penland core fellowship program

The Penland Core Fellowship Program is a two-year work-study fellowship for early career artists looking to expand technical skills and material fluency while working to support the day-to-day operations of a craft school. Artists of all backgrounds who want to advance their educational goals and explore their capacity to contribute to a thriving creative community are encouraged to apply. The goal of the program is to shape the future of contemporary craft by creating opportunity, connection, and immersive education for early career artists who bring a range of perspectives and goals to the school.

Penland core fellows fully engage with Penland by taking several workshops each year in familiar or new media, and performing integral jobs for the school. Penland’s ever-changing learning environment allows core fellows to study with world-class teaching artists from all over the US and abroad; this is a unique opportunity to create an educational path that responds to individual goals. The program can serve as preparation for careers in creative, non-profit, educational, and entrepreneurial sectors. A measure of the program’s success is the number of core fellows who have gone on to make a life in craft. To date over 200 people have participated in the program, and about 80% are practicing artists or professional contributors to the field of craft today.

The work that core fellows do for the school—jobs such as weekend cook, and entertainment coordinator—places them at the heart of Penland’s daily operations and gives them an opportunity to develop leadership skills and connect with artists from all over by working cooperatively towards a common goal. Core fellows are often a bridge between the staff and the studios and serve a unique role in helping others have a meaningful experience at Penland.

Core fellows live and work together and often learn as much from each other as they do from their instructors and mentors. In the process, they have a chance to form close friendships and often become part of each other’s lifelong creative and professional networks.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Core fellows work an average of 20-25 hours/week in various service positions. In addition to fulfilling their work responsibility to the school, they are considered fully participating students and are expected to be engaged, productive members of each class they take. Work responsibilities begin each year in late February and end just before Thanksgiving. There is no regular work obligation from late November until late February, so most core fellows take advantage of this time to dive deeply into studio work.