills
cruets and goblets
jars and jugs
platters and plates
and trays and mugs
shallow pots
or dark and deep
pot to give
and pots to keep
touch them, hold them
pick them up
batter bowl
or saké cup
and feel the curve
of earth and sky
kitchen warm
or springtime shy
a pot is mood
of many hues
but most of all
a pot is to use.

Delighted to welcome @cynthiabringle back to SPPM! She is one of our Esteemed Elders and is also the Mayor of Penland (😉). 

#sprucepinepottersmarket #cynthiabringle #penlandclay

Cynthia Bringl

CYNTHIA BRINGLE   1939, Memphis, Tennessee)

From an old post about her birthday..

A bowl a birthday!

Cynthia Bringle is known for both her functional pottery and for her enthusiastic teaching and mentoring. She has had a long career at Penland, North Carolina, creating work that reflects the culture and history of the southern highlands. Cynthia began as a painter, and continues to paint as well as decorate her work in a painterly fashion, creating what she terms as ceramic “Wall Paintings”

Cynthia began her career at the Memphis Academy of Art where she first took a short course in clay. She then took courses at Haystack School in Maine. and at Alfred University. At Alfred, she studied with both Robert Turner and Ted Randall. It was then that she returned to North Carolina and began teaching at Penland School, where she helped develop the ceramics program. She now lives permanently in Penland.

At Penland she built a gas car kiln, a wood-fired kiln, and a raku kiln. She enjoys working with the Anagama kilns, creating work that utilizes the resulting ash deposits of the firing process. Cynthia Bringle exemplifies the best of  American functional and non-functional art pottery.

Here are some of her wonderful works...
http://www.cynthiabringlepottery.com/

I've been so pleased to see Cynthia's work at various shows in NC.  And I've actually met her a few times, when visiting Penland and Spruce-Pine NC. 

If you haven't had a chance to go Penand Schoo of Crafts, please put it on your bucket list...about an hour's drive north of Asheville and Black Mountain.  There are open houses in the spring each year, classes in all craft disciplines, and a gallery of gorgeous goodies.

information is here
http://penland.org/about/description.html 

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And here are some new photos from Cynthia and Pam Brewer's booth at the Spruce-Pine Pottery Show on October 13 & 14, 2018.

The birds belong to Pam Brewer.

 I don't know why I wanted to shake her hand, but a visitor (could have been her booth-mate, because I didn't find out who Pam Brewer was) offered to take my photo with Cynthia..."Sure," I said! I was a bit star-struck. I did mention to Cynthia that I would be writing a blog about her. She didn't seem to mind.