Journal Entry From Penland

This summer I had the incredible opportunity to spend two weeks at Penland School of Craft, tucked away in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Asheville, North Carolina. Penland is unlike anywhere I've ever been—a community where artists from every discipline come together to learn, create, and share what they know.

We gathered three times a day around long communal tables, talking about our projects, asking questions, and encouraging one another. For the first few days I was so focused on learning that I barely noticed where I was. Then, almost overnight, I slowed down enough to see it all.

Walking back to my room each evening with only lightning bugs lighting the path. Deer wandering through campus. Chipmunks darting across the trails. Wild turkeys appearing out of nowhere. Even the beautiful lichen covering the trees seemed to ask me to pay attention.

As we get older, I think it's easy to fall into the rhythm of doing the same things, solving the same problems, and forgetting what it feels like to be a student again. I realized I missed learning. So I signed up for a two-week jewelry and metalsmithing course and stepped into something completely new.
Penland is truly a gift. The campus is beautiful, but it's the people who make it extraordinary. Everywhere I turned, someone was eager to share what they knew. A textile student gave me a piece of naturally dyed linen for my French medal box. A ceramics student handed me clay to experiment with. We wandered through studios filled with blacksmiths, glass blowers, woodworkers, printmakers, and artists of every kind. There was such a generosity of spirit—a quiet belief that knowledge is meant to be shared.

Life slowed down there. My only job each day was to learn, make, and try again.

For the first time in 25 years of owning The Paris Market, I left my computer at home. I didn't check sales. I didn't answer emails or texts. At first, that felt almost impossible. But after a while, I realized how rarely we give ourselves permission to be fully present.

Being the beginner in the room is humbling. Those first few days I filled pages with notes and watched everyone around me, hoping I could keep up. Then something shifted. Little by little, confidence replaced hesitation. I stopped worrying about getting everything right and simply enjoyed the process.
Some days we worked from 8:30 in the morning until 10:30 at night. The studios never closed, although I happily admitted I couldn't keep up with the twenty-year-olds anymore.

I came home with new skills, new ideas, and a renewed appreciation for making things by hand. But more than anything, I came home reminded that no matter our age or stage in life, there's always something new to learn—and that might be one of life's greatest gifts.

A few of the items I created during my time there