Nature of Craft and the Penland Experience: Celebrating the 75th Anniversary of Penland School of Crafts

edited by Jean W. McLaughlin

Hardcover: 228 pages
Publisher: Lark Books; First Edition (2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1-57990-575-7
Dimensions: 10.4" x 10.25" x 0.95"
Shipping Weight: 2.88 lbs.

The year 2004 marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of Penland School of Crafts, a national center for craft education located in the North Carolina mountains. The occasion is celebrated with this book and a companion exhibition, both of which go far beyond telling the story of the school. The intent of the project is to penetrate the very nature of craft.

The exhibition at the Mint Museum of Craft + Design in Charlotte, NC, gathered 137 pieces by artists who have been affiliated with the school, including some of the most respected names in craft. Some pieces date back to the school's earliest days; some are new works. All are presented here—organized not by chronology, medium, or style, but around themes which bring the work together in original and surprising ways. These organizing themes grow from ideas common to all areas of craft: mastery and transmission of skill, sources of ideas, and expression of ideas. A fourth section features work made in response to Penland School itself.

The written content also takes an original approach. Eight writers and scholars from diverse fields spent time at Penland, immersed in the world of craft, then wrote about craft, education, or aesthetic expression from the perspective of their own field. These writers are as follows:

Sociologist Galen Cranz—author of The Chair: Rethinking Culture, Body, and Design

Interdisciplinary scholar Ellen Dissanayake—author of What is Art For? and Art and Intimacy

Chemist and Poet Roald Hoffmann—winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry

Cultural critic Lewis Hyde—author of The Gift and Trickster Makes this World

Poet and novelist Eileen Myles—author of Cool for You

Anthropologist Norris Brock Johnson—professor at University of North Carolina

Folklorist Michael Owen Jones—author of Craftsman of the Cumberlands: Tradition and Creativity

Critic and art professor Patricia C. Phillips—editor of "Art Journal"

Two additional essays explore the history of Penland School and the history of American craft. The voices of artists are represented through brief quotes on making, teaching, and the Penland experience, which appear throughout the book.

Craft is rooted in the fundamental human impulse to use mind and hands to transform basic materials into objects of beauty and utility. In an age of cybernetics, mass media, and virtual reality, craft remains, as essayist Ellen Dissanayake says, "grounded in the life of the body and the physicality of material." The Nature of Craft and the Penland Experience is an anniversary gift from Penland School of Crafts to everyone interested in this powerful area of human expression.