These two weeks I am teaching The Storyteller's Muse at Penland School of Crafts with the amazing Mary Ann Zotto. Our students are so amazing and talented and generous in following our wonky lead to tell their stories and paint their dreams. I cannot say how awed I am by them. However, this post is about a beautiful place I visited the day before my class started.. a place that feels like its own book. It all begins with my the first book teacher, Paulus Berenshon...
In 2002 I took my first formal book making class with Paulus Berensohn (May 13, 1933- June 15, 2017) https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/arts/design/paulus-berensohn-a-dancer-who-pivoted-to-pottery-dies-at-84.html. A longtime resident of the Penland community in the mountains of North Carolina... just beside the incredible craft school, Paulus led many artists to find their own way... with both clay and books.. but especially in life. The Penland craft school honored him a few years ago by cutting a walking trail in his honor through their beautiful mountain woods. All along the way walkers have left their own version of books gone to nature... as Paulus wished we all would do.
Let your own life be filled with books of some kind, stay close to the earth.. however you can, and never fail to tell your stories.
