Penland School Historic District | |
![]() Penland School of Craft panorama | |
Location | NC 1164 (Conley Ridge Rd.), Penland, North Carolina |
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Coordinates | 35°56′16″N82°07′41.9″W / 35.93778°N 82.128306°W |
Area | 115 acres (47 ha) |
Built | 1929 |
Architect | Beeson, D.R.; Van Wageningen & Cothran |
Architectural style | Bungalow/craftsman, Colonial Revival, Rustic Revival |
NRHP reference No. | 03001270 [1] |
Added to NRHP | December 10, 2003 |
The Penland School of Craft ("Penland" and formerly "Penland School of Crafts" [2] ) is an Arts and Crafts educational center located in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Penland, North Carolina in the Snow Creek Township near Spruce Pine, about 50 miles from Asheville.
The school was founded in the 1920s in the isolated mountain town of Penland, Mitchell County, NC. In 1923, Lucy Morgan (1889–1981), a teacher at the Appalachian School who had recently learned to weave at Berea College, created an association to teach the craft [3] [4] to local women so they could earn income from their homes. [5] The center, called Penland Weavers and Potters, [3] provided instruction, looms, and materials.[ citation needed ] Local volunteers built a cabin and then a larger hall. In 1929, Penland was officially founded as the Penland School of Handicrafts after Edward F. Worst, a weaving expert and author of the Foot Power Loom Weaving, visited the school to provide weaving instruction. [4] [5] Worst added classes in basketry and pottery. [4]
Bill Brown, who took over in 1962 after Morgan, created a resident artist program and expanded the number and length of courses. There are 51 buildings on 400 acres. [6] Penland buildings were designed primarily by North Carolinian architects, including Frank Harmond [7] and Cannon Architects in Raleigh, North Carolina [8] and Dixon Weinstein Architects in Chapel Hill. [9]
The school campus was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2003 as the Penland School Historic District. [1] The district encompasses 31 contributing buildings, 1 contributing site, and 3 contributing structures. The district is characterized by one- and two-story frame farmhouses dating from the turn of the 20th century, associated agricultural outbuildings, and Rustic Revival style log buildings. Notable buildings include the Colonial Revival style Lily Loom House and Pines; the Craft Cabin; Homer Hall; Ridgeway; and Beacon Church. [10]
As of 2005 [update] , Penland offered Spring, Summer, and Fall workshops in craft disciplines, including weaving and dyeing, bead work, glassblowing, pottery, paper making, metalworking, and woodworking. It also offers fine arts subjects, such as printmaking, painting, and photography. [3] [5] Workshops are taught by visiting American and international artists and professors, [3] [5] a tradition that started with Worst and until he died in 1949. [4] [5] Academic degrees are not awarded by Penland, but students can receive college credit through Western Carolina University (WCU). [11] There are about 1200 people who study at Penland each year. [6]
Penland holds an annual Community Day in early March, when the school's studios are open and visitors can work on a small project with the help of the artists. [12]
An exhibition of works created at Penland was held at the Mint Museum. [13]
Lenore Tawney was an American artist working in fiber art, collage, assemblage, and drawing. She is considered to be a groundbreaking artist for the elevation of craft processes to fine art status, two communities which were previously mutually exclusive. Tawney was born and raised in an Irish-American family in Lorain, Ohio near Cleveland and later moved to Chicago to start her career. In the 1940's and 50's, she studied art at several different institutions and perfected her craft as a weaver. In 1957, she moved to New York where she maintained a highly successful career into the 1960's. In the 1970's Tawney focused increasingly on her spirituality, but continued to make work until her death.
Hunter Library is the university library at Western Carolina University and is located in Cullowhee, North Carolina. Hunter Library supports Western Carolina University's mission of teaching and learning. The Library provides intellectual content, and services related to its discovery and use, for the learning, teaching, and research activities of the University's students, faculty, and staff. By supporting the acquisition of learning and the production of knowledge and scholarship, Hunter Library intends to inspire the individual and the intellect, fostering professional, personal and social growth.
The Mint Museum, also referred to as The Mint Museums, is a cultural institution comprising two museums, located in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Mint Museum Randolph and Mint Museum Uptown, together these two locations have hundreds of collections showcasing art and design from around the globe.
A woven coverlet or coverlid is a type of bed covering with a woven design in colored wool yarn on a background of natural linen or cotton. Coverlets were woven in almost every community in the United States from the colonial era until the late 19th century.
Chunghi Choo is a jewelry designer and metalsmith who was born in Incheon, Korea in 1938. She received a BFA degree from Ewha Womans University in Seoul, Korea, where she majored in Oriental painting and studied philosophy of Oriental art and Chinese brush calligraphy. She moved to the United States in 1961 to study metalsmithing, weaving, and ceramics at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where she received an MFA in 1965.
Richard Ritter is an American studio glass artist who lives in North Carolina.
Fritz Dreisbach is an American studio glass artist and teacher who is recognized as one of the pioneers of the American Studio Glass Movement.
Valle Crucis Episcopal Mission, also known as Valle Crucis Conference Center, is a historic Episcopal mission church complex and national historic district located near Valle Crucis, Watauga County, North Carolina. The Gothic Revival style, gable-front stone Church of the Holy Cross was built about 1924. Other contributing resources are the church cemetery with the earliest burial dated to 1808, Auchmutv Hall dormitory (1910-1911), The Annex, "The Farm House" (1915), Former Dairy Barn, Former Apple Barn, The Mission House (1896), the Power Dam (1903-1930), the Valley / Field, and the Apple Orchard. The Valle Crucis Episcopal Mission was established by the Episcopal Church in 1844-1845.
Gary Lee Noffke is an American artist and metalsmith. Known for versatility and originality, he is a blacksmith, coppersmith, silversmith, goldsmith, and toolmaker. He has produced gold and silver hollowware, cutlery, jewelry, and forged steelware. Noffke is noted for his technical versatility, his pioneering research into hot forging, the introduction of new alloys, and his ability to both build on and challenge traditional techniques. He has been called the metalsmith's metalsmith, a pacesetter, and a maverick. He is also an educator who has mentored an entire generation of metalsmiths. He has received numerous awards and honors. He has exhibited internationally, and his work is represented in collections around the world.
Norm Schulman was an American ceramic artist who lived in Penland, North Carolina. He was born in New York City in 1924. He operated his own studio, Norman Schulman Studio, in Penland.
Cristina Córdova is an American-born, Puerto Rican sculptor who works and lives in Penland, North Carolina.
Cynthia Schira is an American textile artist and former university professor. Her work is represented in the collections of many major public museums.
Susan Morgan Leveille is a weaver and teacher from Dillsboro, North Carolina. Part of a long line of weavers and educators in the state, Morgan has been a central figure in the craft movement in western North Carolina. In 2014 Leveille received a North Carolina Heritage Award from the North Carolina Arts Council in honor of her work.
Wendy Maruyama is an artist, furniture maker, and educator from California. She was born in La Junta, Colorado.
Suzie Liles is an American fiber artist, master weaver, the owner of the Eugene Textile Center and co-owner of Glimakra USA, in Eugene, Oregon.
Cynthia Bringle was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and has lived and worked in Penland, North Carolina since 1970. She is a potter and teaches at the Penland School of Crafts, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, and John C. Campbell Folk School.
Michael Sherrill is an American ceramist and sculptor. Primarily self-taught, Sherrill's early work in the 1970s and 1980s focused on creating functional pieces in clay before turning to sculptural artwork in porcelain and metal in the 1990s. Sherrill lives and works in Bat Cave, North Carolina.
Mary Zicafoose is an American textile artist, weaver, and teacher who specializes in ikat, an ancient technique in which threads are wrapped, tied and resist-dyed before weaving. Zicafoose is the author of Ikat: The Essential Handbook to Weaving Resist-Dyed Cloth (2020). Her works are part of private and public collections, including at least 16 embassies around the world as part of the U.S. Art in Embassies Program.
Frances Louisa Goodrich was an American weaver, writer, and archivist. She is best known for founding the Allanstand Cottage Industries in 1887.
Lucy Calista Morgan (1889–1981) was an American weaver and teacher. She is known for creating the cottage industry in North Carolina that would eventually become the Penland School of Craft. Morgan is considered an important part of the American Craft Revival that flourished in the first half of the 20th century.
There is much more information about the history of Penland in this article.