CERAMICS: East Meets West- Yixing Teapots
~With Ah Leon and Richard Notkin
Event Type: Workshop
Tuition: $350
Level: Beginners - Advanced
Old friends reunite once again to share their ceramic expertise 'over tea'. Experts in Yixing Teapots, the widely collected and accomplished contemporary ceramic artists Ah Leon and Richard Notkin will lead this 3-day ceramic experience. They will review several wheel throwing and handbuilding techniques that have allowed them to transform traditional Yixing teapots into an expressive representational and political art form. This synthesis of old and new, of East and West, as well as their acute attention to small detail, and a lifelong commitment to the advancement of ceramics, has gained both artists international recognition. In addition to innovating tea-ware, both artists share an affinity for Chinese Tea.
This workshop is a rare opportunity to participate in a complete tea experience, learning ceramic techniques of building functional representation wares, and appreciating the finer qualities of tea drinking during daily Chinese Tea Ceremonies.
Supplies to bring:
- Basic ceramic tools (most are available to share)
- sketchbook
- apron or smock
CERAMICS: East Meets West- Yixing Teapots
~With Ah Leon and Richard Notkin
Event Type: Presentation
Cost: Free!
Please welcome widely collected and accomplished contemporary ceramic artists Ah Leon and Richard Notkin to the Donkey Mill Art Center. As this year's Artists-In-Residence, they will share their approach to creating expressive representational and political art.
This is a potluck style reception followed by a slide presentation.
Over the course of the next 10 days, Ah Leon of Taiwan and Richard Notkin of Montana will teach a three-day workshop, share their expertise in tea ceremonies, oversee open studio in the ceramics area and participate with our children's art education program.
The Artist In Residence program is made possible by the Laila Twigg-Smith Art Fund, managed by the Hawai'i Community Foundation.
FIBER ART: Paper Making- Exploring dyed pulp
~With Marilyn Wold
Event Type: Workshop
Tuition: $145
Level: Open to All Levels
In this workshop the students will explore the beauty of color on natural plant fibers. Using Hawaiian plant fibers students will dye pulp to form sheets of all colors.
Did you ever see black, black banana paper? How about bright purple wauke paper or vivid green ulu paper? This workshop will explore handmade paper with local Hawaiian plant fibers. Explore the wonders of dyed pulp. Create colored sheets for a special book or piece of art work. Two full days of exciting paper making with all the colors of the rainbow!
FIBER ART: Paper Making- Exploring dyed pulp
~With Marilyn Wold
Event Type: Presentation
Cost: Free!
This presentation will cover Marilyn's career as an fiber artist traveling the world learning about endemic plants from native cultures. Potluck will precede the slide presentation.
"My fascination for papermaking intensifies in my personal research with various plant fibers and papermaking techniques. In the last ten years, travel and teaching have been a constant source of education, nurturing, excitement and pleasure." - Marilyn Wold
SCULPTURE: New Concepts in Process and Building
~With Taylor Davis
Event Type: Presentation
Cost: Free!
Taylor Davis is a Professor at Massachusetts College of Art and Design (1999-present), co-chair of sculpture at Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College since 2003, and visiting faculty at Department of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University, fall 2008.
Upcoming and recent exhibitions include: Horton Gallery (Sunday LES), Office Baroque Gallery, Worchester Art Museum, White Columns, Samson Projects, Exit Art, Triple Candie, Incident Report, and Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. Davis was included in the Whitney Museum of American Art Biennial 2004, New York. Grants and awards include Radcliffe Fellowship (2010-2011), Anonymous Was a Woman (2009), Association of International Art Critics Award (2007 and 2002)
Generating Pattern from Enviroment
~With Sarah Steinwachs
Event Type: Workshop
Tuition: $75
Level: Beginners - Advanced
Students will create a pattern/design based on something they bring - a point of inspiration. We will go through the sketch phase, drawing phase, stylization phase, arrangement phase, and then apply the finished idea with marker or paint ( using a ruling pen). After the "finding" of a design based on the environment, I will go through the process of cutting out the pattern and how this effects the pattern, the successes and failures of these processes.
List of Art Supplies for Students to bring if they have them:
ruling pen, markers, inks, color pencil, acrylic-whatever media they would like to use on paper, 140 lb. watercolor Paper or thinner-I prefer Arches-or paper that has a lot of sizing (printmaking paper is hard to cut-out because of its softness). Rulers, exacto-knife, cutting-mats, pencils, erasers
Generating Pattern from Environment
~With Sarah Steinwachs
Event Type: Presentation
Cost: Free!
The series of works in Paper Microcosms started from an impulse to cut out the spaces between the grid lines of graph paper. By doing this, the illusion of space became actual space. The lines that remained were contradictory to the air around them, a two-dimensional construct, in a three-dimensional reality. Further, the layering of these "in-between" dimensions created environments that were reminiscent of the everyday, such as a grate, over a screened window, but also something more profound like the curving nets of string theory; both hard to distinguish, at times, how many dimensions they inhabit.
When I started making these works, I used the grid as the primary system, and the knife as the mark-making device because I liked the challenge of staying inside the lines with a tool that I wasn't as familiar with. I quickly came to see however, that the natural gesture of process, including the unexpected slip-ups that occurred was visually much more interesting than the challenge of perfection. The engagement in making the work has since evolved to finding solutions from the combination of a standardized system, and the variance of hand.
This group of work has become a library of grid variables or an alphabet of grids.
Painting: Encaustic Monotype
~With Judith Williams
Event Type: Presentation
Cost: Free!
Williams is inspired by poetry, memories of her childhood, and everyday objects. Growing up in Baltimore, she danced and performed ballet and modern jazz for 20 years. She studied art at City College and the California College of Arts after moving to San Francisco. Williams received her BFA in painting in 1995 from Sonoma State University and has been working in the medium of encaustic for 6 years. She states, "i focus on seeing below the surface, through transparencies, layering, and peeling down to the essence... the hidden levels and psychological undertones."
ORIGAMI: Modern Origami
~With Deb Pun Descoe
Event Type: Workshop
Tuition: $60
Level: Beginners - Intermediate
Modern Origami is accessible to everyone. Deb Pun Descoe will show how traditional origami has evolved from the well-loved crane to today's form by leading two hands-on origami classes to fold, manipulate and assemble paper into usable containers and or decorative spheres. During the morning session, participants will learn how to interpret diagrams illustrated by modern origami designers by folding several practical boxes and containers. In the afternoon, each participant will weave together 30 sheets of paper into a dodecahedron ball, a subset in modern origami know as modular origami.
Friday night, FREE MOVIE SCREENING - Open to community "Between the Folds," 55 minute documentary followed by 30 minutes Q&A ending with a group project. I will show different types of paper (machine made, handmade, foil-tissue paper) I use in folding origami models. To end the evening, I will teach Seiryo Takekawa's "Tumbler" to all participants. We will line them up in a domino fashion to knock them down to demonstrate that origami can be fun.
Saturday morning session (2 hours) "Practical Origami Containers"' I will teach participants how to interpret diagrams illustrated by modern origami designers from folding several practical boxes and containers. I will discuss where to find online resources for origami diagrams, videos, book reviews and paper.
Saturday afternoon session (2-3 hours) "Modular Origami: Dodecahedron." Each participant will fold and assemble 30 sheets of 6" (15cm) square paper into a woven dodecahedron ball. I am teaching a subset in modern origami called modular origami. By assembling the 30 unit dodecahedron the participant will engage the left (logic) and right (creativity) brain hemispheres.
SCULPTURE: Concrete
~With Randy Shiroma
Event Type: Workshop
Tuition: $200
Level: Beginners - Intermediate
Cement is an amazing medium in which to generate large forms easily and rather inexpensively. One just has to look around to see the ubiquitous use of concrete. This workshop will help generate a sensitive use of the material. Activities will cover the generation of forms and the layered process of building up the form with cement/concrete. There is a potential for quickly realizing large 3D forms. A general overview will be presented, as well as a conceptual framework for viewing cement as an artistic medium and the methods and techniques of working. Please bring your excitement and willingness to work & experiment.
Come prepared to turn your imagination loose in this intensive, high-energy class. Beginners and advanced students are challenged to explore the possibilities of creating spontaneous paintings and three-dimensional sculpture in concrete. Discover its unconventional use as an expressive medium as we work in the liquid, clay-like, and solid states of concrete as it solidifies. Exciting effects will be achieved by methods of layering and building up surfaces, hand forming, building over armatures of various materials, textural effects and basic surface finishing. Develop your concepts and inspirations using various substrates, armatures, colorants, aggregates, imbedding objects and sanding and carving down through layers. Students will leave confident to continue their work at home and expand the possibilities of this medium in future workshops.