The Center for Craft, Creativity and Design (CCCD) has launched ENEWS to keep you current with all our programs, exhibits and events. ENEWS will be sent out monthly with most news linking to more lengthy information found on our website www.craftcreativitydesign.org. Announcements cards will still be mailed for upcoming exhibits and talks. If you are on our mailing list to receive an announcement card for exhibits and would prefer to receive the information through ENEWS, please let us know and it will save us a stamp!

Images (left to right): Chadwick Wade (detail), by Megan Wolfe. 49 inches high x 24 inches wide, terra cotta, low fired, with slips and glazes; Bound But Determined (detail), by Sahar Fakhoury, 24 inches high x 18 inches wide, earthenware, glaze, stain, underglaze, 2006; Dirty Dogs by Cheryl Andrews, 21 inches high x 26 inches wide, earthenware, glazes, underglazes; When Wars Are Over, by Jason Weatherspoon, 42 inches high x 26 inches wide, paperclay, metallic glaze and silk flowers.

Four of the artists in the current exhibit, Sculptural/Functional: UNC Asheville Clay, will speak about their work Saturday, February 10, at 1pm at the Center for Craft, Creativity, and Design, located at the Kellogg Center, 1181 Broyles Road.

Megan Wolfe, faculty and head of the UNC Asheville Ceramics Program for 10 years, is a graduate of New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred. She will talk about the inspiration of her large organic terra cotta sculpture with low-fire slips and glazes, in the exhibit and work she is now creating during her sabbatical. Wolfe has been featured in Ceramics Monthly and in major national exhibitions.

Cheryl Andrews' love of animals, especially dogs, is the inspiration for her sculptural work. "Dirty Dogs" in this exhibit is a three-dimensional montage of various canine breeds of earthenware with glazes and underglazes. "Uninhibited" features a 34- inch high fire hydrant with dogs marching under a banner with a quote from George Byrd Evans, "We are drawn to dogs because they are the uninhibited creatures we might be if we weren't certain we knew better."

Sahar Fakhoury, is a Middle Eastern ceramic artist in the UNC Asheville program, who moved to the U.S. from Kuwait after the first Gulf War. Much of her work is influenced by her experience with middle-eastern tensions and the role of women in the cultures of the mid-east.

Jason Weatherspoon, an alumni, collaborated with Lauren Gibbes, to construct the 42 inch-high head of a soldier, glazed in a metallic gold, with silk flowers sprouting from helmet and coat, titled "When Wars Are Over." He works out of his studio in the Asheville River District.

Other artists displaying work in the exhibit will be present and available to talk to those attending during the reception that follows. The Sculptural/Functional Exhibition is on display through February 17th. Gallery hours are 1-5pm, Tuesday through Saturday, free to the public.

Images (left to right): Cynthia Bringle working in clay; Stoney Lamar creating wood sculpture on lathe; Work in exhibit - glass sculpture by Sally Rogers

This exhibit and catalog showcase the work of 19 studio craft artists who live and work in Western North Carolina, representative of the concentration of over 4,000 craft artists in the region. The catalog essay, by Melissa Post, delves into the factors that attract so many artists to the region, and inspire them to stay. In collaboration with Blue Spiral 1 Gallery, the main exhibit is located on the first two floors of the Asheville Gallery, with one work by each artist on display in the CCCD galleries in Hendersonville. Artists in the exhibition include: CERAMICS Michael Sherrill, Hendersonville; Kathy Triplett, Weaverville; Cynthia Bringle, Penland; Nick Joerling, Penland; and Lisa Clague, Bakersville; WOOD/FURNITURE Randy Shull, Asheville; Stoney Lamar, Saluda; George Peterson, Lake Toxaway; METAL Sally Rogers, Penland; Hoss Haley, Asheville; Paige Hamilton Davis, Bakersville; Marvin Jensen, Penland; GLASS Mark Peiser, Penland; Rick Beck, Spruce Pine; Shane Fero, Penland; John Nickerson, Waynesville; and FIBER/BASKETS Billie Ruth Sudduth, Bakersville; Chad Alice Hagen, Asheville; Heather Allen, Asheville.
www.craftcreativitydesign.org www.BlueSpiral1.com

ARTIST RECEPTION: March 1, 2007, 5-8pm, Blue Spiral 1, 38 Biltmore Ave, Asheville, NC

ARTIST TALKS will take place at the Kellogg Conference Center adjacent to Center for Craft, Creativity and Design, 1181 Broyles Road, Hendersonville:

This is the second year CCCD has administered the program providing $5,000 to four museums for internships. The goal of the program is to expand the number of future curators with experience and expertise on studio craft artists and their work. BFA, MA, and MFA students should send a letter of interest together with their vitae to the museum. The museum will select the interns.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Intern Position description: The intern will work with the assistant curator of American decorative arts and sculpture on two projects involving the MFA’s large collection of studio craft. One project will be conducting oral history interviews with artists represented in the Daphne Farago collection of studio jewelry, a recent gift to the MFA of more than 600 objects. The intern will also research the Museum’s collection of contemporary ceramics, glass, and furniture, and assist with planning future gallery installations of the studio craft collections. Internship will begin in June 2007 and continue five days a week for 12 weeks, with alternate schedule possible.

Application deadline – March 15, 2007 include curriculum vita and cover letter to:

The Museum of Fine Art Houston
Intern Position description: the intern’s main project will be to help the curator of decorative arts and design with the upcoming traveling exhibition Ornament as Art: Avant-Garde Jewelry from the Helen Williams Drutt Collection (opening September 30, 2007). Responsibilities will include maintaining and updating the exhibition checklist; helping assemble labels, public relations, marketing and website materials and other written information about the exhibition; participating in installation design, conservation, and educational program meetings leading up to the exhibition opening.

Application deadline – February 15, 2007 include curriculum vita and cover letter to:

Bellevue Arts Museum, Bellevue, Washington
Intern Position description: The intern will participate in all aspects of planning for an exhibition set to travel in 2008. Focus will be on preparing venue packages, creating documentations to accompany the exhibition, researching and acting as a liaison to artists, museums, lenders and shippers. At the conclusion of this internship, the intern will have a good understanding of the research and preparation that go into organizing a traveling exhibition. Internship pays $11/hour, 40 hours per week for a three month period and will begin June 2007.

Application deadline - April 1, 2007 include curriculum vita and cover letter to:

San Francisco Museum of Craft + Design
Bianca Finley Alper, a first year student in the San Francisco State University Museum Studies Graduate program was selected in fall 2007, after the initial intern selected withdrew. She will continue her internship with the San Francisco Museum of Craft + Design working with exhibition installation, condition reports, and groups/docent tours.

Two sessions at the February 2007 annual CAA conference will be chaired by the craft history/text authors Janet Koplos and Bruce Metcalf. There were so many responses to the session theme "When is Technique Central to Meaning?" that it is being offered on Friday, February 16, at 9:30am-noon with one panel and a second panel on Saturday, February 17, at 2:30-5:00pm. Virginia B. Spivey, who taught art history at the University of North Carolina Asheville until she moved in 2006, is on the Saturday panel. CCCD will be working with authors, the University of North Carolina Press, and academics who have participated in past annual North Carolina Craft Retreats to plan events at the 2008 CAA conference in Dallas with the release of 20th Century American Studio Craft, a history and undergraduate text.

Images (left to right): Fiddleheads sculpture by Harry McDaniel, 2003; Rhododendron Bell earth sculpture by David Tillinghast, 2005

The Hendersonville Community Foundation announced the award of a grant from the Perry N. Rudnick Foundation, to provide kiosks on the Rudnick Nature and Public Art Trail, interpretive signage on plants in the three ecosystems (wetland, meadow, and hardwood) and a map with information on the artists and public art work found on the grounds adjacent to CCCD and commissioned for the one-mile Rudnick Nature Trail through an earlier grant. There are now fourteen sculptures that demonstrate how public art can enhance and/or interpret the natural environment on nature trails and greenways. Two of the public art commissions also received grants from the North Carolina Arts Council, Public Art and Community Design Program.

The Center for Craft, Creativity and Design is an inter-institutional Center of the University of North Carolina.

The mission of the regional UNC Center is to support and advance craft, creativity and design in education and research, and, through community collaborations, to demonstrate ways that craft and design provide creative solutions to community issues. The mission of the nonprofit CCCD is to support the mission of the UNC center through funding, programs, and outreach to artists, craft organizations, schools in the community, region and nation.