Male: In the hills of western North Carolina, the Penland School of Crafts.
Robin: Penland is a workshop school. We don’t have any standing faculty, all of our
instructors are guest instructors. They come along with the students for the
duration of their class. The classes are 1 week, 2 weeks, or we also twice a year
have sessions that are 2 months long. So that’s the duration of the classes. And
students and instructors show up at the same time and they live here for the
duration of their class. And students are enrolled in one class at a time. They're
working with 1 instructor on 1 subject matter. And you can learn a tremendous
amount in a very short amount of time that way.
We have students all the time tell us that they came to Penland for a couple of
weeks and they took them a year to really absorbed and then putting the craft that
they have learned in that time frame.
So we have this concentration of studios where all these different media are going
on. So someone who is studying glass blowing can very easily walk down and see
what the potters are doing. Well, in a sense, they're doing similar things. They got
things going around and they're shaping them with their hands or with tools. And
so you got glass blowers who are going down and looking at people throwing pots
and thinking, hmm, I wonder if I can make that out of a glass. And that kind of
thing goes on all the time. So there's lots of ideas and inspiration that move
around in that way.
I would say that we call ourselves Penland School of Crafts because that’s our
history. And the other thing is that our programs are primarily rooted in a very
strong sense and love for particular materials. And that in a sense is very typical
of people who are identifying themselves with craft and it’s a way of looking at
things that’s understood and respected in the craft world. People who make pots
tend to really love clay. And we really respect that and honor that. And so, that in
a larger sense, I think is why we're Penland School of Craft, because our classes
tend to be quite rooted in understanding and a love of particular materials.
Male2: I can only do so much of this, I find even at times I get lost by pulling the handle.
And even spend an hour on a handle, which is not cost effective. But there is joy
is just getting the right arch in the handle. The right feel in the handle on a cup or
a pitcher.
Female: This is studio is in its 5th year of being used. It started in the fall of 2000 and we
designed it as a place to teach blacksmithing, primarily. But it is also a fabrication
area and we done a little bit of bronze casting here. So we have 12 coal forges
here and we have some gas forges too. And we teach additional classes here and
we also teach contemporary conceptionable sculpture classes using blacksmithing
techniques. And that is what I'm teaching. It’s a class in sculpture using traditional
blacksmithing techniques. In a different visionary kind of way.