Paulus Berensohn "Show-and-Tell"

Xiem Clay Center, November 18: 4:00 pm
“Take off your shoes” the old story goes, “you are standing on holy ground”; a clay-ey ground – sensuous, plastic, elastic, spongey, alive, on fire. We stand upon it rooted like a tree, with “feet of clay”, breathing in its energy, eating and drinking its body; rooted and at the same time free.
In this show-and-tell presentation, with its stories, poems and images, Paulus will “sing up” the skin of the earth and speak for clay’s ecstatic, sensuous nature as the source of life on earth. He will share his vision of how artists, especially craft artists, in the 21st century, at the dawn of the “Ecozoic era”, can assist in the healing of our deracination and amnesia from the embodied engagement with the living earth. How, in modest ways, we can re-root our imaginations and our souls in earth’s life - that is our life, with a reciprocal and participatory consciousness.

Paulus Berensohn
Paulus is a multi-disciplined artist (clay, weaving, book arts, poetry, doodling and movement etc), a passionate Deep Ecologist, an author (the landmark book “Finding One’s Way with Clay”, the monograph “Whatever we touch is touching us” and numerous articles) and an inspiring teacher. He has been associated with the Penland School of Crafts in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina for over 40 years.

Paulus has traveled extensively, here and abroad to offer hands-on workshops and talks about the reality of the imagination. He describes his work as his attempt “to extend the expressive, to open for the receptive the physical, to include the energetic and the soulfull, to embrace the spiritual."
This event will conclude with a pot-luck at Xiem Studio. Please bring a bowl or plate (preferably made by you) of something delicious to share for dinner. The serving bowls and plates will be exchanged as gifts between the participants after dinner.

There is no charge for this event and all are welcome. Please go to the "Calendar" page at www.xiemclaycenter.com to rsvp!