Fingerprints on a Mountaintop

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PHOTOS BY JAMES WALTON SMITH

Reprinted by permission, from the June/July 1981 issue of American Craft, published by the American Craft Council Membership in the council, which includes a subscription tion to the bimonthly magazine American Craft, can be obtained by sending $29.50 to American Craft Council, Dept TMEN, P.O. Box 561, Martinsville, New Jersey 08836

Louise Todd Cope and Don Willcox

Our first responsibility when we took possession of our mountaintop meadow was to understand the totality of our trust. We began to ruminate quietly upon the land, to study its personality, its idiosyncrasies, its will, its contours, its soil, its watershed, its juxtaposition to neigh boring mountains, and especially its exposure to sky and weather. We needed to know the strengths and directions of its prevailing winds, to record storm patterns, and to plot the path of the sun as it warmed our soil.

Moving to Penland, North Carolina was easy for us. It was a little like coming home, since Penland lies in an extraordinary natural landscape and is the home of the Penland School of Crafts, which has long served as a crossroads of creative energy. This growing crafts community was where we wanted to be.

Our backgrounds are very different. One of us (Louise) has lived both in the suburbs and in a city, while the other (Don) has spent years in rural Scandina. via. But we've both been teachers ... one in the classroom and workshop, the other through writing books. We wanted to translate theory into practice.

We each, in our own way, have long been professionally committed to a celebration of personal space. Our challenge was clear: to create a personal, handmade living environment. What kind of space did we have in mind, and what were our priorities? First, we had elected to build on a totally exposed mountaintop, so warmth was a major consideration. Next, we wanted our interior space to feel limitless, like the sky above our meadow. We wanted to eliminate those rightangled hiding places where energy gets cornered. The form had to flow, to feel organic. But how do you go about translating an abstract idea into an environment?

Initially we tried sketching our ideas on paper, but the sketches were only an extension of the abstract. There was no way of capturing in them the reality of what we wanted. We tried to disengage ourselves from our intellects and trust our intuitions. That was when we came up with the idea of the rope.

We bought a 200-foot rope and used it as an actual line drawn upon the meadow. It made more sense than a pencil mark on paper. We could relate to this line, stand within its circumference, and feel its scale. We could make believe it had walls and let it give us flexibility . . . a chance to lengthen, shorten, and curve our form at will. The rope helped us to decide where to prepare and eat our meals, where to sleep and, most important, what our views would be. However, we were so carried away with the potential of the rope that we did not predetermine its shape. Our rope form resembled a giant caterpillar lying on its side with a bubble on its head.

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