Tag Archives: Abington Art Center

Holiday Pop-Up Shop At the Abington Art Center

I am participating in this annual event once again with some of my clay work. My husband and I attended the opening last Friday night.

By the way, this is the same art center where I am teaching a mixed media class that I’ve mentioned here and there.

We saw  quite a few people we knew there. Shout out to Andy, Eric and Sarah, Matt (my jewelry class teacher from the summer class I took), and Robyn, plus Rosalie, Jenny, and Beth from the art center management.

Here are some shots from the opening. It’s held in one of the exhibit rooms at the center. Here is an overview of the space:

Here is some mosaic work of one of my mixed media students. Like all the members of my class, she is accomplished in more than one medium. She attended the event and I was able to marvel over her work in person.

Abington Art Center holiday shop 11-19 (3)

 

And here is my work. I think they have displayed it really nicely.

Here is the info on the show. If you are in the area, stop in and take a look!

 

Two Different Classes: Two Views

As you may remember, right now I am taking a clay studio class and I am teaching a mixed class, at two different art centers. I am very lucky in that there are at least six very good community art centers within 45 minutes of my house, and three within 15 minutes. So I have choices! And I’m very grateful for that, for the knowledge I can gain and for the camaraderie of fellow artists.

Here are some photos from my two classes. First off, here is the clay studio where I have been taking a class. I arrived before anyone else last week and took the opportunity to snap some photos.

We have two rooms in this studio – one contains the kilns, work in process shelves, wheels, student storage, wedging areas, and glazes and glazing areas. Here are a couple of views of this room.

In this view you can see my little storage area for my clay and work in process (check for the red arrow). It’s pretty empty right now but I will be filling it up again today.

Allens Lane 11-19 #17

The other room is the hand-building room and contains the work table, slab roller, underglazes and other supplies. You can see where I will be sitting today – I’ve set my red bag at my seat.

Allens Lane 11-19 #8 small

I’ve been in quite a few clay studios and I think this one is well-organized and pleasant to work in.

On this particular day I prepared some tiles for glazing, similar to the ones I showed you a few days ago. Here you see the tiles with wax applied to the areas that I do not wanted altered. Next step is to dip them in the clear glaze and then I will set them on the WIP shelves in the glaze firing section, right next to the kilns.

The next day I taught another session of my mixed media class. Here is the classroom before the students arrived, with my work bag sitting on the table. I bring my own paints and canvas to each class but usually I don’t do any work of my own – it’s my role to focus on the students. But occasionally I need to step back and let them work, and that is when it helps for me to have something to work on myself – keeps me from hovering!

AAC #1 11-5-193

We were working on doing still life in mixed media. I asked the students to work on two differing views of the same arrangement. Here is the work of a couple of my students.

Each one chose the objects to be depicted and arranged them, then got to work. These pieces are not finished, but the students took photos for references later on, and I think in any case these are far enough along that the momentum of the image will carry them. I don’t focus on exact representations – that is for other classes – but using the arrangement as a kind of prompt that sparks ideas.

OK, now you have a little peek into my world of taking and teaching classes!

Update on Art Class

As you may remember I am teaching a mixed media art class at a local art center. We’ve just finished three classes. I’ve taken my students, who are all experienced adult artists in various mediums, through a grounding in collage, paint techniques, and today, in combining the two.

From this point we will spend a number of weeks approaching mixed media from the standpoint of various genres – still life, landscape, portraits, etc. But these three weeks form the basis for all the remaining work we will be doing.

During this class, one thing we did was go through the process of creating backgrounds for mixed media work. My goal was to have the students see how it works to use layers of paint and paper to build up rich visual texture.

I brought in a mixed media piece I did some years ago to illustrate what I was talking about today.

Art class 10-16-19 Abington (2)

Today, these backgrounds were not made with a specific goal – just to practice the technique, feel some ease in working this way, and to avoid turning a background into a composition.

Not that the last bit is a bad thing – I do it all the time, just start in and let the composition go where it will. But today, we needed to stop before that point in order to focus on just doing mixed media work. And, it’s also important to realize that in some cases, you will want to create a background for a specific purpose or image to follow. You don’t want to lose control and wander off.

It’s hard to do this, I think. The brain wants to see patterns, to begin to organize, to choose a direction.

Next class, I told the students! We will do it next time in our class.

When we finished,  they had done some really nice work. I want to show you. Here are a few:

Art class 10-16-19 Abington (3)

and here is a composite photo (it looks odd because I combined a couple of shots) of all our work.

Art class 10-16-19 Abington (4)

I am very excited about the work the students are doing. Next week – the topic is ABSTRACT. Let’s see where that takes us!

 

 

 

Art Studio at the Art Center

You may remember that recently I was called in to pinch-hit for an art class at a local art center. I have done a lot of teaching in the past but not for some time – but through a series of serendipitous events my name came up when the original teacher for a mixed media class could not do it.

I’m glad it happened. I have not thought about going back to teaching but now that the opportunity has presented itself, I’m glad to be doing it.

I’m working at the same place where I took last summer’s jewelry class. Yesterday was my second class session.

I enter the building, go down the hall and to the left, and then I enter my classroom.

Abington Art Center 10-19 (2)

Nice to have so much room, don’t you think? I set up materials on some of the tables – I use one for supplies, one for my teaching aids, and I commandeer one during the class for any demonstrations.

Yesterday I put a couple of paintings on the easels used by other classes. In my class, we work only on the tables due to the nature of mixed media work – it needs to stay flat.

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From the front of the room here’s what I see. You’ll have to imagine the students, as they have not arrived yet!

Abington Art Center 10-19 (1)

I’m enjoying myself and my students do great work. It will be a nice fall for artwork, I think!