Got a Letter in the Mail
Out of 1500 applicants, I just found out I got into the Encaustic painting class at Penland School of Crafts. The best news is that I was one of 200 people who will receive a work-study scholarship, which means I get to scrub dishes, pick up trash and receive a very sweet $1,836 discount off the regular $2,366 fee.
Although this puts a dent into my original plans to get a part-time job and take a few studio classes at NCCU during the summer semester, I am shitting my pants with excitement. We visited Penland last winter to check out the work of Matt’s best friend Jon Shearin, who is one of the Core students and makes fantastic things from forged steel.
Penland is a beautiful artist-community campus in the middle of the North Carolina Appalachian mountains, and to have two weeks of uninterrupted art-making time is something that every artist (especially us fumbling fledglings) has many sticky wet dreams about.
My portfolio application was not impressive, so the lesson I’m taking from this good news is that most opportunities can become real things, if you just take the time to trudge through the grunt work.
Also, it’s very rare that I actually feel proud of myself. When you let yourself feel the sensation of hard work paying off, it makes you want to work harder.
If you have any artistic inclination, I’d urge you to find out more about Penland. It’s a pretty amazing place.
