Elysia Mann Completes Residency at Penland
Elysia Mann is the printmaking studio technician at the University of Tennessee School of Art. She oversees the maintenance of presses and tools used in the print facilities including intaglio, lithography, relief, letterpress, and screen print. She’s also a resource for safety training and technical troubleshooting in the printmaking labs.
This year, Elysia took the opportunity to complete the Penland Winter Residency at the Penland School of Craft in Mitchell County, North Carolina. Penland is a hub for contemporary and traditional arts in Appalachia. The historic craft school was established by Lucy Morgan in 1929 to serve the mountain communities of western North Carolina. Originally centered around weaving and pottery, the school grew to include state-of-the-art facilities for many creative processes including printmaking, photography, painting, glass, wood, book arts, papermaking, iron, and jewelry. One of the premier craft schools in the world, Penland’s programming includes workshops taught by internationally acclaimed artists, short- and long-term residencies, local community classes, and a two-year work-study curriculum called the Core Program.
Elysia’s residency is a juried program awarded to professional artists who want to pursue independent projects using the facilities. Elysia explained, “There is no formal instruction during the Winter Residency, but there is still lots of learning and collaboration that comes from sharing space with other skilled artists. This was my third time attending the Winter Residency (my sixth time at Penland overall), and this time was special because I was invited to serve as the Studio Assistant in Textiles, which included residency fee waiver, housing, and a stipend.”
The textile studio where she worked was in one of the original historic buildings on campus, the Lily Loom Building, which had been used as a social gathering space during Lucy Morgan’s time. A wall of windows overlook the mountains. Tall ceilings, wood floors, and a stone fireplace create a cozy atmosphere in the winter weather. The studio is a large room with lots of floor looms and open working 
space that she shared with 3–4 other artists. The building also has two dye kitchens, screen printing equipment, sewing machines, and other resources for quilting, surface design, basketry, and other processes.
Elysia is continuing research that is at the intersection of printmaking and weaving. She explains. “Using a process that I have developed from my experience in both mediums, I screen print dye on yarn, and then weave the yarn on a floor loom, reconstructing the imagery line by line as it becomes fabric. The result is a series of flags that feature text and image embedded in the reversible cloth, addressing themes of identity, sovereignty, and a sense of belonging to place.”
“I keep going back to Penland for many reasons. Not only is it a hub for artistic practice located in a beautiful part of the Appalachian Mountains, it’s also a vibrant, supportive community. The culture at Penland is inclusive, affirming, and full of creative rigor. I relish the opportunity to meet artists from all over the country—even the world—and bring back new ideas and techniques that I pick up from the community of makers. In addition to here, at the School of Art, Penland is one of the places where I really feel like I belong as an artist.”
Through the years, the UT School of Art has encouraged students to take advantage of the Penland experience. Elysia states that she would encourage students in all areas to look at Penland as a resource for augmenting or continuing their education. Workshops are taught by artists with national and international renown. They’re a great way for students to learn new technical skills or to delve deeper into processes in which they’re already engaged.
Students should know that Penland works hard to make workshops accessible to everyone, so there are lots of scholarships, fellowships, and work-study awards available. In addition to summer workshops, the Winter Residency is a great opportunity for students at the graduate level as well as for faculty and staff. And the prestigious Core Program is a one-of-a-kind educational experience that should be on the radar for all recent BA or BFA graduates interested in craft theories and the development of an interdisciplinary studio practice.
Each fall, students have the opportunity to apply for support to participate in workshops at Penland through the Higher Education Partners program. Current UTKSOA students should consider applying to be part of 2-week long workshops.
Elysia Mann completed her BFA at Washington University in St. Louis (2007), after which she established the collaborative print studio All Along Press, where she worked for 7 years hosting workshops, doing custom design and printing, and building community in the city’s burgeoning Cherokee Arts District.
She moved to Knoxville to pursue her MFA in print at UTK (2017). She is an advocate for interdisciplinary research, and her creative practice pushes the traditional boundaries of printmaking into the realms of textiles, poetry, and social practice.