Friday, June 7, 2013

CU BFA Candidate, Jena Heaton, Finishing Up Penland Workshop with Ellen Eisenman and Clarissa Sligh


Jena Heaton, Clemson University Art Department BFA Candidate in photography, has been at the Penland School of Crafts in the North Carolina Mountains since May 26 on a scholarship from Clemson University and the Center for Visual Arts studying with Ellen Eisenman and Clarissa Sligh.  The workshop, Photography, Community & the Social Self, has been about using photography in community, educational, and/or social projects. Participants have planed a new project or extended an existing one, using written and photographic exercises, critiques, and team collaborations on workshop projects to clarify the goals and vocabulary for their work. They have worked with ideas of individual and collective experience, voice, communication, values, structure, sequence, dilemmas, ethics, and evaluation.

Ellen Eisenman, here we stand, archival photographs, thread, 
shells, silver wire, 28 x 28 in. & Clarissa Sligh, Hope
beads, origami cranes made from pages of white 
supremacist books, 60 in. tall 

In a written statement, Eisenman said, "I’m interested in making a clear visual connection between manual laborers, art workers, and community workers. This work is rooted in the narrative tradition of documentary photography as well as the use of quilting in preserving family and community histories. I work with archival photographs, which I sew together with thread and fixe in place with nails, pins, or silver wire along with glass, stone, or metal beads. The tactile process of sifting through traces of memory, sewing together fragments, and combining images provides a framework for reflecting on the connections between our personal and social experiences."

Ellen Eisenman is a studio artist and community worker with exhibitions at: ArtScape (South Africa), Broome Street Gallery (NYC), Franklin University Gallery (OH), Calico Gallery (OH), Goddard Riverside Community Center (NYC), ArtScape (Cape Town, South Africa), Columbus Museum (OH). Clarissa Sligh is a studio artist who has taught at New York University, School of Visual Arts (NYC) and hs work in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art (NYC) and the George Eastman House (NY). clarissasligh.com

For more information on Penland, go to: http://penland.org/.