Mended Foreshore Pot: Collection of Five. Marf Summers, artist.
Running currently through November 29, the Penland Gallery presents Perfection: a question of repair, an exhibition guest curated by esteemed UK textile artist Celia Pym. A reception will be held Friday, October 17, from 4:30-6:30 p.m. at the gallery, with earlier events at the Northlight Building including a showing at 3 p.m. of the film Can Everything Be Mended? and an artist talk by Pym at 3:30 p.m.
The exhibition looks at the artistry of mending, repair and reconciliation in consideration of themes such as damage, perfection, beauty and care. In particular, says Pym, familiar, domestic and everyday items such as sweaters, socks, chairs and dishcloths figure in the group show. “Hopefully, the exhibition challenges ideas of what a perfect object is, and how repair and mending is a slow, ongoing process, one that reconciles the damage that has occurred,” says Pym. “It is also a materially rich exhibition. And, hopefully, inspires the audience to see potential in a broken thing—where they might not have before.”
Mended Bag. Celia Pym, artist
The 2024 documentary film, Can Everything Be Mended?, by Chuck Blue Lowry and Sue Mayo complements the ideas put forth by artists in the exhibition. “The film explores whether everything can—or should—be mended and how repair is an act of resistance,” says Pym. The essay film, she adds, “is a celebration of the beauty, resilience, curiosity and tenacity of menders, who have so much to offer the world.”
The exhibition challenges the notion of perfectionism in general and, at the same time, addresses how stressful striving for perfection can be. For instance, imperfection brought about by damage or age can elicit feelings of disappointment or a longing for the state of perfection that once was. “What I love about the work in this exhibition is that the artists provide a variety of ways to approach mending something that is broken,” says Pym. “All the artists demonstrate a sensitivity in their making that allows them to make the appropriate response to the damaged, leftover, waste thing or material that they have in front of them. There is not a perfect way to repair. Instead, what these works offer is examples of care, tenderness, humor, sensitivity to materials, ways of persevering and reimagining things that might otherwise have been discarded. The mending is an additional layer to the story of the life of the object.”
Pym published her first book, On Mending: Stories of Damage and Repair, in 2022. She is an associate lecturer in textiles at the Royal College of Art in England and has taught at Penland School of Craft in recent years, with plans to return to teach in the school’s textiles studio next year.
“I hope the exhibition makes visitors smile and come away with a feeling of tenderness towards themselves and the things they use in daily life,” says Pym.
The Penland Gallery & Visitors Center is located at Penland School of Craft on Conley Ridge Road in Mitchell County near Spruce Pine. For more information, visit Penland.org/gallery or call 828.765.6211.
