view or download Arrowmont's 2012 Annual Report.

friends and familiar faces
Erin Castellan
Bill Griffith
for the benefit of students
enrolled in Arrowmont’s
ArtReach and Community
Class programs. Castellan says
the language and vocabulary
she developed during those
months continues to be an
asset during the inevitable
internal dialogue that takes
place while creating.
Not every artist, at every stage
of personal progress, would
thrive in a residency program.
For those artists considering
entering such a program,
Castellan has a short list of
prerequisites.
“It is important to be at a
point in your artistic development
that you are craving
time to pursue your craft in
depth,” she says. “Be able to
thrive in self-directed studio
environments—keep momentum
going without need for
faculty input.”
“Time, time, time,” says the
artist, when asked to name
her favorite things about her
Arrowmont residency. “Being
surrounded by others who are
making is pretty wonderful
too.”
Bill Griffith
One reason 2012 was a banner
year for Arrowmont was the
successful establishment of
The Bill Griffith Art Educator’s
Fellowship. In celebration
of Bill Griffith’s 25 years of
service to Arrowmont—preceded
by 14 years he spent as
a high school art teacher—
more than $50,000 was raised
to endow a fellowship that
offers a four-week residency to
a K-12 art teacher each year,
through 2033.
Fellow Arrowmont leaders
asked Griffith how he would
most like to be honored. He
chose and helped develop this
program, perpetuating the
sort of learning opportunity
that first drew him to Arrowmont.
It is a fitting manner
of marking his lasting impact
and long-term success here.
And what Griffith has done
here on Arrowmont’s behalf—
helping to enrich thousands of
students, instructors, visitors,
peers and colleagues—has
been carried and shared all
over the world.
“I care about this place,” says
Griffith. “Hopefully it shows.
“I’m honored and thrilled that
Arrowmont has honored me
in this way. My roots are art
education. It’s important to
me to be able to pass that on.”
Griffith started teaching high
school art at age 23, in Connersville,
Indiana. In 1984,
Griffith made his first of two
trips to Arrowmont to work
as a studio assistant. While
still teaching in Connersville,
Griffith began encouraging his
high school students to attend
workshops at Arrowmont.
“Arrowmont awakened
something in me,” remembers
Griffith. “I realized that there
was more that I wanted to
do.”
It should not surprise that
Arrowmont’s first Bill Griffith
Fellow, San Diego high school
art teacher Eric Rempe, has
a history very similar to Bill
Griffith’s. Rempe has experienced
Arrowmont by attending
three of the Utilitarian
Clay symposiums hosted by
Arrowmont. Since 2009,
Rempe has raised funds to
send three of his San Diego
students per year to Arrowmont
workshops.
In his letter of application
for the Fellowship, Rempe’s
reasoning flatters both his
own sense of priorities, and
the institution of Arrowmont
and its supporters which have
made such an opportunity
available to him—and at least
19 others, in the future.
“Students often ask what the
best piece is that I’ve ever
made,” he wrote, “but I’ve
never felt like I had one best
piece. I often think about the
difference that my work makes
in the lives of those who end
up with it. It is the main
reason that I have chosen
to make functional pottery.
However, the simple conclusion
for me was that my best
pot would never make a difference
in the life of someone
else the way that my teaching
can on its best day. I am asking
for this time at Arrowmont
so that I may continue
to enrich who I am and, in
turn, better serve the students
that I share my life with.”
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