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University of North Carolina Asheville
Craft
Campus |
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Bowing Bottoms Up, by Micah Sherrill
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"Intermittent Loop" by Dan Millspaugh
Stuart's Canyon Sky, by Brent
Skidmore
February 10th
Sylvie Rosenthal
WNC Furniture Maker
12:30pm Art History lecture room (Owen 237)
March 17th Brent
Skidmore
Sculptor, Furniture Maker, Craft Campus
Director
12:30pm
Owen 237
Alex Gabriel
Bernstein grew up in a creative environment with access to many
of the artists of the American studio glass movement. As the
child of two established glass artists, William and Katherine
Bernstein, the beautiful surroundings of the Blue Ridge
Mountains in Western North Carolina where they lived played
almost as much of a part in his inspired upbringing as did the
breadth of teachers around him.
Alex studied
psychology at the University of North Carolina in Asheville and
worked at a children’s psychiatric hospital before making the
decision to purse his artistic endeavors full time. He received
a Master of Fine Arts from the Rochester Institute of
Technology’s School for American Crafts and went on to teach at
the Rochester Institute of Technology, the Cleveland Institute
of Art, the Penland School of Crafts and The Studio at the
Corning Museum of Glass.
Most recently
Alex was the Department Head of Glass at the Worcester Center
for Crafts in Massachusetts but he made the decision to return
to his hometown, Asheville NC, in 2007 to set up a studio and
focus on creating his own work full-time.
Bernstein has
recently mounted solo shows at Chappell Gallery in NYC; Hooks
Epstein Gallery in Houston; Habatat Gallery in Royal Oak,
Michigan; and the William Traver Gallery, Seattle. His work is
included in numerous collections, including those of the Corning
Museum of Glass, the Glasmuseum Frauenau in Germany, the Mellon
Financial Corporation, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the
Palm Springs Art Museum.
In
July 2007, Brent Skidmore was named Director of the Craft Campus.
Skidmore is an accomplished wood sculptor and formerly an assistant
professor at Kendall College of Art and Design in Michigan.
Artist
Statement
A desire for better understanding of
energies, emotions and events in and around my life compels me
to make sculpture and furniture. These inspirations may range
from particular sexual/personal
energy, an emotion or response,
a particular happening (past, present or imagined) as well as a
real or imagined
place/space.
Through an open
creative process,
which includes many
drawings,
I hope the work will develop personality and uniqueness
associated with, but not limited to the energies, emotions and
events that inspired its conception. At the same time, I want to
jog similar circuits in those that view and use my pieces.
The manipulation of humor,
awkward form relationships, introduction of real or implied
function and the use of color are in response to my existence.
These form and color relationships help me to celebrate humor as
a strong elixir; it heals.
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Meet the Maker:
Conversations of Meaning
with Craftspeople
Craft Campus lecture/workshop series
This year-long
workshop and lecture series focuses around meaningful conversations
with individual craftspeople, artists, and designers in each one of
the craft media: metal, clay, wood, glass, fiber, and mixed media.
The goal of the series is to link the conversations with the
"Makers" to the life of the viewer/user of contemporary craft. The
power of knowing how experiences with handmade objects and craft
enrich, change, and sustain is what drives this unique series. The
series aims to generate awareness of contemporary craft practices
and their significance in Western North Carolina and beyond.
Connections to other departments are many but highlights may include
connections to Sociology, Environmental Studies, Economics,
Classics, Art, Multimedia Arts/Sciences, Arts and Ideas and History.
All events are free and open to the public.
Sponsored by the UNCA Cultural and Special Events Committee.
Spring Schedule
below. Previous
speakers.
UNC Asheville
Press Release
February
5th Dan Millspaugh
Sculptor/Retired UNC Asheville
Professor
12:30pm Tucker Cooke Gallery (Owen 237)
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Lo slung boulder table, by Brent Skidmore
February 26th Jen
Swearington
fiber arts and
mixed-media quilts
12:30pm in Art History
lecture room (Owen 237)
7:00pm Laurel Forum (Karpen Hall 139)
UNC Asheville
will hold a retrospective exhibition of works by noted Asheville sculptor
and former professor Dan Millspaugh from January 30 to February 25 in UNC
Asheville's S. Tucker Cooke Gallery. An opening reception will be held 6-8
p.m. Friday, Jan. 30, in the gallery. Millspaugh will give a gallery talk at
12:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 5, in the gallery. Events are free and open to the
public.
The exhibition features more than 30 sculptures and 40 photographs of
permanent installations, spanning more than three decades. Millspaugh works
predominately in large metal sculptures crafted from new and reclaimed
materials. His love and innovation for this art form transferred to the
classroom. For example, in 2001 he removed 300 pounds of brass from a dorm
demolition project to be used for casting in his sculpture classes.
Sylvie Rosenthal started
building at age six at the Eli Whitney Museum where she made
circuses, catapults, rockets, and robots and was introduced to
the work of great inventors and artists such as Alexander
Calder, Leonardo DaVinci, and AC Gilbert. Her formal study of
traditional European woodworking at the Rochester Institute of
Technology’s School for American Crafts (BFA ’03) tempered these
explorations and instilled a dedication to craftsmanship. Sylvie
has been routinely invited as a visiting artist and teacher to
many schools including San Diego State University, University of
Wisconsin Whitewater, Anderson Ranch Arts Center (Snowmass
Village, CO), and Tainan National University of the Arts
(Tainan, Taiwan R.O.C.). She shows nationally at both galleries
and museums such as The Asheville Art Museum, The Fuller Craft
Museum (Brockton, MA), Blue Spiral 1 (Asheville, NC), The
Signature Shop (Atlanta, GA), SOFA Chicago and Palm Beach III
(William Zimmer Gallery). Sylvie maintains a studio in
Asheville, North Carolina and this year she received a North
Carolina Arts Council Crafts Fellowship.
Artist Statement
I am a woodworker and sculptor.
I construct by blending traditions of European woodworking,
folk-art, and pulp fiction. Designing and building, I look to
the traditions of woodworking while reinventing technique
through a combination of experimentation and material knowledge.
Starting with rough lumber
met by the fast machines of the woodshop then honed to
completion with hand tools, both
tools of truth and tools of persuasion.
Transforming raw material into an idea. The work is simple from
a distance, with clean lines, natural wood for warmth and
painted to highlight the form. Up close it reveals that each
piece is crafted with innovation, skill, and attention to
detail.
My subject is the everydayness of the
human condition. I am inspired by
passing cars, hard times,
good feelings, dish washers and other angels, tight rope
walkers, and feelings that are so deep down that you are not
sure if they are yours or if you are supposed to have them all.
I invoke birds and beasts as
metaphors in this natural history of daily life.
This work deals with transformation from
the inside out, the slow and
continual evaluation and re-evaluation of life, what is
important, and how to get there from here. It is steeped a bit
in the impossible. The impossibilities of getting there,
a place within oneself that is balanced in a permanent way. We
must always change, evolve, fall, recover, remember and forget.
It is our evolutionary heritage. We look for the balance in the
imbalance and uncertainty, the ebbs and flows of our own
personal gravity. My work approaches these topics with humor and
playfulness.
Jen Swearington’s mixed media quilts have been featured in
Surface Design Journal, Belle Armoire, three Quilt National
exhibitions, and graced the cover of Fiberarts magazine. Her
Asheville-based textile studio produces Jennythreads, her line
of handmade, hand-dyed silk and bamboo clothing and accessories,
which are carried by galleries and boutiques nationwide. Jen has
taught as adjunct professor at UNCA, The Savannah College of Art
and Design, and Haywood
Community College as well as various
workshops. Learn more at jennythreads.net.
"Self Portrait" by Sylvie Rosenthal
"Le
Serpent Qui a Mange la Theiere Deux"
translation from French: "The Snake that Ate the Teapot Two"
by Sylvie Rosenthal
above: "A Deep Well" by Sylvie
Rosenthal
below: detail of "A Deep Well"
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April
2nd
Martha Connell
Curator, Connell Gallery, Atlanta
7:00pm
Owen Hall Conference Center (third floor)
March 24th
Alex Bernstein
Second Generation WNC Glass Artist
7:00pm Laurel
Forum (Karpen Hall 139)
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"Midwinter's Morning" by Alex
Bernstein
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Martha
Connell, owner and director of Connell Gallery in Atlanta since
1985, will give a lecture in conjunction with the Collectors of
Wood Art Forum. Connell Gallery represents artists working
in clay, glass, fiber, metal and
wood.
Connell has been a prominent force in the American Craft
Movement as curator, writer, and speaker. She has served
as a juror for many craft shows, including the Philadelphia
Craft Show, Smithsonian Craft Show.
Connell has also curated a number of museum exhibitions dealing
with art quilts, figurative ceramics, studio furniture and
woodworking, including an exhibition of turned wood that
traveled in Europe as a cultural presentaion of the United
States through the USIA Arts America Program. She is
currently on the Board of Governors of Arrowmont School of Arts
and Crafts.
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"Stoneburst" by Alex
Bernstein
Tideland, by Jen Swearington
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