Paulus Behrensohn

	"... After 25 years working in clay, I finally read Paulus Berensohn's "Finding One's Way with Clay". He describes many techniques for pinching pots, and ways to experiment with clay to create new expressions. The steps in making simple or complex hand modeled pieces are clearly explained, and I found them useful in teaching elementary art classes. There's also a thorough chapter on building a simple sawdust kiln...."
Finding One's Way With Clay: Creating Pinched Pottery and Working With Colored Clays by Paulus Behrenson with photographs by True Kelly
"... This pinch pot bible describes in detail how to make large and small pots without a wheel, how to use color in clay bodies, how to fire in low-tech sawdust kilns, and most, especially, how to look at clay from a humanist perspective as 'equipment for the journey. When Finding One's Way with Clay was first published in 1972, American pottery was firmly gripped in a technological mindset, with formulas for clay and glaze an imperative and high temperature firing the ultimate. Paulus Berensohn suddenly gave us a fresh look at clay - pinching instead of throwing, forming off-center pots, firing with sawdust, seeing our bowls as 'beloved' instead of only as objects for sale. Sawdust firing had already leapt from Denmark to England and hence to America, but it was Paulus who revealed the intrinsic nature of this 'gentlest of fires' Of course, we kenw it was here all the time in what was deprecated as "primitive" pottery, but Paulus showed us how relevant the 'primitive' way of making pots was to contemporary ceramics..." Reviewed by Gerry Williams. Studio Potter Network Newsletter, Spring 1998.

Clay: the ecstatic skin of the body of the earth... from a promotion for a 2007 talk given at Harvard Dance Center
Photo by True Kelly
"One night in the middle of a performance, at a climax in the dance where we then had to freeze, a voice in my head said, 'This is dancing on a stage, what does it mean to dance in life?' And very shortly after that, I was taken to a picnic, and there was a great American potter there, and I watched her throwing on the wheel, and I made that connection that the act of throwing clay on a potter's wheel was a kind of dancing. And I was just enchanted, and wanted to learn that dance." Thus Paulus Berensohn was launched from dancing with Martha Graham to "Finding One's Way with Clay" (the title of his seminal book that was republished on its 25th anniversary and translated in 15 languages). During the past forty years he has traveled extensively for offering workshops; and he was written numerous articles and the monograph, "Whatever we touch is touching us: craft art and a deeper sense of ecology". He describes himself as 'an amateur visual and craft artist, a passionate deep ecologist and a professional fairy god-father who works with clay, is a weaver, a bookmaker and journal-keeper, a poet, a doodler, a dancer, a teacher etc.' He works " to extend the expressive to open the receptive, the physical to be infused with energy, and the soulful to embrace the spiritual..."
Mention in Califauna Blog
Earthbeat Interview

Harvard Crimson's interview: 15 Questions with Paulus Behrensohn "...Paulus Berensohn, author of “Finding One’s Way With Clay,” recently came to the Harvard Dance Center to lead the workshop “Clay Body, Human Body: the practice of art”. The self-described weaver, bookmaker, journal-keeper, poet, doodler, dancer, and teacher doesn’t have a cell phone or e-mail address, but FM was able to catch up with the multi-talented guru—but only after he attended to a mass of adoring fans, the last of which presented Berensohn with an apple in thanks. Clad in a flowing white outfit and sporting a snowy ponytail (but no shoes), Berensohn was finally free to enlighten FM...."

"... Paulus is passionately concerned with the ecology of our beautiful planet. He sees artistic behavior and listening attentively to be our most important human skills to help us save the wider, non-human world.. Paulus is the most magical journal keeper I have ever met—by this I mean that he has the ability to take the daily events of life and transform them into windows onto the sublime through careful recording and playful responding inside the journal. It is truly remarkable...." Debra Frasier, Author/Illustrator, former Penland Student

Photos in Finding Ones Way with Clay are by long-time Toe River Valley resident True Kelly "... instead of the luscious color photos of virtuoso pots that fill modern pottery books, this book is full of grainy black-and-white pictures of rough, lumpy, mostly unglazed pieces. Even so, many of them are beautiful on the intimate scale of the pinch pot; and this anniversary edition features a few new photos..."

The Bringles

Cynthia Bringle
"A pot is for daffodils, or it is a porridge pot, or a pot for pills. Pots are to give away, to keep, to touch and hold, to feel the curve of earth and sky. A pot is a mood of many hues, but most of all a pot is to use." Cynthia Bringle

In an interview published in Studio Potter Magazine entitled The Pot is a Mood of Many Hues, "...Cynthia describes her work and her underlying philosophy of life. This well-known and dedicated potter living in Penland, North Carolina is widely admired in America for beautiful functional pottery as well as for her teaching and mentoring. Her association with Penland School has been long-standing, as is her deep emersion in the culture and history of the Southern Highlands. She built a gas car kiln, a wood-fired kiln, and a raku kiln. She likes firing anagama kilns and favors the way the flame licks around the pot and deposits ash. 'I like never being quite certain about the final results,' she says, referring to form and what happens to it in the firing. She loves to make covered jars of all kinds, jars on feet, jars without feet, jars for kitchen counters, jars that are cylindrical and bulbous. 'I think when you look into history," she says, "you can see that our pots will last. What has remained in history is largely clay. So I just hope to keep on doing what I'm doing now, and pass on the information in my life. I teach a few classes. For the last few years I've been trying every year to take one course at the Penland School, leaving my studio and doing something new such as pastel painting. I've had a great time and it enriches my own work',"
Article on the June 1999 Retrospective at Folk Art Center Recipient of the North Carolina Award Article at Mint Museum site. Buy vitreographs produced at Littleton Studios

Edwina Bringle
Edwina (right) with her twin sister Cynthia. A few years ago, after 24 years of teaching at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, NC, Edwina Bringle joined her twin sister Cynthia in Penland where the two of them now run a gallery where they sell their work. Cynthia is an accomplished weaver and fiber artist who is known for her superb use of color and design in the creation of her woven textiles. She also works with wools, cotton, chenille and other fabrics to craft free-motion embroidery wall tapestries. She begins these tapestries with a white cloth to which she applies textile paint. Then she stitches over the design to give it richly layered look. Edwina has been a Penland Resident Artist and frequently teaches at the school. Her work is in the collection of the North Carolina Museum of History and the Greenville Museum of Art.

The Bringle sisters maintain studios and a gallery in Penland,

Penland School of Crafts

Send your choice of free historic Penland postcards like this one depicting the “Travellog” which was driven to Chicago in 1933 to display Penland creations at the World’s Fair. Penland founder Lucy Morgan sits on steps. (Bayard Wootten/ Penland)

Penland has been a major force in attracting an amazingly high calibre of artists and artisans who have moved to be within a 30 mile or so radius of this internationally-recognized school. Some first came as students. Some as artists in residence. Many, drawn by the growing number of other artists in the area and the area's phenomenal natural beauty have stayed on. Here's an overview of what has historically made Penland such a powerful cultural force.

"Schools like Penland and Haystack Mountain (Maine) continue to be important because their small scale and flexible structure allow them to experiment and develop programs in a way that can't be done within the more formalized structure of universities and art schools. At Penland you learn by watching others and that's very important.  That community of exchange and sharing is hard to document, but it's part of why Penland exists."
Paul Smith, Curator Emeritus of the American Craft Museum (now the Museum of Arts & Design)

The Mint Museum's "Penland Experience"

Learn the History of Penland

Watch 20 Video Clips that give you
'the Penland experience"

Examine 132 Penland Art Objects

Find Penland Alumni and Their Work

Penland School of Crafts

"...Workshops are the core of Penland’s educational program. Each summer, the school offers 98 one- or two-week classes in books and paper, clay, drawing and painting, glass, iron, metals, photography, printmaking, textiles, wood, and other media.In the spring and fall, Penland has seven classes that run for eight weeks. These long sessions, called Concentrations, are unlike anything else offered in craft: almost as long as a college semester with the focused intensity of the single-subject workshop. We also offer a few one-week classes in the spring and fall. Penland has no standing faculty—instructors and students come to the school for the duration of their session. Students at Penland take only one class at a time, making it possible to cover a tremendous amount of material and to form close relationships with other students in a few weeks." Located in Penland, NC, about an hour and 15 minutes north of Asheville.

Public Events at Penland include an Annual Open House in early March where with hands-on activities and/or demonstrations in clay, hot glass, flameworked glass, iron, metals, papermaking, printmaking, textiles, and wood. The event is free and open to the whole family; children are welcome.... Each year 400-500 visitors join 100 local volunteers for this afternoon of education and fun. Some activities, particularly glass, are very popular and have limited spaces. Sign-ups will not start until 1:00 PM, but guests are welcome to come early and get in line."

Annual Penland Auction 2nd weekend in August

A Short History of Penland

Postcard from Penland Part 1

Postcard from Penland, Part 2

Tour Penland
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, you can join a
tour of the campus (reservations required).
You'll be able to tour the campus and visit the resident artist's studios. You can have lunch or a snack in the coffee shop... shop in the art supply store and the gallery. Pick up a map to artist's studios in the vicinity. Note" You won't be able to visit the teaching studiosTour the school and visit working artist's studios to avoid disrupting the teaching and creative experience.

Tours of Penland School leave the gallery on Tuesday at 10:30 AM and Thursday at 1:30 PM; reservations required. For more information call 828-765-6211.

"Remember mountain days
Remember friends and
mountain neighbors
and the joy of hands at work
Remember mountain days"
from the wall on the walk from North Light to the Ceramic Studio

Visit the Penland Gallery
The gallery presents functional and sculptural work in books, clay, drawing, glass, iron, metals, painting, papermaking, photography, printmaking, textiles, and wood. In addition to the sales area, the gallery has an ongoing series of invitational shows..."

Schedule of exhibits and opening receptions.

Gallery Hours: early March through mid-December: Tuesday-Saturday: 10 AM - 5 PM, Sunday: 12-5 PM (Closed Mondays).

Directions

Bread and Puppet Theater at Penland

Articles and Blogs about Penland

Weekend warriors need not apply: Local feminist Christians mark a decade of exploration

The Creative Crucible at Penland
Pdf version

Bookgirl's The Penland Experience

Jack Troy: Hayland and Penstack
"...Every now and then someone asks me, “Which do you like better, Penland or Haystack?” My answer is always the same: “Yes.” And when they give me the identical bewildered look, I don’t blame them a bit. If you’ve attended workshops at these remarkable institutions - unique to the world; deserving their own genre of patriotism - you may know what it is to ogle one of North Carolina’s most cherished Blue Ridge views from a picnic table in front of The Pines and imagine a Maine island just beyond the mixed hardwoods enclosing Cynthia Bringle’s studio, or maybe you’ve gazed off a deck overlooking Penobscot Bay and conjured up a spot on the southeast horizon where an imagined mountain-gash represents the geological C-section where our soda feldspar originates, near Spruce Pine. Something we breathe at both places induces the same sensation that made Emily Dickinson an “inebriate of air.” Penland’s llamas graze across from what might be the little harbor-bay whose curving shore mimics the last turn on Conley Ridge Road; bamboo and rhododendron thickets thrive where vaguely spooky moss and springy duff might clothe spruce-roots. Is that a predawn train or lobster-boat guttering out early? How can rain on the kiln-shed’s roof mimic a high tide shredding itself on granite, just below your cabin? What measly proportion of these irresistible breakfast calories will I really need to make a couple dozen cups and show a tray of teabowl slides before lunch? (Logo on a T-shirt fetching $65 at a recent auction: PENLAND, WHERE VEGETARIANS EAT BACON)..." click here for rest of post

Browse AshevilleBliss.com's Bookstore
Explore the Bliss of Teaching Yourself (or Brushing Up On) Fine Crafts Techniques via These Excellent Books
Books are great teachers! There always there when you need them... even at 3 a.m.! We personally think they make a great compliment to taking workshops. However, if you're REALLY short on cash , these books are a great 'second choice'... even available in most cases, used. Many of these books (particularly the Lark ones) feature South Toe and Asheville area artists and photography.

Shane Fero

"The medium allows Shane to create intimate and highly detailed images from his fertile imagination. Collectors appreciate how his work ranges from whimsical to surrealistic."
John Cram,
Blue Spiral 1 Gallery

"... Magical is the only way to describe the lampworking process. Sitting in front of a small oxygen-propane torch, Fero slowly heats a rod of clear glass. His slender fingers are a study in perpetual motion, moving the glass back and forth over the flame, always looking, always studying. When the moment is right, he gives a small controlled puff, forcing the glass to expand in the center, determining if the shape is what he's looking for. Next, Fero reaches toward a dish filled with powdered glass, twirling the newly blown form, which soon becomes the belly of the bird. Vivid color bursts forth as he moves the rod back into the flame. As shade and shape unite, he begins manipulating the glass again, giving a controlled puff that becomes face and beak, selecting tools to pull more of the molten glass, forging tiny feet to support the 6 - inch-or-so body. Everything is done in sequence, dipping the molten body into powdered glass, twirling it back through the flames, studying shape and movement, fine tuning the extremities... from an news article by Sue Wasserman, Asheville Citizen Times

The article goes on to say how his pet cockatiel has free reign of the family's cabin which is just a stone's throw from Penland School... and how his early fascination with Egyptology, then Greek and Roman mythology, has influenced his work.

Shane on birds:

"Initially, I sculpted the birds as accoutrements for perfume bottles and vases, resting them atop flameworked tree limbs. More recently, they've become standalone sculptures. Their form is really nice for rendering into glass."

On where he lives:

"I came up to visit, decided I liked the area and enrolled in a hot glass class. Not only did that class expand my horizons, it changed my life."

On on his next 'style':

"I've had so many styles, providing me with a sense of form, motion and color," he said. "Each style has proven to be the perfect training ground for me. I can't wait to see where I go from here."