Jenny Mendes

START CLOSE IN Start close in don't take  the second step or the third, start with the first thing close in, the step you don't want to take. Start with the ground you know, the pale ground beneath your feet, your own way to begin the conversation. Start with your own question, give up on other people’s questions, don’t let them smother something simple. To hear another’s voice, follow your own voice, wait until that voice becomes an intimate private ear that can really listen to another. Start right now take a small step you can call your own don’t follow someone else’s heroics, be humble and focused, start close in, don’t mistake that other for your own. Start close in, don’t take the second step or the third, start with the first thing close in, the step you don’t want to take. … START CLOSE IN in River Flow New & Selected Poems Many Rivers Press © David Whyte …. This piece was in...

Come join me this Spring at Penland School!  CLAY SPRING CONCENTRATION MARCH 8 – MAY 1, 2020 Jenny Mendes Parts Unknown https://penland.org/ clay-spring-concentration/ The launching point for this workshop will be an exploration of surfaces and a deep mining of personal content. Working primarily with low-fire clay, we’ll push the boundaries of the material through explorations of form and narrative. Experimentation with slips, underglazes, terra sigilatta, and different firings will lead students to develop unique bodies of work. Using Penland’s landscape as genius loci, visiting sculptor Hester Pilz will collaborate with students for two weeks as we discover how the spirit of the landscape can inform our work. All levels.