 Dr. Jeff M. Goodman peers through a periscope in his office in Edwin Duncan Hall. Goodman is an instructor in the education department and a former photography teacher at the Penland School of Crafts. Photo by Holt Menzies.
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by LAURA TABOR
Lifestyles Reporter
At Penland School of Crafts, you can walk through a pinhole camera, created by sculptors and photographers.
While it is used to take pictures, you can go in and see the image of the upside-down and backwards world on the back wall.
Jeff M. Goodman, an education instructor and former photography teacher at Penland, helped to make that camera a reality at the school early in his work there.
“I taught a class on using the physics of light to get people to explore photography,” Goodman said. “I was interested in the relationship between arts and science, the chemistry of craft.”
The
school offers many non-traditional craft classes within several craft
fields, including glassblowing, bookbinding, sculpture and
blacksmithing.
The classes range from one to eight weeks, and are offered on Penland’s campus, nestled into the mountains in Mitchell County.
“Penland
is unconstrained by grades and standardized curricular, with small
classes,” Goodman said. “Teaching at Penland reminded me how exciting
the human mind is. We are built to make things and we are built to be
amazed."
The
community has a collaborative atmosphere and artisans can be found
trading blown glass for photograph portraits in a small-scale barter
system, Goodman said.
The
school’s community roots come from its founder, Lucy Morgan, who began
teaching weaving in the 1920s in Penland, to form cottage industries
for local women.
The work expanded into other crafts, and became the craft school that still holds the name, according to the school’s Web site.
As “Miss
Lucy” had to go learn weaving before she could teach others, some
students enter the school with little or no training in the field they
study.
This was the case the first time Jeana Eve Klein, an assistant art professor at Appalachian, went to Penland.
“I did
woodworking, which is not my field of expertise,” Klein said. “It was
good to try something new outside my realm of experience.”
Klein returned to learn, and eventually, to teach a dyeing class which was much closer to her specialization.
“The place feels a bit like alternate reality. It’s a place where people can really become immersed in their craft,” Klein said.
The
classes almost always end up yielding pieces of art, examples of the
work that goes on at Penland every day, but the experience is the most
important part, both Goodman and Klein said.
“Be ready to have an open mind and come away with more than just a product,” Klein said.
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