Thesis year Book & Paper student Heather Buechler had the opportunity to spend some quality time on her work this winter at a residency in North Carolina. Read below about her time there.

This past January I had the privilege of traveling to the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina for a one week writing residency, generating a body of poetic and theoretical texts for the Operator’s Manual, an artists’ book and part of my current thesis project Of Simple Men. The residency itself was brief, but truly powerful. Penland’s remote rural location, proximity to industry, and history as a community of makers, spoke directly to the content of my project. This in conjunction with the quietude of an off-season residency offered an ideal space to better penetrate the deep historic scope of the ideas my work seeks to express.

A regimen of writing, reading, walking, and listening allowed me formalize my manual’s format, identify and expand on key ideas, and clarify to myself the work’s intent and how it communicates. It also had the added benefit of providing fodder for future projects. At the end of the week, along with other resident writers, I was able to share my project with a other residents from various studios. For me, this opportunity to open up my thesis-in-process to such a unique community of makers was incredibly valuable, providing an objective read of my work at a critical moment in its development. Penland is a place I remain eager to return to, and hope to cultivate a life-long relationship with.