Painting on Silk
Endlessly accepting color, the silk we work on requires a fine balance from us between developing skills and knowing when to let go. Many techniques will be demonstrated, but always the question remains: when do I push on and when do I let the materials speak for themselves? Full support will be given during the process of exploration. The goal is for each student to find their own artistic uniqueness in this painting medium. Registered students will be given a list of materials to bring. Materials Fee: $20.
Suzanne Punch, BFA Cleveland Institute of Art, has taught workshops in Santa Fe, NM, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Santa Cruz and Mendocino in California, and at the Society of Illustrators in New York. Her work has been exhibited in Tokyo and in galleries across the USA and may be seen in Susan Louise Moyer’s books on silk painting.
www.suzannepunch.com
Pottery: From your own Hand
Simple mud, formless potential, waiting humbly to be transformed. Touch the clay, listen to the clay, move the clay. There is a way where the hand, head, heart and eye are connected as a whole. Pinch a bowl with your eyes closed, center the clay on the wheel with your heart open, build a world from the touch of your hand. For students of all levels.
Sylvia March, BA, Sarah Lawrence College and MA, Kyoto City University of Fine Arts, Japan, taught ceramics at Sarah Lawrence for many years. She has conducted craft exhibitions and has sold her works in NYC and nationally. Sylvia, retired from teaching Ceramics at the Brearley School for 25 years, now has special classes in her home studio in Palisades NY.
www.sylviamarch.com
Acting: Creating a Character
The inner/outer nature of character is explored using exercises in observation, line-learning, script analysis and group work. Performance is not required but, for those interested, the weekend could culminate in the showing of short scenes and monologues. Actors and non-actors of all levels are welcome. Telephone interview with instructor is requested.
Barbara Spiegel, a NY-based veteran stage/television/film actress, currently plays Judge Doremus on the television series Law & Order. She is a former member of Lincoln Center Repertory and had her own theater program for 17 years at the New School. She continues private coaching for acting professionals and nonprofessionals She is a lifetime member of the Actor’s Studio.
Seeing with Digital Photography
How does an image come into being? Where does it come from and how does it make itself known? Does it find its own shape? And once a print has been made, how do we explore the image further? Digital photography is the means. A basic discussion of technical digital concepts will be covered and each participant will need a digital camera. To qualify, a conversation with one of the instructors is required.
Lee B. Ewing is the Sculpture Photographer for the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC and studied with Minor White.
David Heald is the Chief Photographer for the Guggenheim Museum in New York, NY; his photographs of the Cistercian Abbeys in France were published in 2000 in the book Architecture of Silence by Harry N. Abrams, NY.
Listening to Bach
A hands-on study of selected music from J.S.Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, Book One.
We will immerse ourselves in individual voices and combinations of voices until the whole emerges. We will be practicing alone and together, listening to ourselves and each other, reading about Bach's life, and discussing our thoughts and experiences. We hope to shed light on such subjects as:
Listening for the will of the tone.
What is the relationship between listening and expression?
Can we allow the music to speak, without imposing anything?
Is Bach's music sacred or secular?
Why did he write the Well-Tempered Clavier?
"...to truly know Bach's music we must try to comprehend the spiritual forces that inspired it....May Bach's music help us find the way if this is our destiny." (Jan Chiapusso, Bach's World)
Some piano skills are required: Phone interview requested. Contact: fion@earthlink.net
Participants will need to bring a copy of the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book One.
Fiona Bicket is a pianist and piano teacher whose background includes classical, jazz and Dalcroze Eurhythmics training. Currently she teaches with an emphasis on the quality of listening and touch, and studies with Sophia Rosoff. Her approach has been shaped by a long period of study with James Chrestensen
Color
What do you want to learn about color? In this class you will be offered a possibility of learning how to feel colors not just through intuition but through understanding the components of color as well. This experience makes one realize how one's level of perception can be expanded. For ease of study, we will all work together using acrylic paint which I will supply.
William Tapley did post-graduate studies at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris and The Royal Academy of Art, London. He has taught Color at The School of Visual Arts in NYC since 1966 and continues to paint in NYC and NY State.
Haiku
Haiku, from its Japanese origins in the Zen koan to its embrace of nature, is the practice of being in the moment and crafting the experience into words. This three line form can become an avenue for renewing our connection and intimacy with ourselves and the world. We will study the structure of haiku by making haiku with an eye toward bringing this practice into our daily living.
Jim Handlin, Ed.D., a classical language scholar, wrote his doctoral dissertation at Columbia University on haiku and creative leadership. He has a poem in marble in Manhattan's Penn Station alongside poems of William Carlos Williams and Walt Whitman. His haiku have been internationally published and he has received many haiku awards. Author of two books of haiku (one of them a prize winner), he is a former judge of Japan Airlines Children's Haiku Contest, the largest haiku contest in the world. Jim is also the recipient of three New Jersey State Council on the Arts Grants for his poetry which has been published in numerous anthologies and journals. In his spare time Jim has been the Headmaster of numerous schools, and now he guides the Woodstock Day School in Woodstock, New York.
Voice: Hymns, and Spirituals, and More
Using Linklater exercises to achieve a deep relaxation we will sing a wide range of hymns and spirituals of America as well as songs from far off lands and seas. Singing in harmony from a relaxed state can reveal hidden passages of feeling, strength, and a bit of the mysterious in many old and modern songs, a great experience for actors and ordinary folk. Singing is nourishment we all need. Join us!
Ability to read music or sight sing not necessary.
David Marrero is a high school teacher and an award-winning playwright. He has a BA in English Literature from Long Island University, an MS in Special Education from Adelphi University and an MA in Theatre from Hunter College, CUNY.
Andrea Cohen-Kiener is the spiritual leader of Congregation Pnai Or of Central Connecticut and the director of a roving band of singers known as the Occasional Chorus.
Body/Mind Integration
Through the Alexander Technique, Authentic Movement, Qigong, and T'ai Chi, here is an opportunity to experience four paths of mind/body integration that can provide a new sense of balance and presence in our hectic lives. This is a chance to delve deeply into a specific modality, or try a few different forms while having a nurturing/ relaxing experience. Individual attention will be given.
Germaine Fraser is a Registered Nurse, holistic board certified Reflexologist, Authentic Movement (AM) facilitator and clinical Aromatherapy practitioner. She has been practicing QiGong for 17 years and uses it and other bodywork skills in a hospital setting and in private practice. Classes will delve into learning well one form and working with Qigong healing sounds, breathing techniques and visual meditations. Some history and Qigong's relationship to 5 Element Theory will be reviewed.
Patty de Llosa, author of The Practice of Presence (Morning Light Press, March 2006), has led group classes and daylong workshops in T’ai chi, Taoist meditation and the Alexander Technique. She teaches both privately and in group classes. The Alexander Technique helps relieve the stress and chronic pain caused by habitual misuse of the body, poor posture, spine and joint pain, headache, tendonitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, frozen shoulder, fibromyalgia, Parkinson’s, osteoarthritis, and other disorders of the musculo-skeletal system caused by excess tension and mal-coordination.
Beadwork
Elements of design will be explored as you make
Jewelry that is unique to you. Each one of us has a
style to be nourished and this is an opportunity to
create your own while experimenting with different
bead techniques. A wide variety of materials will be available.
Open to beginning and advanced beaders.
Materials fee $45
Joanne Espinosa is an experienced weaver, beader and teacher. She is skilled in hand and machine knitting, crochet and embroidery incorporating the use of beads. She has a BA from the University of Virginia and an MA in Education from NYU and has operated Joanne Designs since 1995.
www.joanneadorns.com/
Spin to your Heart's Content
Experience the peace that comes from working with concentrated hands. Would you like to knit a scarf from your dog’s hair? Crochet a hat from rabbit’s fur? Explore plant fibers for a vest? We will learn spinning on the wheel, drop-spindle, and Navaho spindle. We will explore a variety of fibers from various animals [sheep, rabbit, llama, alpaca and dog], and plant fibers. Then we will knit or crochet according to your desires. Open to students of all levels. Frances wishes a telephone interview before the workshop, in order to know your interests. Please call the Registrar for her information: 845-794-0241.
Frances Irwin pursued spinning and crocheting, and specialized in Fiber Arts at the Rochester Folk Art Guild in Middlesex, New York. Now she is a tax professional, living on a farm in North Carolina with a husband, five dogs, guinea hens, peacocks, chickens, and goats.
Sophia Kelly has worked in numerous fabric arts all of her life, including: weaving, sewing, crocheting, knitting, and quilting. She worked for many years in the weaving and sewing department at the Rochester Folk Art Guild, and is the daughter of the founder, Louise March. Now she lives in Black Mountain, North Carolina and crochets hats, and sews quilts and handbags.
Tanning and other indigenous skills
Reaching back in time, we learn to produce soft, supple, water-resistant hides without the use of toxic chemicals. Using all natural materials, we will rediscover the skills of indigenous peoples around the world who relied on tanned hides for clothing, footwear, bedding, shelter and more. Today, we can revive the tradition of brain tanning, honoring the spirit of the animal by the respectful use of its remains.
Tom Manning is an Agricultural Engineer who designs greenhouses and renewable energy systems. He and his wife Ruth now engage in this ancient craft together and with their children.
Landscape Painting
With just a little pigment and a lot of water, watercolor provides remarkable fluidity, economy and spontaneity. A few brush strokes with graded wash... and land, water, and sky emerge into a landscape of great depth and space. As the paint dries, dry-brush details in the foreground secure the sense of being there in time and place. A nature walk will begin our exploration.
Materials Fee: $36
Benton Grant, BS, University of Pennsylvania and MFA, Columbia University, is a painter and a landscape architect. He finds an almost symbiotic relation between these two fields and experiences. Landscape painting is a tangible way of appreciating both.