The Toe River Arts Council is honored to present an exhibition celebrating the work of the Penland Potters. This group of ceramists offers diverse work ranging from pleasing functional pots to thought-provoking figurative sculpture. The studios making up Penland Potters are Jane Peiser Pottery, John Britt Pottery, Bruns-Joerling Studio, Bringle Gallery and Studio, Soto-Cordova Studio, Barking Spider Pottery, and Shawn Ireland Pottery. Distinctive and remarkably personal approaches to clay mark the work of these studio potters, all of whom work within three miles of the renowned Penland School. The Penland Potters exhibition, with a focus on Jane Peiser, runs from Saturday, August 28 through September 25. A reception to honor the Penland Potters will be held from 5 to 8 pm.

Jane Peiser's is surely among the most eye-catching of the work produced by these artists. Modestly, on a recent visit to Jane at her studio and home in Penland, the first pieces she pointed out for inclusion in the show were works done in collaboration with other artists: Cynthia Bringle, Jane's husband, Mark, and her daughter, Martha. She directed our attention to one tall ceramic piece, whose gilding and other bright colors in checks and circles suggest Byzantine mosaics. The piece, 37-years old, celebrates John Ehle's novel The Road. Other sculptures have their stories too, which Jane related. One work bears the faces of her daughter and two friends as children, their features preserved as photo decals atop clay bodies in relief. The work is old, dating back to her early years at Penland. By holding onto one or two pieces from each year, she has documented her career admirably in a remarkable collection.

The cumulative effect of the work resembles the more exotic passages of the Arabian Nights. One can discern echoes of Russian and Scandinavian folk and figurative art, and certainly that of the Chinese. Jane herself has spoken of her admiration for Persian and Indian miniature paintings. Gracefully sinuous human forms, also greatly elongated and stylized, pose with realistically rendered animals, an elephant or a pair of yoked oxen. The figures, her princesses, faeries, or strange Asiatic goddesses, garbed in motley costumes, whose folds Jane has rendered perfectly, assume hieratic stances or lean together familiarly over a book. They wear tall conical hats emblazoned with suns and their lapidary beauty together with their laughing, mischievous eyes is otherworldly. They may be part mermaid or sylph for all we know.

Jane thinks of herself as a folk artist whose work in clay helps her realize the pictures that arise in her mind. She will make but a few rough preliminary sketches to aid her memory. Sculptural forms dominate her work, but she also produces candlesticks, mirrors, lamps, and vases. She herself developed a clay technique inspired by the millefiore process used in glass working. Jane layers thin slices of clay into folds, then sections them to insert as multicolored elements in the larger ceramic work. The Penland School of Crafts Book of Pottery (1975) follows each of Jane's steps in creating a millefiore piece called "Night Garden with Ladies." Painstakingly she creates each of the gemlike little designs. For her faces she uses china painting, brushing it on as the makers of china dishware do. Her work is highly complex, sophisticated, while at the same time it is breathtakingly simple.

Jane had earned her Master's Thesis at Hull House, founded by Jane Adams, based on her work with retarded adults and art. She was teaching an art history class at the Art Institute of Chicago when she met her then husband Mark. Mark came down to Penland School to take a class and telephoned his wife jokingly, "You'd better come on down here. I'm not leaving." In those days around 1970, Jane recalls, Penland was a small place, and she staked out a working area in the pottery barn. "It was a casual place then, no rules; we were all self-disciplined and I just quietly moved in. It was wonderful then, like an extended family. Of course, it's wonderful now, only different. "And thus the pair made the decision to relocate permanently, and since then Jane has often taught at Penland School. After 45 years of work she anticipates a rest from studio creation and looks forward to adventures in her garden.

Soon the floodlit gallery's walls and pedestals will radiate the dazzling glazes of various Penland Potter's ceramics. John Britt has been a potter and teacher for over 25 years. He is primarily a self-taught potter who has worked and taught at universities, colleges and craft centers across the country, including the Penland School of Crafts where he served as the Clay Coordinator and then, as the Studio's Manager. He is the author of the "The Complete Guide to High-Fire Glaze; Glazing & Firing at Cone 10" which was published by Lark Books in 2004, was the juror for the book; "500 Bowls", and has written numerous articles for ceramics publications including: Ceramics Monthly, Ceramic Review, Studio Potter, Clay Times, Ceramic Technical and The Log Book. He is currently a studio potter in Bakersville, North Carolina and teaches glaze chemistry, glazing and firing workshops.

Having painted in her early days, Cynthia Bringle went to the Memphis Academy of Art to further her interest in art. Later she attended Haystack School of Crafts in Maine and graduate school at NY State College of Ceramics in Alfred, NY, where she set up her studio. From 1965-1970, she was in Eads, TN and in 1970 Cynthia moved to Penland, NC, where she has worked as a ceramist and taught ever since. Among her awards and honors she has lifetime membership in the Southern Highland Craft Guild, and she is a Fellow of the American Craft Council. Cynthia won the North Carolina Award for Fine Art and an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts at Memphis College of Art. She was named a North Carolina Living Treasure and her work is included in private collections and museums, but mostly found in many kitchen cabinets.

Textile artist and former art instructor at UNC-Charlotte, Edwina Bringle has also been a Penland Resident Artist and has frequently taught at the famous school. She has achieved national renown for her use of color and design in her woven textiles and her free motion embroidered pieces. She shares a gallery with her twin sister Cynthia, whom she joins as an exhibitor at the new TRAC show.

Jon Ellenbogen and Rebecca Plummer of Barking Spider Pottery make stoneware pottery intended for daily use in the home. From dinnerware to centerpieces to bathroom and wetbar sinks, their attractive, durable, handmade objects add a unique personal touch to any decor. Numerous glaze colors are available and each item can be customized for a particular client. Their sinks and basins require no special plumbing and are easy to install, while embodying the highest standards in craftsmanship and design. Their Christmas ornaments and decorated eggs are a departure from their traditional stoneware and are available in a glossy snow white color featuring bright reds, blues, purples and greens, with silver and gold accents. Because they are handmade, no two are alike, and all are very lightweight for hanging on a tree. For many families these ornaments have become cherished family heirlooms that will be passed on for generations.

Nick Joerling is a full-time studio potter who has maintained a studio in Penland, North Carolina since the mid-1980's. He received a BA in History from the University of Dayton, Ohio, and an MFA in Ceramics from Louisiana State University in 1986. He has taught in craft programs in the United States and abroad, been widely reviewed and exhibited, and is represented in public and private collections. Nick writes: I make pots as much from a drawing sensibility as a pottery one. Daydreaming with a pencil. Not drawing as rendering but simply doodling, then working hard to get that drawing to function. Profile is therefore a strong attraction, a strong dictate, as are the smaller spaces within spaces. And of course that sense of animation. My pot reference is most often you and I, our bodies. It's where my cues come from: dance, people seated on a park bench, the cleavage that forms on the inside of a bent elbow. But I want to stay in the pot's world--if the reference is too literal the pots seem deflated. In my studio what I hope for are pots that have qualities of sensuality, compassion, humor, and risk.

Lisa Bruns-Joerling received a BFA from Jacksonville University in 1982. She promptly accepted a job tending bar in Atlanta. After many years of bending over backwards to please customers her back went out. A few years of physical therapy and rehabilitation followed. Then it was time to reinvent herself. Lisa returned to a life-long love of working with her hands. For the past 12 years Lisa has been a studio artist working in figurative clay and jewelry in Folly Beach, South Carolina. She recently moved to Penland, North Carolina and is enjoying the change of view, savoring a new daily source of inspiration in the local flora, fauna and flavor of the mountain lifestyle.

Born in Lancaster, PA Shawn Ireland received a BFA from Kutztown University in 1990. Between 1990 and 1995 he attended 25 pottery and painting workshops at Penland School of Crafts. From 1993 to 1995, he lived at Penland as part of the CORE STUDENT work exchange program. In 1991, after a two month workshop with Will Ruggles & Douglass Rankin, Shawn fell in love with clay and fire determined to be a wood fire potter. From 1996 to 1999 he was Resident Artist at Penland School. He built a catenary wood kiln and made pots full time, experimenting with local clay and glaze materials and also began to explore oil painting. In 1997, he established Shawn Ireland Pottery.

Cristina Córdova is a studio artist living in Penland, NC. Originally from Puerto Rico, she received her BA from the University of Puerto Rico in Mayaguez and went to earn her MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. In 2005 she concluded a three-year residency at Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. She was the recipient of an American Craft Council Emerging Artist Grant as well as a North Carolina Arts Council Fellowship Award. She has taught workshops in Puerto Rico and the US.

Pablo Soto's De Soto Glass Design Company designs and creates glasswork that enhances living spaces and environments, chiefly with glass blown vessels and functional works. Pablo perceives his work as the offspring of his love for form and for the creation of harmony by combining formal elements. Lighting design is an increasingly important part of his mission. "I like to describe my work as clean, simple, spare, and well thought out," he has written, "My pieces most often revolve around the vessel and are frequently functional."

Considered both singly and as a group, the Penland Potters embody intensely personal visions of the potentials of clay and glaze. Filled with a sense of joie de vivre, their imaginative work is a delight to the eye. The overall effect of these pieces gathered together at TRAC's gallery will be a potent stimulus to the retina with repeated tingling of esthetic pleasure. Count on it!

On Home Page from left: Shawn Ireland, Cristina Cordova, Cynthia Bringle, John Britt, Nick Joerling, Lisa Bruns Joerling, Jane Peiser, Rebecca Plummer and Jon Ellenbogen.

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