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Donations from talented Penland artists have been arriving all week, and seeing the works in person makes it feel like this year's auction is just around the corner.
Please be a part of the art, the community, and the fun by joining us August 12-13 for the 31st Annual Penland Benefit Auction!
In addition to the Friday and Saturday silent and live auctions, the weekend is full of opportunities to visit with new and old friends at cocktail and coffee receptions and to meet Penland's resident artists in their studios and the core fellowship students at a special open house. This year's hands-on workshop for Lucy Morgan Leaders will focus on journal making as a small tribute to Paulus Berensohn, who will be honored as this year's Outstanding Artist Educator. Lucy Morgan Leaders contribute $1,000 or more to Penland's annual fund each year.
Become a Lucy Morgan Leader here.
If you haven't registered for this year's Benefit Auction yet, you can do so by visiting the online registration page. For more information, please visit the
auction webpage and join the
Facebook event for photos, updates, and more.
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Paulus Berensohn: Penland's 2016 Outstanding Artist Educator
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Paulus Berensohn
h
as
inspired generations of artists as a teacher, mentor, and friend and a vital part of the Penland community. We are proud to be presenting him with Penland's 2016 Outstanding Artist Educator award. Below, Paulus's friend and student Debra Fraiser reflects on his unique process and his substantial impact.
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Debra and Paulus on the Penland knoll earlier this spring
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Recently we had to dig a well on our land near Penland School and we were helped by a dowser's stick and its mysterious sensitivity to water. The language of the well-finding process made me think about my friend, Paulus Berensohn. Why? Because couldn't we call him a
dowser of the imagination?
Like a dowser inexplicably finding underground water with a twig, Paulus consistently locates the invisible connections of our spirit to our natural world by using the most simple of tools:
his questions,
his clay, paper, pastes,
and his stack of poems.
The maps of his searches stand on a long shelf inside gorgeous, hand-stitched journals. These luminous pages are a testament to how he "behaves artistically" while searching for the hidden rivers that connect us to our Earth, and to each other.
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A selection of Paulus's many colorful, handmade journals
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But Paulus's dowsing for the spirit is often in
people. For example, if he should aim a poem at you, his voice will lilt, his left eyebrow will arch, and his eye will meet yours as he recites the words-then suddenly something unknown will rise up inside you: a question, a tear, a crack of light. It is as if he points you to your very own
well of the imagination.
Paulus will say he knows so little, only stumbles, doubts himself every step of the way. But like many of the thousands of people who have been part of his workshops here at Penland, I have been transformed by witnessing his process of working. Time and time again I have seen his pursuit for understanding a primary material (or a word's derivation) suddenly inspire bubbling springs of the imagination
in the people around him. This is the River of Connection the he has mapped with all of us.
So maybe
WE have been his life work, after all-not just the exquisite hand-pinched pots, not just the evocative writing, not just the memorable dancing.
Maybe all along his work has also been
us.
This August, Penland School will recognize Paulus Berenson as its 2016 Outstanding Artist Educator. No one could be more deserving of this honor.
- Debra Frasier, Author & Illustrator
I was introduced to Paulus Berenson by my mother in our living room beside the Atlantic when I was 16 years old, and then reunited at Penland in 1978 when I walked to his door as a 25-year-old Penland core student, knocked, and asked, "Could you teach me about journal-making?" "Come in," he answered, and so began our long journey together.
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As a nod to Paulus, who is renowned for both his incredible pinched clay pots and his hand-bound journals, we have selected a few works in these media for the preview below. Each will be up for auction this summer, as well as many other works in wood, metal, clay, paper, textiles, jewelry, and more.
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Alice Ballard, Pair of Pinched Meditation Bowls Honoring Paulus,
white earthenware, terra sigillata, oxides, linear glaze, 2-1/2 x 5-1/2 x 6 inches
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Daniel Essig, Bask,
mohagany, oak, koa, handmade paper, milk paint, mica, metal, Ethiopian bindings,
4 x 14 x 31 inches (group of three)
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Pattie Chalmers, The Mixed Tape 1,
clay, mixed media, 7 x7 x12 inches
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Elizabeth Turrell, Childhood Walks: Lost and Found,
vitreous enamel on steel, book cloth, 3-1/2 x 2-1/2 x 33-1/2 inches
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Liz Zlot Summerfield,
Floral Cream and Sugar Set with Brick,
earthenware clay, terra sigillata, underglaze, glaze, Nichrome wire, 6 x 7 x 3 inches
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Thank you for
being part of the
Penland School of Crafts community.
Penland School of Crafts is an international center for craft education dedicated to helping people live creative lives. Located in North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains, Penland offers workshops, artist residencies, a gallery, and community collaboration programs. Penland School is a nonprofit, tax-exempt institution that receives support for its programs 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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