The Penland School of Craft ("Penland" and formerly "Penland School of Crafts") 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.

History

left|thumb|Craft House

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 The center, called Penland Weavers and Potters, Penland buildings were designed primarily by North Carolinian architects, including Frank Harmon and Cannon Architects in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Dixon Weinstein Architects in Chapel Hill.

The school campus was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2003 as the Penland School Historic District.

Overview

, 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. There are about 1200 people who study at Penland each year.

An exhibition of works created at Penland was held at the Mint Museum.

References

Further reading

  • Bonnie Willis Ford. 1931 Weaving Institute at Penland Hunter Library Library Digital Collections, Western Carolina University
  • Bonnie Willis Ford. 1932 Weaving Institute at Penland Hunter Library Library Digital Collections, Western Carolina University
  • Appalachian Industrial School in the Mountains of North Carolina. Hunter Library Library Digital Collections, Western Carolina University
  • Appalachian Mountain Community Centre. Hunter Library Library Digital Collections, Western Carolina University
  • Records at Huntington Library Digital Collection. Hunter Library Library Digital Collections, Western Carolina University
  • McLaughlin, Jean, ed. Inspired: Life in Penland's Resident Artist and Core Fellowship Programs. Penland: Penland School of Crafts, 2016.
  • McLaughlin, Jean W., Mint Museum of Craft + Design, and Penland School of Crafts. The Nature of Craft and the Penland Experience. 1st ed. New York: Lark Books, 2004.
  • Morgan, Lucy and LeGette Blythe. Gift from the Hills: Miss Lucy Morgan's Story of Her Unique Penland School. First ed. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1958.
  • Penland website
  • The Penland Experience