alsih2o said:
for those of you not in the craft world 'know' penland is looked upon with the same level of respect as harvard or m.i.t. in other fields.
and milo, we are doing another soon, i am sure oyu can get another crack at this particular brand of greatness
Here's the homepage for
Penland if anybody wants to know more. We live pretty close to the school here and try to get up there to visit when we can. (BTW, be sure to look
here for some cool pics of the school and its surroundings. God, I love living here in these mountains.) They have the coolest Easter egg hunt I have ever seen. Basically, you use whatever craft/medium you want to create an egg - clay, metal, fabric, paper, etc. - bring that with you for them to hide and then you get to hunt with everyone else for eggs that are, for the most part, extremely unique and well-crafted pieces of art in their own right.
What's funny is that Penland is known around the world as one of the preeminent craft schools in existence, yet I would say that the majority of people who live here around it with us in the Blue Ridge mountains of NC have no clue that the school even exists. Same goes for Black Mountain College, which was here in my hometown from the 30s through the 50s and served as an extension of the Bauhaus movement and was the focal point for a highly influential group of avant garde artists like Josef Albers, Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage, Robert Creeley, Buckminster Fuller and many others.
I've tried to convince the family that owns the land and buildings that Black Mountain College was on (it is now the home to Camp Rockmont in the summer and the Lake Eden Arts Festival or LEAF in the spring and fall) to give tours to art scholars in the off season. The family is pretty ignorant of the history of the college anyway and seem completely uninterested in promoting it at all. It's sad. The neglect for the arts and their history in this country is going to come back and bite us on the @$$ in the future, I'm afraid. Sorry, I didn't meant for this to turn into a rant.
To get us back on track - I am glad to be the Ceramic DM and I hope to come back and defend my title when the next one rolls around. I expect to see you then, Milo