go away winter

Mercedes  Jelinek came up from Louisiana to be the studio assistant in Thomas Neff’s photo class this past summer. On top of being a great photographer she has the rare talent of being able to make people feel comfortable and welcome in front of the camera. Each day at Penland she set up a portable photo booth  and took passerby’s photos. After she processes the film she sends each person a quick contact sheet of the photos. It was fun to see people engaging in this project and  even more fun to receive my photo strip in the mail last week. Check out her website here to see some of her recent projects.

This past week I was  assisting in Penland’s letterpress studio for the Instructor Retreat. It was an amazing event at which about 100 instructors came to work and experiment in new mediums. Above is a shot of Matthew Hebert‘s Arduino demo. It blew my mind.

This past session at Penland I took my first black and white photography class. I really enjoyed the whole process of photography, but most of all I loved printing. Hanging out in the dark room is such a weird time warp, the hours seem to roll past.

Here are  a few process shots of the tent project I have been working on in the iron studio. Planning this project was a completely new experience and when it all came together at the end I could hardly believe that I measured everything correctly. Now I have a few weeks off to focus on drawing. After that is is on to the photo studio.

I thought I was going to be so entranced with enameling that I wouldn’t get around to making books. Turns out I like both enameling and bookbinding pretty well. The final photo here is of just about everything I made in class. The lovely Amy Tavern sat down with me on Friday to talk a little about what I made and how the work I did in the spring has carried over into the Summer.  I feel incredibly lucky to have had such wonderful teachers this session and to have friends like Amy around to help me see things more clearly.