Penland School of Craft

aerial view, Penland campus

So here it is, my official post to share a gigantic, big-adventure, life-list, happy, crazy-excited, enterprise I am about to embark on.  In April I found out that I received a full scholarship to the Penland School of Craft. Full, as in classes paid for, and room and board paid for.  I have such gratitude for such generosity.  

What is Penland about?  According to their website, Penland is "a national center for craft education located in North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains" and its "focus on excellence, its long history, and its inspiring, retreat setting have made it a model of experiential education".  If you haven't gone to the website, well, then, abandon this blog post right now and hit it.  You won't be sorry you did. 

I have no idea what to expect during my time at Penland, but I do know it has the feel of adult summer art camp and serious work combined into one cool package and I can't wait to find out what that might be like.  According to their student handbook "While at Penland, you can expect to work hard, learn a lot, make friends, and forget about the rest of the world in an isolated setting without the distractions of phone, TV, or daily newspapers.You can also plan to have fun, eat well,and get the kind of rest that comes from total immersion in something you love".  Amazingly awesome. I honestly can't remember ever having an adventure like this by myself, no family, no friends, no significant other, just me.  GULP.  Well, just me and a bunch of crazy artists, new friends I haven't made yet. Um, hell to the yeah.

The Pines Portico - dining hall, rooms, life

A big thank you to my dear friend Rachel Williams  and one of my favorite profs at LSSC, Dr Melanie Wagner, who both wrote beautiful, amazing letters of recommendation for me.  I have no doubt that the letters helped significantly in my getting the scholarship.

printmaking desks and studio
one of these will me mine, yeah.

The class I am taking is John Hitchcock - Print Blitz: Alternative Screenprint Methods held in the printmaking studio.  Scroll down almost to the bottom of the page on the link and you'll find the Week 5 class.  I really don't have any experience in printmaking at all, but have had interest percolating for quite a while now.  Interest percolating and a sense of it running parallel to some other work I've been doing.  My watercolors tend to be little illustrations, which I think lend themselves to printmaking. And during my drawing class at school one of the things I loved most was pen and ink.  Some of my work done during that time period had the strong feel of printmaking.  So...parallels and interest and I'm ready to take the next step right off the ledge and into two-and-a-half weeks of wtf. Yeah.

Here's the address for snail mail while I am there:

Michele Pietrzak
Penland School
PO Box 37
Penland, NC, 28765

I'd love to hear from you while I'm tucked snugly in the mountains of North Carolina, that much is for sure. Please write, send a postcard, make a silly drawing on a paper placement, fold it into origami and put it in an envelope, just send me something sweet and fun to open while I am gone.  I'd really love it.

Gratitude.  Excitement.  Promise.  Happiness.