Workshops

5/CLAY

Intricacies of Form & Function

Pitcher & Serving Dish by Sanam Emami, 2007. Porcelain, silk screened underglaze, glaze, 12" x 11" x 11".

In this workshop participants will discuss how meaning emerges from the intricate play between function, form, and ornamental surfaces. Forms will be primarily shaped on the wheel. The integration of hand building and simple mold making techniques with wheel thrown forms will be presented. Demonstrations will focus on both simple and complex pottery forms, and offer a wide range of solutions for considering volume, proportion, and structure. The integration of form and surface will be addressed with slip work, applied textures and patterns, and glaze. Questions about utility, decoration and ornament, source material and context will be the focus of class discussions, slide presentations and critiques. The workshop will focus on cone 10 oxidation and salt firing. Knowledge of basic clay forming techniques required.

SANAM EMAMI  is an Assistant Professor of Pottery at Colorado State University, Fort Collins. She received a BA in History from James Madison University and an MFA in Ceramics from NYSCC at Alfred University. She was a Visiting Assistant Professor in Ceramics at the School of Art & Design at Alfred University and a resident artist at the Archie Bray Foundation in Montana. Artist lectures include Islamic Ceramic Traditions Symposium, Harvard, Kansas City Art Institute, Bennington College, and NCECA, Louisville, Kentucky. Sanam Emami received a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant for Craft. Recent exhibitions include: Inspired Utility: Exceptional Ceramic Vessels at the Main Line Art Center, Flower Power at the Clay Studio in Philadelphia, and the American Pottery Festival at Northern Clay Center, Minnesota.

www.sanamemami.com

5/FIBERS/MIXED MEDIA

Fabric - Constructions - Sculpture and Cloths

Black Figure/Cork Frame by Marita Dingus, 2005. Fabric, cork, 23" x 15".

The first week participants will be building small sculptures primarily of fabric and found objects brought from home. Sculptures can be small humans and/or animals, vessels, two-dimensional fences, or masks. Tools: sewing machine, hot glue gun. The second week, using sewing machines, participants will be building clothing for the small sculptures—from fabric or old clothing to be cut up and changed—tops, pants, skirts, coat, jacket. As many projects as energy allows. All levels welcome, sewing skills helpful.

MARITA DINGUS was born and raised in Washington State and considers herself an African-American Feminist and environmental artist. She received an MFA from San Jose State University and a BFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University. Marita Dingus is a 1999 Guggenheim Fellow and has shown in the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC; Stenersen Museum, Oslo, Norway; NATO, Brussels, Belgium; Museum of Glass, Tacoma; Seattle Art Museum; Tacoma Art Museum. Her work is in the collections of Microsoft, Seattle; Safeco, Seattle; Seattle Art Museum; Tacoma Art Museum; and others.

5/GLASS

No Answers in the Back of the Book

Eyelets by Jack Wax, 2007. Blown glass.

This class will avoid tradition, disregard precedent, and steer clear of mindless repetition. We will work together to focus instead on a non-linear approach; applying a compiled set of “verbs” to this material: glass. The order of the day will be “action”—not contemplation, and in the end, we will discover that which we were (surely) not looking for. A minimum of two years glassblowing experience required.

JACK WAX is Professor, Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Arts, Richmond, Virginia. A graduate of Rhode Island School of Design, Jack Wax has taught at Tyler School of Art, University of the Arts, Ohio State University, Cleveland Institute of Art, and Toyama Institute, Toyama, Japan, among others. He is a two-time recipient of Individual Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, was nominated three times for a Tiffany Foundation Grant, was a recipient of an Illinois State Council of the Arts Grant, the Theresa Pollack Award, and a Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Individual Professional Artists Fellowship. He has done residencies at Cam Ocagi, Istanbul, Turkey; Corning Museum, New York, and Virginia Center for Creative Arts.

5/METALS

Anticlastic Raising

Ying Yang by Michael Good, Bracelet, 18k gold.

This course will cover all aspects of Anticlastic Raising, the unique metalsmithing technique developed by Michael Good. He will lead students through a series of exercises designed to teach the principles of how metal is moved from flat sheet into non-definitive forms. Students will practice each stage in order to digest the concepts presented before moving on to the next exercise. All levels welcome.
 
MICHAEL GOOD is a designer/sculptor/jeweler whose side interests include physics, philosophy, archeology, and kayaking. He is known around the world as the master of Anticlastic Raising. Primarily self-taught, Michael came to Haystack for the first time in 1977 as a studio assistant to legendary metalsmith, Heikki Seppa. He has been exploring metal forming for over twenty-five years and has given workshops for professional organizations, universities, and schools in North America and Europe. His work is represented in stores, galleries, museums, and private collections around the world, and can be seen at the Michael Good Gallery in Rockport, Maine.

5/PRINTMAKING

Prints with Tangible Surfaces

Freedom Fries: Dubya's Dream ^ Freedom Fries: Cheney's Camouflage by Eileen Foti, 2007. Lithography with metallic pigment and gouache, each 7 1/2" x 5 1/2" x 2".

This workshop focuses on creating prints with interesting surfaces. Using water-based and oil-based inks, participants will explore monotype and chine collé (collage) with traditional and non-traditional materials, metallic powders, leafing, stencil work, and registration methods for successful multiple run printing. Adhesives will also be discussed. In addition, we will explore polyester plate lithography: these thin, inexpensive commercial plates can be hand drawn, laser printed, or photocopied. They require no chemical processing other than wetting and rolling up with litho ink and provide a safer, more immediate way, to print an image and will work beautifully with the monotype and chine collé techniques. All levels welcome.

EILEEN FOTI is Assistant Professor at Montclair State University and former Master Printer of the Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper. She was Interim Education Director at Tamarind Institute and has received fellowships from New Jersey State Council on the Arts and Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation. She has lectured/exhibited in Morocco, South Africa, Botswana, Thailand, Italy, Croatia, Russia, and the Caribbean and is on the Board of Advisors for Artist Proof Studio in Johannesburg and on the Board of Directors at the Printmaking Council of New Jersey. Eileen Foti has written and co-produced A Ripple in the Water: Healing through Art, a documentary about using papermaking and embroidery in poverty alleviation and HIV/AIDS awareness programs for women across South Africa (funded in part by the New Jersey Council for the Humanities and Johnson & Johnson).

5/WOOD

Structure as Design

Lattice Table by Michael Hurwitz, 2007. Alaskan yellow cedar, epoxy resin, 30" x 31" x 3".

This course is intended to encourage students to think of structure as the primary element of their furniture design. With that idea as a goal, participants will trust their intuition to help direct engineering decisions. This is not meant to be a workshop in engineering principles, but instead to focus on the role that structure plays in developing the identity of a form. A suggested project would be a small table, but any comparable sized form would work as well. Come with ideas/sketches of things to explore.
All levels welcome.

MICHAEL HURWITZ has been making studio furniture since earning a BFA from Boston University’s Program in Artisanry in 1979 and was Head of the Wood Department at University of the Arts, Philadelphia. He has shown extensively including several solo exhibitions at the Peter Joseph Gallery and Pritam and Eames Gallery in NY. His work is represented in several public collections including the Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, and the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Michael Hurwitz is the recipient of many honors including three National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artist Fellowships, Japan Foundation Fellowships, and PEW Foundation Fellowship in the Arts.

5/VISITING WRITER

DAVID JAUSS is the author or editor of eight books, including two short story collections, Black Maps and Crimes of Passion, two collections of poems, Improvising Rivers and You Are Not Here, and a collection of essays on the craft of fiction, Alone with All That Could Happen. His awards include the AWP Award for Short Fiction, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, an O. Henry Prize, two Pushcart Prizes, and a Best American Short Stories selection. He teaches at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and in the MFA in Writing Program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Writing What You Don’t Know
I believe, with Sherwood Anderson, that “the whole glory of writing fiction lies in the fact that it forces us out of ourselves and into the lives of others.”  If we accept the oft-repeated advice to “write what you know,” this glory will remain beyond us.  What we need to learn is how to write from what we know into what we don’t know.  Through a series of exercises and discussions, we’ll explore the shadowy borderline between truth and fiction, and between self-revelation and self-transcendence, that occurs when we transform life into fiction. 

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