Category Archives: Teaching

A two-day encounter of the art-full kind

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wsWhat was I thinking? Two full-day workshops at the Studio back-to-back? A weekend of hanging out, creating, eating and talking with eight other like-minded souls?  How would all of that look? It looked FANTASTIC!

Saturday was Belisle’s Collage Extravaganza and Composition Challenge. We worked on two major pieces – a collage on canvas with extreme emphasis on composition (the AB3s) and a collage on cradle board with image transfers and encaustic wax. The intrepid participants gave it their all, and we were very tired but happy at the end of the day. Here’s the video – see if you can detect the AB3s of composition at work in the finished pieces.

But wait – there’s more! On Sunday, Lesta Frank and I team-taught a very non-traditional mixed media journaling class. Everyone designed their own pages and created a loose-leaf portfolio to collect and show their experimental surface finishes, including one really interesting Profile Page. This was Lesta’s idea and consisted of an actual dimensional profile cutout with descriptions of a personal profile as part of the composition. Very nice! Watch for it in the video, below.

In the critiques and discussions, all agreed that the two-day experience was great, both for those who came both days and those who came on one day of choice. We had eight participants each day, half of whom were there for both days. Nicely balanced! I will plan another weekend experience in the early part of 2016. I should be recovered by then!

Potters and gourders

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I’m presenting a program to the San Antonio Potters Guild tonight. It’s called Earthenware, Ornament, and Assemblage. While collecting photos photos of my clay pieces, I realized that working in earthenware has been part of my art practice for almost 50 years! These days it’s mostly face shard production and some small sculptural pieces, and I love exploring finishes for fired unglazed clay. Here’s one of the finishes I’m showing the potters tonight – it’s a wax-based custom metallic patina that starts with neutral shoe polish! I used it as a finish on the piece at the left and thought you might like to see how it’s done.

Kathleen Peet: "Diamonds on the soles of her shoes"

Kathleen Peet: “Diamonds on the soles of her shoes”

Just as I was working on my Potters Guild presentation, I got a message from Kathleen Peet, a mixed-media artist from Prineville, Oregon who uses my shard faces in her work. She works with gourds in a unique way – look at this gorgeous piece, left.

Kathleen has an Etsy shop called  Full Circle Art and you can contact her there to see the full scope of her creativity with gourds.

This is what she says about her passion: “When I started in 1996, gourds were a relatively new medium, especially in rural eastern Oregon. The most frequently asked questions were: “What are those?” and “Do you grow them?” Now, gourds are much better known, and some are recognized as ‘fine art’ rather than just craft. I have enjoyed taking this medium in many different directions, and just when I think I’ve tried everything, some new idea hits me. While still enjoying painting, spinning/weaving, ceramics and abalone jewelery….I always come back to gourds!”

Here are some photos of more of Kathleen’s work, including a look at her Oregon studio – thanks, Kathleen! Clay and gourds are a natural pairing!

 

Hey, look – this might turn out OK after all . . . dang!

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I love teaching art. Actually, you can’t really teach art, but you can be an art coach and encourage the art that’s already inside someone to come out and play!

This afternoon, my friend Mary worked with me at the Studio on abstract painting. We started with a mj1hard task – saving some unsave-able paintings. In this example, we began with a background that had been painted in the last class but didn’t have much direction. First step was to make some random scribble marks right on top of the painting (left). Eek! 

But that gave us permission to really get into revising it, layering paint, scraping back into it, adding texture. There were a number of times when neither of of thought we were going anywhere, but we kept trusting the process. Mary was fearless in following my suggestions – brave woman. She added many of her own good ideas as we worked back and forth. Here are some pictures – the last photo is the finished piece. I love what she did!

Ya just have to Trust the Process (and read the book by that name). Which means – keep trying, add paint, subtract paint, keep listening to what the painting is telling you. Making art is HARD, but so rewarding! Great work, Mary – high fives!