After more than 20 years as a Sociology professor, Paul left academia to work as Curator and Director at the Wharton Esherick Museum, the Pennsylvania home and studio of the renowned woodworker Wharton Esherick. Paul had been a hobbyist woodworker for many years, but his orientation to wood changed after working at the Museum. Instead of constructing pieces of furniture from flat squared boards, Paul began shaping and sculpting pieces from logs and branches. Working full time left little room for woodworking. Retirement gave Paul the time to focus and develop his wood carving. Since retirement, he has been carving bowls, spoons, other utensils and small pieces of sculpture at his studio in Celo, NC. His work is on display in the Foundation Woodworks Gallery in Asheville, NC., and the Toe River Arts galleries in Burnsville, NC, and Spruce Pine, NC. Paul’s studio is part of the Blue Ridge Craft Trails, a program of the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area. His work has appeared in Fine Woodworking magazine. He has written and/or edited several books on the work of Wharton Esherick.
Artist Statement
I draw inspiration from the natural world around me, and from my experiences at the Wharton Esherick Museum, trying to blend flowing organic forms with traditional functional designs. I carve with both hand and power tools. I try to use sustainably harvested wood, most of which comes from generous friends and neighbors. I try to respect the nature and character of each log or branch as I sculpt the bowl, spoon, or utensil. My recent designs reflect my experimentation with natural elements of the wood -- weathering, occlusions, burls, bark, spalting and live edges.
Ann Marie Kennedy is an artist and papermaker based in Raleigh, NC. In her installations and works on paper, she uses natural materials to create narratives about human connections and experiences. She is an Associate Professor at Wake Tech Community College and a former resident artist at Penland School of Crafts (2001-4). She teaches workshops in hand papermaking and participates in many exhibits both locally and nationally.
Artist Statement
In these works, I explore paper’s ability to contain memory and the residue of place. The pieces are made using a hand papermaking process. I compose materials like plants, linens, shredded cloth and lace in a slurry of wet pulp. The pulp itself is created from textile materials and are processed in a Hollander beater. As I lift the papermaking tool, out of the water, the materials float around in the pulp and rearrange themselves, often creating a sense of organic movement and disrupting the sense of order I am trying to impose. I often add marks and lines using a type of pigmented pulp. The paper dries translucent, revealing the materials within the piece. These works refer to a particular moment in time, but also to the nature of memory itself, the way we revise and re-pattern it while contributing to its illusion of stability. View Ann Marie's Website
As an artist with a long history in photography, digital manipulation, performance art and installation, my practice of creating forms from an authentic relationship to the earth fuses all mediums. The heightened moment of completion is photographed and becomes an archival print, an artifact of the momentary (or temporal moment). Making in places where others circulate ‘outside’ is a significant performative aspect to my work. I often place forms in high circulation areas and leaving collected found materials where people would feel comfortable adding to each Terra Form. Sometimes I invite specific groups or pedestrians to work with me or refresh the work with newly collected foliage in the following days. The experience is to be shared, changed and felt by others, with the hopes of inspiring a deeper engagement to the sophistication and balance of the natural world. After years of separating ourselves with climate controlled lodging and impervious surfaces, this “Terra Forma” series seeks to encourage others to feel the air that is, the leaves that tremble, and the earth beneath their feet. View Crista's Website
Spiraling Scales
All prints are the first edition of 10, float mounted over white archival board with white frames
Hillary Waters Fayle received a MFA in Craft/Material Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University, and a BFA from Buffalo State College. She is an Assistant Professor and directs the fiber program at Virginia Commonwealth University. She has previously taught at Penland School of Craft (NC), the Mediterranean Art & Design Program, (Italy), and Yasar University (Turkey) and is alumna of the Oak Spring Garden Foundation Artist Residency (VA). Her work is in the permanent collections of the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo, NY, Grace Farms Foundation in New Canaan, CT, the United States Embassy to Sri Lanka, Colombo, the Kalmthout Arboretum & Botanical Gardens in Belgium and is on view at the US Embassies in Algiers, Algeria and Dhaka, Bangladesh. Recent professional projects and publications include collaborations with Domestika, L'Occitane en Provance and the New York Botanical Garden. A public installation in collaboration with the AKG Museum can be seen year round in Buffalo, NY.
Artist Statement
I bring together materials and processes that express the union of humanity and the natural world, most often textile traditions in collaboration with botanical material. These pieces explore our deep historical and lived experience with cloth and the botany that surrounds and supports us- a connection I feel to be both powerful and ever-present; grounding us in time and place, binding us to past and future. Stitching, like horticulture, can be functional-- a technical solution to join materials/a means of survival-- or, both can be done purely in service of the soul, lifting the spirit through beauty and wonder. View Hillary's Website
Linda Goodwin is a retired physician. She studied figurative bronze sculpture under Paul Granlund in Minnesota and has been drawing and messing with plants, color, rocks and natural materials since childhood. Linda and her husband, George Pfeffer, live in the North Carolina mountains and make art with found, foraged and salvaged materials.
Artist Statement
“Close observation, curiosity, experimentation and simply playing are at the heart of my art. I am intrigued to use materials from the bounty of nature or the excess of human-made detritus, in surprising ways. My husband and I delight in developing entirely new techniques and in collaborating with natural friends, including wasps, ‘weeds’, fungi, rivers and even the rain itself.”
George is a retired Chemistry professor who then became involved with Concord’s Old Courthouse Theatre and Theatre Charlotte. Thanks to that experience, he was asked to teach Theater class in high school and ended up with Chemistry, Physics and Rhetoric in addition. He and his wife, Linda Goodwin, live in the western North Carolina mountains and make things grow while looking for unusual natural and human discards.
Artist Statement
“I have enjoyed making small drawings of animals for pop-up and other kinds of cards for my wife and children. My wife and I have been exploring the sometimes unpredictable colors that flowers and other plant materials give when used as inks and dyes. Using natural materials from our yard combined with evolving techniques, we continue to be surprised by the outcomes. Reproducibility isn’t the goal and might be unattainable anyway when earth, air, water and fire are the co-workers.”
Vicki Essig is a full-time artist living and working in the mountains of North Carolina. Her studio work includes weaving and paper-making, collecting and observing. Her work is quiet, contemplative, and intentional. Vicki’s professional career began over two decades ago, when she studied hand weaving, textiles, and design. She later became proficient at working with exceptionally fine yarns and slowly developed a body of work that incorporated intricate patterns with remnants of nature and fragments of old books. She recently built a new studio where she will continue her exploration of textiles alongside paper and book arts. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States and can be found in the collections of Baylor University, the University of Washington, UC San Diego, UC Santa Cruz, North Shore University Health System in Chicago, and Fidelity Investment Bank in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Artist Statement
I walk. It calms my mind. I know just what to do next. My feet carry me forward. Mostly my walks are routine, tranquil, and quiet. Occasionally I flush out a bird, a deer or two. Sometimes I come around a bend in the path and am delighted to see a dried pod, a tree full of galls, or a vine that is particularly beautiful that day. I am in a place of meditation. This is how my weaving feels to me as well. It is quiet and methodical, one thread after another carrying me forward.
On a good day, I am surprised by the time that has slipped away as I witness where I have been and where I am going, traveling on foot through the landscape or into the space in front of me at my loom. My contemplative pieces are a reminder that the small fragments of nature that we tend to overlook are always there, waiting to be seen. As you view my work, I hope that, at least for a moment, you become lost in the discovery of the minute, the quiet of repetition, and the beauty of nature and pattern.
As a former ballet dancer turned chef, William has been consistently immersed in some sort of creative discipline since the age of fourteen.
”I am currently painting in two distinct styles. One style is a textured, all black or white series named “Under the Sun”. It’s a reflection on the book of Ecclesiastes. For the pieces in this series, I am wrestling with the more intense experiences in life, both good and bad. The other style is more of a representation of my greater body of work, and always involves elements I cannot control: fire, water, elements, etc. I work in response to what nature does. I try not to ever force an image onto a canvas, but rather discover new things through constant observation and response.”
William is based in Charlotte, North Carolina. He is happily married to his wife, Kim, and they have a daughter, Ember.
We use cookies on our website. Some of them are essential for the operation of the site, while others help us to improve this site and the user experience (tracking cookies). You can decide for yourself whether you want to allow cookies or not. Please note that if you reject them, you may not be able to use all the functionalities of the site.
Bio
Bio
Bio
Bio
As a former ballet dancer turned chef, William has been consistently immersed in some sort of creative discipline since the age of fourteen.
