Workshops

3/CLAY

Multiple Meanings

Tumblers: Secondary by George Bowes, 2007. Cone 5 porcelain, underglaze, glazes, 6 1/2" x 3 1/2" each.

The use of multiples to convey ideas spans the history of art and is particularly pertinent to contemporary craft practice. This workshop will concentrate on how ceramic multiples have the potential to present contemporary concerns. These groupings can be utilitarian, tile, sculptural, installations or site specific. Working with cone 5 clays, a variety of forming techniques will be covered including throwing, handbuilding, and simple mold making. Surface work with slips and glazes will be extensively covered to give the participants the option to not only convey ideas through form but also with drawing and painting techniques. Participants will be encouraged to work individually and in collaboration to produce works where multiple objects are employed to present ideas of beauty, culture, politics, and personal issues. All levels welcome.

GEORGE BOWES lives in Galveston, Texas. He has a BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art and a MFA from the University of California, Davis. He has taught across the US as a professor, workshop leader and artist in residence. He has received multiple Individual Artist Fellowships from the Ohio Arts Council, and an Arts Midwest/NEA Regional Visual Arts Fellowship Award. His works reside in public and private collections that include the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; Art Gallery of Nova Scotia; Joseph Schein International Museum of Ceramic Art (Alfred University). Recently his work has been exhibited at the Clay Studio, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, SOFA New York, Pewabic Pottery, Detroit, Michigan, and at Dowstudio, Deer Isle, Maine.

3/GLASS

Little Surprises Around Every Corner, But Nothing Dangerous

Teardrop Incalmo Vases by Michael Schunke, 2006. Blown glass, topaz with amethyst, 27" x 10 1/2" x 10 1/2"; cerulean blue with gray, 24" x 10" x 10".

This workshop will not focus on a particular technique, approach, or philosophy about glassmaking. Demonstration, discussion, and drawing will be used as tools for finding and becoming comfortable with ideas, shapes, and methods that have eluded us. Getting back to basics is often an effective way to resolve even the most advanced problem and this class will often visit this point of view. The purpose of this class is not for students to leave with a finished body of work. So please bring your open minds, experiences, questions, and your sketch books and be ready to use them all. A good grasp of glassblowing fundamentals and at least two years of experience working from the furnace is required.

MICHAEL SCHUNKE lives, works, and plays in West Grove, Pennsylvania. He began glassblowing while at Tyler School of Art, Temple University, graduating in 1991. He was Visiting Professor at Toyama Institute of Glass, Toyama, Japan. His work is in the permanent collections of the Ebeltoft Museum of Glass and the Toyama Museum of Glass. Michael Schunke is a past fellow at the Creative Glass Center of America in Milville, New Jersey and currently serves on its board. He owns and operates Nine Iron Studios, Inc., producing limited production pieces, private commissions, and one of a kind sculpture.

www.nineironstudios.com

3/METALS

Fire, Form, and Color: Torch-Firing for Jewelers

Ear Disks by Marjorie Simon, 2006-7. Vitreous enamel on embossed copper, about 1 1/2" diameter.

This class is for metal smiths who want to experiment with color, and for enamellists who want to explore form. Torch-firing is spontaneous and serendipitous; no struggling with cloisonné wires, just shake and bake. Using a jewelry vocabulary, participants will fold, stretch, pierce, emboss, and die-form copper, then experiment with boundaries of color and surface. Students will make line drawings with binding wire and enamel the embossed drawings. Because enameled forms cannot be soldered, attention will be paid to settings, cold connections, bezels and their alternatives. Some familiarity with either enamel or metal suggested.

MARJORIE SIMON is a studio jeweler who also teaches and writes about craft.  She is a former Chairperson of the Editorial Advisory Committee for Metal smith and writes regularly for the magazine. She was the juror and writer for 500 Brooches, Lark Books.  She has taught torch-firing at Penland, Arrowmont, The Newark Museum, among others. For over twenty-five years Marjorie Simon has exhibited at Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show, Smithsonian Craft Show, and SOFA Chicago and New York. Her work is in the collections of the Mint Museum of Craft and Design, North Carolina and the Racine Art Museum, Wisconsin. She has received two fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. In 2006, she had a retrospective at Loupe Gallery, Montclair, New Jersey.

www.marjoriesimon.com

3/PAINTING/MIXED MEDIA

Painting and Mixed Media

Quasar Boat by Ke Francis, 2004. Acrylic, 30" x 40".

This workshop will explore the expressive capabilities of painting, collage, and construction to create flat paintings or painted reliefs. Participants may choose to work in traditional two-dimensional form or combine traditional painting processes with a variety of media to create innovative and inventive works. The class will stress the importance of notebooks, visual diaries, sketchbooks, and drawings as important contributors to continuity in creative visual research. All levels welcome.

KE FRANCIS is a narrative painter, printmaker, and sculptor. He is currently Professor at the University of Central Florida, Orlando. He is represented by the Bill Lowe Gallery in Atlanta and Los Angeles. He is the founder of Hoopsnake Press, a private press that produces limited edition books and prints, and has served as director of Flying Horse Editions, the fine art press at University of Central Florida. His works are included in the Museum of Fine Art, Boston, National Gallery, Washington, DC, Getty Museum, New Orleans Museum, and Museum of American Art. In the last five years his work has been exhibited in more than forty national and international museums.

3/QUILTS

The Art Quilt: Painted Cloth and Composition

Goblin's Progress: In the Air by Emily Richardson, 2006. Silk and cotton fabrics, acrylic paint, hand stitching. 25" x 25".

Each student will create a progressive series of quilts using concepts, techniques, and processes as they are introduced and developed in the workshop. During the painting and composing stage, students will experiment with acrylic paints, a variety of fabrics, and ways to manipulate the materials for varying results. Design exercises, discussions, and individual work will explore different ways art conveys meaning; expand understanding and use of compositional elements in support of personal expression; enhance visual awareness and the ways language is used to describe and understand what we see. Emphasis is on working quickly and directly with fabric, and making decisions based on visual responses as the work evolves. Experience with fabric and the ability to sew by hand or machine required.

EMILY RICHARDSON’s work is internationally recognized for its painterly and expressive qualities. It is included in the collections of the Museum of Art and Design, New York; the International Quilt Study Center, Lincoln Nebraska; and the Nihon Vogue Company in Tokyo. Emily Richardson has had a number of solo exhibitions at Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia and Jane Sauer Thirteen Moons Gallery in Santa Fe. She was the recipient of the 1997 Leeway Foundation Award for Excellence in Fiberarts and the 2004 Quilts Japan Prize.

www.grossmccleaf.com
www.thirteenmoonsgallery.com

3/WOOD

Voices and Values

Father Child Cabinet by Rosanne Somerson, 1995. Chestnut oak, ivory lacewood, 72 1/2" x 24" x 15 1/2".

This course will investigate the ways in which values are represented in our work. Through a series of exercises, talks, and project explorations, students will develop ideas and objects that explore a deepening sense of personal invest-ment in their work. Exercises will be augmented by evaluation of current work, and discussions about how these represent the issues and goals inherent in making from each student's unique point of view. Furniture objects will be the focus of explorations and lectures, which will examine a wide band of current and historic works. There will be an emphasis on drawing, model-making and methods for design development as a means of growing ideas. Experience with woodworking tools and equipment required.

ROSANNE SOMERSON is a Professor in the Furniture Design Department at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). She received a BFA from RISD in Industrial Design in 1976. Simultaneously she has run Somerson Furniture Studio since 1978, where she designs and makes furniture. She is also a principal in DEZCO furniture design llc, where she and her colleagues design furniture for production. Rosanne Somerson's work has been exhibited at the Museum of Decorative Arts of the Louvre in Paris, and is in numerous collections including the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Yale University Art Gallery, and the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. A former trustee of Haystack, she received the James Renwick Alliance Distinguished Craft Educators Award.

3/VISITING ARTIST

Voices and Values

LIZ LERMAN is a choreographer, performer, educator, author, and speaker. Described by the Washington Post as “the source of an epochal revolution in the scope and purposes of dance art,” her dance/theater works have been seen throughout the US and abroad. Her aesthetic approach spans the range from abstract to personal to political, while her working process emphasizes research, translation between artistic media, and intensive collaboration with dancers and communities. She founded Liz Lerman Dance Exchange in 1976 and has cultivated the company’s unique multi-generational ensemble into a leading force in contemporary dance. Liz Lerman’s numerous honors include a 2002 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.

Translations
Spending time in someone else’s universe can be a great way to spark your own creativity: seeing the world through fresh perspectives, trying out new tools, hanging out in an unfamiliar environment. Informal activities each afternoon invite craft and visual artists to have such an experience, guided by choreographer/writer/educator Liz Lerman. With approaches drawn from Liz’s work in dance and her partnerships in diverse domains, this class will be an opportunity to physically research, problem solve, and play with generative techniques, all using movement and the body as primary resources. These informal activities can either provide a respite from the intensity of the other work being done at Haystack or supply new ways to partner the big questions driving your creative time. We will experiment, observe, talk, and move.

Visiting artists augment the session with informal activities and are not workshop leaders.