By Gina Malone
The historic campus of Penland School of Craft will be the setting for the 41st Annual Benefit Auction on Friday, August 21, and Saturday, August 22. The auction begins Friday at 1:30 p.m. with a reception at the Penland Gallery, followed by artist demonstrations and a silent auction. On Saturday, events kick off at 9 a.m. with coffee and an open house at the resident artists’ studios. Afterwards, a silent auction, buffet lunch and live auction will take place.
Bittersweet. Kimberly Thomas, artist
Fiber artist Catharine Ellis first came to Penland in 1976, seeking to learn more about weaving and turning her skills into a lifetime pursuit. The mentors she found there led to a career teaching the Professional Craft Fiber program at Haywood Community College for 30 years before her retirement in 2008.
Ellis developed her own approach to weaving and dyeing called woven shibori, and she has published books about the process as well as co-authoring The Art and Craft of Natural Dyes with Joy Boutroup, whom she met at Penland. Each fabric Ellis creates involves a process of discovery and a chance to learn. “The thing that ties them all together is the natural palette of color and the approach to dyeing,” she says.
Her donation for the auction is a queen-size quilt. “It is somewhat of a documentation of my learning how to use natural dyes in combination with the woven shibori,” Ellis says. “The cotton fabrics were all woven at a small mill in Hendersonville (The Oriole Mill, now closed) to my exact specifications.”
Margaret Couch Cogswell visited Penland as a child and holds it dear for its mission and its scenic beauty. While a resident artist, she began working in papier-mâché, and, for this year’s auction, she has donated a papier-mâché dog. “Dogs, and especially the dog form, hold a fascination for me,” she says. “My donation is a way for me to give back to a place that gave me the chance to spend three years establishing myself as a professional artist.”
Overgrowth. Mercedes Jelinik, artist
Since her Penland residency, Rachel Meginnes has contributed to the auction to give back and to stay connected to the craft community.
“I’ve been working with found and deconstructed textiles for over 20 years,” she says, “taking apart old quilts, fabrics and other worn materials and building them back into something new. It’s a practice rooted in my mother and grandmother’s rug-hooking tradition, though it’s taken its own shape over the decades.” She will donate a large-scale weaving made from reclaimed, vintage quilt battings, a nod to traditional coverlets woven at Penland in 1929.
“Penland continues to be the place where craft artists ‘find their way’ as I did so many years ago,” says Ellis. “The students who come to Penland are serious, searching and open to possibilities. The student body ranges from young adults to seniors and has become even more diverse in recent years. I cannot think of a better place for experiments, discoveries and—as I did—creating a life of making.”
The Penland Gallery and Visitors Center is located at Penland School of Craft, 2687 Conley Ridge Road, near Spruce Pine. For a schedule and individual day or full weekend tickets, visit Penland.org/gallery or call 828.765.6211. Absentee bidding is also available.
