Press release:
Penland School Community Open House
The Penland School of Crafts Community Open House will take place on Saturday, March 5 from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. This is an afternoon of fun and education for all ages with hands-on activities in most of Penland’s teaching studios. No admission is charged. Many activities are messy, so don’t wear your fancy clothes.
Here are the activities for the afternoon: In the clay studio you can make a clay pot on the potter’s wheel or create a little clay sculpture and decorate it; In iron you can use shape hot steel with a hammer and an anvil to make a wall hook; In the metals studio, cast a small keepsake in pewter; and in the photo studio, you can have a portrait made with a projected mask.
In the print studio you can watch printmaking demonstrations and make your own print on the Vandercook letterpress. Visit the textiles studio where you can make a rag-rug coaster on a floor loom and watch demonstrations. In the wood studio, make and decorate a wooden whistle, while in the school store, you can make decorative postcard and browse the great selection of art materials. At the Ridgeway building, make decorative paper using the paste-paper painting process.
In hot glass, make either a paperweight or a juice glass. At flameworking, you can make an ornamental glass bead. Please note that glass activities are very popular. Signups for glass start at 1:00 p.m., but people start lining up at least an hour earlier, so come early if you are hoping to make something in the glass studio. Glass activities are limited to visitors 12 years of age and above. Items made in the hot glass studio will be available for pickup on Sunday afternoon (because hot class has to cool slowly).
If you need a bite to eat while you are at the open house, the Mitchell High School Marching Band Boosters will be selling hot dog lunches from 12:30 to 5 p.m. as a fundraiser for their trip to represent North Carolina in the Independence Day Parade in Washington, D.C. this summer.
Penland School is located near Spruce Pine in Mitchell County. For more information and directions to the school, visit penland.org or call (828) 765-2359. Many thanks to the more than 100 volunteers who make this event possible. The Penland open house is supported by G.E.M Constructors Inc., Greene Construction Inc., Sud Associates, P.A., and Dr. Taylor Townsend, DDS.
Penland School of Crafts is an international center for craft education dedicated to helping people live creative lives. Located in Western North Carolina, Penland offers workshops in books and paper, clay, drawing and painting, glass, iron, metals, printmaking and letterpress, photography, textiles, and wood. The school also sponsors artists’ residencies, an outreach program, and a gallery and visitors center. Penland is a nonprofit, tax-exempt institution which receives support from the North Carolina Arts Council, an agency funded by the State of North Carolina and the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art.
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