Arthur Gonzalez and sculpting expressions at Penland

 Penland School of Crafts has a wonderful guest teach program, so people come for workshops of several weeks, based on the time of year.

Here's a wonderful post about clay sculptures.

HERE.

When sculpting insecurity, mischief, skepticism, jealousy, contentment… asymmetry is key.

Today's quote:

We seldom accept negative comments from others; however, we so often accept our own inner negative chatter.

Clay animals who tell a story

 Some wonderful critters in clay. I wish I could have taken this workshop. I would have Loved It!

 Tina Curry Empowers Students to tell Stories in Clay 

Penland workshops are special just because of the campus, and the staff who support all the activities, and the students, many of whom are work-study students. There are dorms also, but I don't know much about them. It would be a long drive from my house to Penland, and I stopped considering it being possible for these old bones many years ago. That would be to enable me to be a day -student, coming each day and going home again. 

I prefer to drive up with friends and visit the gallery and the pottery studio (when a class isn't going on.) It's always inspiring!

Interestingly enough, I'd just been looking out my window and had a hare very similar to this one sitting on the grass, doing nothing but looking. Then he took off, and again stopped to check out the scene. I haven't seen one here in quite a while. Maybe I need to look out my windows more!

Somehow he seems a bit skinny to me. Hope he found some good grass to munch, since he didn't seem interested in ours.

Sharing with Eileen's Saturday Critters

 https://viewingnaturewitheileen.blogspot.com/2024/06/saturdays-critters-547.html

h

Crafts workshop Penland NC

A neat video came out...with just a taste of what working on your craft at Penland means.

Penland video.

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.

A (very brief) History of clay in North Carolina

Seagrove is known for being the pottery center of North Carolina...and there are definitely more potters per square mile than any other location.

One result is the North Carolina Pottery Center, a museum and educational center.

The educational portion of the museum looks to some of the history of clay as a form of functional and artistic pottery.

And how did young people who were drawn to the craft learn about the skills?  Here is a 1970 photo of Penland School of Crafts students watching a demonstration by teacher,  Cynthia Bringle, who is still making beautiful pottery and has her studio at Penland in 2018.

Penland School of Crafts is closer to Black Mountain, being in the mountainous area of North Carolina.  It has a great gallery, open house, auction and studios...with classes in many crafts! Check out their own site.  I've posted several blogs about my visits there, (HERE) and (here)

Many potters today learn on a kick-wheel.  Before electric wheels, pretty much all pottery was thrown this way.

An interesting framing of a photo of clay diggers...as if we're looking through a window.  Clay is found along many creek banks in North Carolina, and some potters still dig their own clay, but most of it is processed in big warehouses so there's consistency in its handling and firing.

A great little diorama of a man firing a wood burning kiln...a bee-hive shape.  Now there are gas and electric kilns, but the beauty of wood firing is apparent and used by many potters still today.

A long shed roof protects the wood firing kiln, where the fire box is at one end, and many pots are loaded in the middle, before the heat escapes the tall chimney at the other end (missing in this model.) The grey pot shown is not part of the kiln model.

A kitchen scene shows how many types of pottery were used in early America.

And just in...from a post on Facebook for Spruce-Pine Potters Market!

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

Penland - some clay studio shots

The pottery kiln shed

Gas kiln  was being fired while we watched

Patterns of wood

Ancient water tower snuggled with ultramodern print classrooms

Today's Quote:

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.

e.e. cummings

Spontaneous visit to Penland

We were driving from Burnsville to Spruce-Pine (North Carolina) and had to detour up to Penland since it was almost on the way.  And Cathy had never been there.

Why not?  There were no time deadlines, and we just ate lunch at the Garden Deli in Burnsville.  I'm going to see if I can find somewhere else to eat next trip...just saying, it's ok, but I want some diversity.

Where the huge willow used to be, there's a replacement planted at the Garden Deli.

The last few times I've driven to Penland I've gone the route through Spruce-Pine, so missed seeing this decrepit barn, and its stage of decay.

Before we went to pick up our unsold mugs at Twisted Laurel Gallery, we just went to see the Penland gallery, and the beautiful views of Penland.

Penland Gallery

And the Penland Gallery building is being renovated, so this is the temporary quarters for the gallery exhibits, about half as big as the former floor space.  But we were told the renovations should be done sometime in the fall.

We didn't visit much of the school of crafts, but I enjoyed taking a few pictures of areas I wasn't as familiar with.  See my blog posts from yesterday and tomorrow!

The Penland dining hall

I'm linking this to Sepia Saturday for this week...though it hasn't a thing to do with the theme which is fishy.

Wait wait, while we were driving through Madison County (NC) we started looking for The Bridges of Madison County (movie with Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep) and so everytime we crossed a bridge, we'd call out...It's a bridge of Madison County!

What do bridges have to do with fish?  Well, a few of them crossed over the South Toe River, which not only has lovely swimming this time of year, but quite a few trout! 



Today's Quote:

People often say that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder. This empowers us to find beauty in places where others have not dared to look, including inside ourselves.

Salma Hayek