Workshops
Session 7 - August 31 to September 6
7/BASKETS
Exploration of the Unfamiliar
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| Feed Bag by Pat Hickman, 2001. Palm sheath, gut (hog casing), colored inks, waxed linine, art stix, 24" x 3" x 7". Photo Brad Goda |
This workshop will encourage the exploration of the unfamiliar and the unknown. Artists will develop confidence in their expression of visual ideas, which become sculptural baskets. Reference to history, memory, time, structure, and skin will be addressed in a series of quick three-dimensional projects, emphasizing individual directions. Participants will explore a wide range of materials, techniques, and ways of working. The workshop is less a how to, more an experience in discovery—a thoughtful focus and reflection on the concept of time and the creative process, while building unexpected baskets. All levels welcome.
PAT HICKMAN is a studio artist living in Haverstraw, New York. She taught in California art institutions and until recently was Professor of Art, University of Hawaii. Her work is in collections including the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, the Oakland Museum, California, the Honolulu Academy of Arts, and LongHouse Reserve. Pat Hickman was twice awarded fellowships by the National Endowment for the Arts. The American Craft Council has recognized her as a Fellow for her artistic achievement and leadership in the field. She is President-elect of the Textile Society of America. Pat Hickman has curated traveling exhibits: Innerskins/ Outerskins: Gut and Fishskin, and Baskets: Redefining Volume and Meaning. Her Nets of Makali’i-Nets of the Pleiades stand as monumental entrance gates for the Maui Arts and Cultural Center, Maui, Hawaii.
7/CLAY
Thinking Through Pots
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| Personal Teapot by Sequoia Miller, 2007. Stoneware, 5" x 6" x 5". |
A purposeful day in the pottery studio taps into the essential dialogue between making and understanding what’s made. This workshop will cultivate both aspects of this dialogue to clear pathways of personal growth in our work. Demonstrations will focus on manipulating wheel-thrown elements into entirely new pots–altered bowls, jars, and pouring forms. Participants will add and remove clay, exploring how pots can emerge out of each other and the mish-mash of sense memories. Studio work will be augmented by conversations and focused inquiry into pots in progress to develop a ‘practice of noticing’ in response to the work made daily. All levels welcome.
SEQUOIA MILLER was raised in Maine and New York City, and is now a studio potter based in Olympia, Washington. He holds a BA from Brandeis University in Russian History. His pottery has been featured recently in the Craft in America Project as well as in Ceramics Monthly, Studio Potter, and on the cover of Clay Times. Sequoia Miller teaches occasionally at the local community college and at craft centers nationally, including Arrowmont, Penland, and Haystack. Recent exhibits include the Smithsonian Craft Show, and solo shows in Philadelphia, Kansas City, and Maine.
7/GLASS
Scratching the Surface: Color and Texture in Glassblowing
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| Untitled Vessel by David Hering, 2007. Silver foil wrapped high shoulder vessel, black body with curved white cane inclusions, 12.5" x 12.5" x 13". |
This intensive workshop will explore a number of techniques for using color with blown glass forms. A variety of means for enriching the surface of objects, through the use of precious metal leaf, sandblasting, and mark-making with hand and machine tools will be investigated. The goal of this course is to expand the student’s vocabulary and to discover new possibilities. The potential that texture and color manipulations have will be explored from a painterly perspective. Examples of color and texture from nature, fabric, and magazine clippings will provide source material for exploration. At least two years glass blowing experience required.
DAVID HERING received an MA and an MFA in painting from the University of California at Berkeley where he was awarded the Eisner Prize for creative achievement. He came to glass work ten years ago after a twenty-five year career as a painter with the Paule Anglim Gallery in San Francisco. His glass work has been included in the Annual Pilchuck Exhibition at the William Traver Gallery and two Pilchuck 20 exhibitions at the Stewart Gallery in Boise, Idaho. David Hering shows his work nationally and has had featured artist shows at Vetri in Seattle and Kittrell/ Riffkind in Dallas.
7/METALS
Precious Metal Clay and Color
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| Brooch by Tim McCreight, 2006. Fine silver, 2 1/2" diameter. Photo Robert Diamante |
This workshop will explore the exciting possibilities of adding color to objects made of metal clay. Students with little background in this exciting new material will quickly be brought up to speed, but experienced precious metal clay (PMC) artists will also find new ways to approach their work. Coloration techniques include patina, enamel, resins, and wax. Experience in metals, metal clay, and ceramics will all be useful, but this workshop can accommodate anyone with an open mind. All levels welcome.
TIM MCCREIGHT is a teacher, author, and designer with more than thirty years of experience in the field of metals and graphics. He taught for many years at the Maine College of Art, Portland, Maine and has taught workshops around the US, and in England, Canada, Mexico, and Japan. He is the founding director of the PMC Guild and runs a publishing company based in Portland, Maine called Brynmorgen Press
7/MIXED MEDIA
The Artist as Traveler
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| Journey of the Heart Travel Journal by Gail Rieke, 2005-2007. 13.5" x 18" x 9" |
Who doesn’t have a box of memorabilia crying out to become more than a pile of memories? This workshop enables participants to journal past, present, and future travel experience using artwork, photos, digital imagery, collages or found materials. An initial slide lecture glimpses the pivotal role of travel in the work of artists and presents a spectrum of artists’ travel journals. Orchestrated experiences and field trip explorations provide both word and image content for four book structures: accordion fold, Journal of Possibilities, Coptic, and Japanese stab binding run the gamut from exacting to freewheeling. All levels welcome.
GAIL RIEKE is a collage/assemblage artist who lives, works, and plays in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her passion for teaching has brought her to the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; College of Santa Fe; San Franciso Center for the Book, Convergence, and Penland. Her quest for travel has enabled her to lecture and teach travel journal workshops in Japan, Montreal, Thailand, and Laos. Shows include a retrospective with her husband, Zachariah, at the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico and the 2007 Cheongju International in Korea where she was a guest lecturer.
7/MIXED MEDIA/METALS
The Fine Art of the Tin Can
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| Truck by Bobby Hansson. License plates. |
The Fine Art of the Tin Can The humble tin can serves as a starting point of artistic exploration for this unique class. Traditional and innovative techniques will be used to combine cans with other recycled materials to create toys, jewelry, and musical instruments.
BOBBY HANSSON, author of The Fine Art of the Tin Can, has made artwork from tin cans for over forty years. His work has been shown at the American Craft Museum, Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, and Oakland Museum, plus many galleries and schools. He has taught Tin Can classes at Arrowmont, John C. Campbell Folk School, Haystack, Parsons, Penland, Peters Valley, and Touch- stone, to name a few. He builds vehicles for Kinetic Sculpture Races; Cubist guitars and horns from every imaginable material; he tinkers; black- smiths; makes mail art almost too ornate to mail; and he has photographed everything under the sun.
7/WRITING
Writing as Dwelling
This workshop will focus on our dwelling on earth as a model for writing. Such dwelling concerns itself with taking the time to pay attention and explore what is present in a moment, detail, scene, metaphor, image or character. Too often, writers leave a paragraph or stanza before they have considered the possibilities and implications of their initial words. Participants will work from prompts in poetry and prose that will afford opportunities to imagine, discover and persevere. A modest amount of silence/meditation will accompany the writing and discussion time.
BARON WORMSER is the author/co-author of ten books, most recently his memoir, The Road Washes Out in Spring: A Poet's Memoir of Living off the Grid. In 2008 Sarabande Books will publish Scattered Chapters: New and Selected Poems while CavanKerry Press will publish a book of stories entitled The Poetry Life: Ten Stories. He is a former Poet Laureate of Maine who teaches in the Stonecoast MFA Program and works widely in schools. Baron Wormser has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.