Summer Sessions

4/BOOK ARTS

It’s All in the Game: The Playful Artist's Book

Panorama by Julie Chen, 2008. Text and image by Julie Chen: Letterpress printed on a variety of papers from photopolymer plates and wood blocks, in an edition of 100 copies. Photo by Sibila Savage.

The interactive potential inherent in both artist's books and board games invites a range of possibilities for combining elements from each to create a new hybrid form. We will begin by doing a series of content and design exercises to help get the process started. Then each participant will create a piece that is part artist's book and part functioning board game. Book art techniques will be used to print and assemble the game boards, and to make the rule booklets, spinners and various game pieces that will be part of each set. Participants will create a compartmented box to house all the elements of their artists’ book/game sets. Some previous experience in making basic book structures and boxes is required.

JULIE CHEN is an Associate Professor in the Book Art Program at Mills College, Oakland, California. She is an internationally known book artist, who maintains a studio in Berkeley, California, and has been producing limited edition artist's books under the Flying Fish Press imprint for the past twenty-five years. Her work involves intensive explorations of both form and content and is heavily rooted in the ideas of the book as a physical object and a time-based medium. She received a BA in Studio Art from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MA in Book Art from Mills College, Oakland, California. Julie Chen’s work can be found in library and museum collections around the world, including the library at the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. flyingfishpress.com

4/CLAY

Ornamental Geometry: Exploring Pottery Form and Surface

Patterned Slip Cast Cups by Sanam Emami, 2012. Black porcelain, porcelain, 5" x 3 1/2" x 3 1/2".

In this workshop we will explore the use of pattern in integrating the pot's form with its surface. Pattern and decoration not only adorn or embellish, they can also inspire formal decisions. We will discuss strategies for interpreting a wide range of sources--from floral to geometric--into patterns for shaping and decorating pots. The focus will be functional objects—from tableware and trivets, centerpieces, and flower vases fired to cone 6 in both electric and salt oxidation. The pottery wheel will be the primary tool, with the addition of some hand building and mold making processes. Numerous decorative techniques will be introduced including stamping, carving, slip decoration, and silkscreen transfers. Basic clay forming skills preferable.

SANAM EMAMI is a ceramic artist and an Assistant Professor of Pottery at Colorado State University, Fort Collins. She received a BA in History from James Madison University, Virginia and an MFA in Ceramics from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. She was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Alfred University, resident artist at the Archie Bray Foundation, and has lectured at Islamic Ceramic Traditions Symposium; at the Office for the Arts at Harvard University; and Arizona State University Art Museum-Ceramic Research Center. She received a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant for Craft and her work has been in exhibitions at Red Star Studios, Missouri; Greenwich House Pottery, New York; and the American Pottery Festival at Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota. sanamemami.com

4/FIBER

Shibori: Line, Pattern and Color

The Walls by Michael Olszewski, 2010. Crochet, applique, stitching in silk and linen, 11" x 9".

Using techniques of stitching, binding, wrapping, and folding, workshop participants will explore a visual language of design and personal expression. By integrating these methods with the layering of color through over dyeing and color removal, the students will create samples and finished works. Studio discussions and critiques will expand one’s awareness of the expressive capabilities of these combined processes and promote further investigations. Experience with dyes and textiles helpful.

MICHAEL OLSZEWSKI is a textile artist and a Professor in the School of Fine and Performing Arts at Columbia College Chicago. He was previously a Professor in the Textile Design Department at Moore College of Art & Design in Philadelphia. Michael Olszewski received a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Michigan. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Pew Charitable Trusts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Ballinglen Arts Foundation, and the Polish Ministry of Culture. His work has been in numerous exhibitions and is in The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; the Museum of Arts & Design, New York; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

4/GLASS

Clearly Copied

Pocket Watch, Books, Skull and Candles by Beth Lipman, 2010. Print, face mounted to Plexiglas, edition of eight, 58" x 48"

Why do we make what we make? Every object made in glass is simultaneously an imitation and an original. Workshop participants will explore these ideas, as well as their personal motivations, while working in the hotshop and in daily group discussions. Participants will blow and sculpt using traditional and innovative techniques to experiment with process and concept. Finishing techniques, including cold working and installation, will be demonstrated and discussed. Emphasis will be on experimentation, but students will accomplish finished works of modest size. Beginning skills in hot glass required.

BETH LIPMAN has received numerous awards including a USA Berman Bloch Fellowship and Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant. She studied at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and received a BFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University. Her work has been exhibited internationally, and most recently at the Norton Museum of Art, Florida; Museum of Arts & Design, New York; and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Renwick Gallery, Washington, DC. Her work is in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Renwick Gallery, Washington, DC. Beth Lipman lives and works in Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin. bethlipman.com

4/METALS

En Plein Air Jewelry/Metalsmithing

Maelstrom (detail) by Beverly Penn, 2011. Bronze, 9’ x 9’ x 1’.

Using direct observation of the Haystack landscape environment, workshop participants will create work using direct method casting techniques and a variety of digital photo-etching processes. Botanical samples, centrifugally cast in silver or bronze, will offer an initial point of departure. En plein air drawings and/or photographs of the environment, which may be manipulated in Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, will be etched in sheet metal as the 2D counterpart to the cast forms. Discussion and critique will guide participants to incorporate results into finished pieces. In-depth casting instruction and transfer photo-etching methods will be presented. Basic metalsmithing skills required, and some knowledge of Adobe Photoshop and/or Illustrator suggested.

BEVERLY PENN is a metalsmith and Professor at Texas State University. She received a BFA from the University of Texas at El Paso, an MA from New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, and an MFA from State University of New York, at New Paltz. Beverly Penn is the recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation residency in Bellagio, Italy; Texas Commission on the Arts grant; a Fulbright Fellowship in Barcelona, Spain; and the Texas State University Presidential Seminar Research Award. She has been commissioned for seven national public art projects and her work is in the collections of the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, New York; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., the Austin Museum of Art and the El Paso Museum of Art, Texas; and the Racine Art Museum, Wisconsin.

4/WOOD

21st Century Jig Making

Snake Cabinet by Reuben Foat, 2011. Ash, wenge, and milk paint, 15" x 45" x 21".

Complex curves and intricate joinery can make a piece of furniture come alive, yet these design features can be prohibitively complicated to make. Workshop participants will design and build a small piece of furniture that incorporates curves and detailed joinery. With a little courage and some help from the Haystack fab lab, we will make the complicated not only possible, but easy through the use of custom jigs and templates. A finished piece of furniture is the aim of the session, but the true goal is to make beautiful, highly functional jigs that elegantly serve their purpose. All levels welcome.

REUBEN FOAT is a furniture maker and sculptor, bridging traditional methods with 21st century CAD and CNC technology. He received an MFA in Furniture Design and Woodworking from San Diego State University. Reuben Foat’s work spans from being a cabinetmaker in London, England and in mid-coast Maine, to commission work for clients in Maine, Wisconsin, and California. He has taught courses at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship, Rockland, Maine and the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. reubenfoat.com

4/VISITING MUSICIAN

Saxophonist YOSVANY TERRY is a significant part of the jazz and contemporary music scene in New York. He “helped to redefine Latin jazz as a complex new idiom” (The New York Times). He teaches at Princeton University, and the New School and Harlem School of the Arts, New York. Born in Cuba, the musician/composer/educator incorporates American jazz traditions with his Afro-Cuban roots. He performs worldwide with the Yosvany Terry Quartet, Yosvany Terry and the Afro Caribbean Quintet, and Gonzalo Rubalcaba Quintet, and has worked with Branford Marsalis, Cassandra Wilson, Dafnis Prieto, Taj Mahal, and Paul Simon. His most recent recording is Today’s Opinion (Criss Cross, 2012). Yosvany Terry also plays the chekeré, an Afro-Cuban percussion instrument, and studied at the National School of Arts and Amadeo Roldan Conservatory in Havana. yosvanyterry.com

Understanding Afro-Cuban Rhythms in the Diaspora
During informal workshops we will explore the richness of Afro-Cuban Rhythms from the Diaspora, specifically in the Antilles. Sessions are designed to help participants identify the basic elements, concepts, and rhythmic structure—the foundation of this oral tradition.

Support for musical performances comes from Haystack’s Hy Frumkin Fund.

Yosvany Terry’s residency at Haystack is in conjunction with the 13th Annual Deer Isle Jazz Festival at the Stonington Opera House, produced by Opera House Arts, August 2-3, 2013. operahousearts.org

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