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Creative Classes
1-Day Workshop | Painting: Flow State (1/25)
Class Description:
Flow State is a one-day workshop that explores the connections between intuitive painting, mindfulness meditation, and community. Participants will learn how to combine abstract painting and drawing skills with mindfulness meditation techniques and will explore how this hybrid practice can be used to hold space for our Selves and each other. Participants will work individually and as a group using acrylic paint, pastels, paper and canvas. This class connects to abstract works in the Denver Art Museum collection, including pieces by artists like Mark Bradford, Elaine de Kooning, Joan Mitchell, Sam Gilliam, Shinique Smith, and Sonia Gechtoff.
What to Expect:
Students will be led into the galleries at the beginning of the workshop to observe and discuss one work. The selected work will serve as an introduction to and inspiration for the exercises that will be practiced during the day, which will include guided meditations, gestural painting prompts, and group reflections. Students can expect to:
• Be guided through various meditations as a group with visualization and mindfulness-based techniques.
• Practice guided, individual meditative painting/drawing exercises on paper.
• Create a large-scale, group painting on canvas.
• Reflect on the day’s work in a group discussion at the end of each workshop.
Participants will walk away with a series of personal abstract paintings on paper, a set of creative meditations to use in everyday life, and the opportunity to co-create a large-scale group painting with others. The large group painting will require participants to work on the same surface at the same time in some instances.
No prior painting or drawing skills are required. No experience with meditation or mindfulness required. This class is open to all skill levels.
Class Make-up Day Policy:
If a class or workshop needs to be cancelled due to inclement weather or teacher illness, a “make-up” day will be scheduled on a FRIDAY or SATURDAY as the educator’s schedule allows.
Materials:
All materials will be provided for students and are included in the price of this workshop.
Educator:
Visual artist, Sarah Darlene, explores the functionality of abstraction through a feminine, queer, and contemporary perspective. Her work investigates the intersections of painting, social practice, and meditation and their collective ability to promote self-reflection, cathartic healing, and true social change. Palmeri holds a BFA in Painting and Drawing from Louisiana State University, and an Executive Certificate of Nonprofit Management from the University of Notre Dame. She has been a member of Strangers Art Collective since 2015 and is a former Artist in Residence at RedLine Contemporary Art Center in Denver. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States and Iceland.
1-Day Workshop | Textiles: Cherokee Basket Weaving
Class Description:
Students will learn the history of Cherokee basket making materials from pre-European contact through to contemporary Oklahoma Cherokee weaving. Following Sarah H. Hill in her book, Weaving New Worlds: Southeastern Cherokee Women and Their Basketry, we will meet some notable weavers and touch on different material traditions. The DAM Indigenous Arts of North America has a small selection of basketry from the Original Peoples of the Southeastern US and their descendants, and this class will both expose students to more examples of these traditions and give them an opportunity to weave their own round reed Oklahoma style Cherokee basket.
What to Expect:
The first 60-90 minutes will be a presentation providing a close look at Cherokee basket weaving traditions and weavers, students are welcome to move around as needed during lecture and discussion. Instructor will spend 20-30 minutes providing a demo of starting, shaping/forming, and finishing a basket, and the remainder of the class, provide step-by-step instruction to the group, followed up with one-on-one support. After the demos, students are expected to take breaks, including lunch, as needed. Every student will be able to finish at least one basket, possibly more than one.
Class Cancellation Policy:
If a class or workshop needs to be cancelled due to inclement weather or teacher illness, a “make-up” day will be scheduled on a FRIDAY or SATURDAY as the educator’s schedule allows.
Materials:
All materials will be provided for this workshop and are included in the Studio Fee of $30.
Educator:
Salix is a 35-year-old two-spirit, multiracial creator and educator of Muscogee/Cherokee descent. Salix has had baskets on display at the Evergreen Center for the Arts, and they teach basket weaving for Colorado Native Org's Native cultural night. You can also find them at events such as the Harvest of All First Nations Corn Festival, and áyA Con Denver.
4 Week | Illustration: Wild Mythologies
Class Description:
In this class, students will be introduced to the art game Exquisite Corpse, popular among the Surrealist artists. Students will relate Surrealism and the creative creatures that emerge from the drawing game to the exhibit Wild Things: The Art of Maurice Sendak. Drawing on this inspiration, students will create their own original illustrations and learn how story can help influence and mold an artwork's inception. Students will intertwine their illustrations and stories they construct for their creatures – connecting image and text through playful interactions of art viewing, sensory details, collaboration, and creation.
What to Expect:
We will be going into the galleries and making during class time. Exercises each class will build up to creating a final illustration at the end. Beginners welcome! The aim of this class is to jump start your creative thinking and make illustrating accessible and fun instead of intimidating for students.
Timeline:
Week 1
• Learn about and play the Surrealist drawing game exquisite corpse and relate it to the work of Maurice Sendak by visiting the Wild Things exhibit together.
Week 2
• Create your own creature from the exquisite corpse game and begin thinking about the story and personality for your creature.
Week 3
• Look at the work "Dream of Arcadia" by painter Thomas Cole in the gallery and consider how to use color, mood, scale, and environment in our final illustrations.
Week 4
• Bring everything together and work on final illustrations using gouache and color pencil.
Class Make-up Day Policy:
If a class or workshop needs to be cancelled due to inclement weather or teacher illness, a “make-up” day will be scheduled on a FRIDAY or SATURDAY as the educator’s schedule allows.
Materials:
Students will purchase their own materials and should expect to spend $30-50. We partner with Meininger’s for local shopping, purchase a kit of your required materials online for in-store pickup, or purchase the items individually.
Educator:
Charis Fleshner is an art educator and nationally exhibiting conceptual artist who earned her MFA from the University of New Mexico. She currently teaches art at the Denver Art Museum and Aims Community College. Her work has been shown at the Museum of Art Fort Collins, Emmanuel Gallery in Denver, and Strata Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She has been awarded two artist residencies elsewhere in Greensboro, North Carolina. Her work can be seen at charismakesart.com. She is currently working on projects in color pencil and soft sculpture.
6 Week | Painting: Beginning Oil
Class Description:
In this class, students will explore oil painting fundamentals in an accelerated format. They will survey the DAM’s collection and sketch from art within the galleries. Students will create individual pieces inspired by their research sketches, utilizing their newly built skills. The intent of this class is to bring each artist through the entire process of researching and creating a completed piece of work.
What to Expect:
Students will learn or in some cases relearn fundamental skills in addition to some tricks of the trade. This knowledge will help them work within the museum to sketch and generate ideas and bring those ideas into the studio to complete a finished project.
Timeline:
Week 1
• Focus on oil painting fundamentals
Week 2
• Focus on oil painting fundamentals
Week 3
• Gathering sketches and ideas in the museum’s galleries
Week 4
• Gathering sketches and ideas in the museum’s galleries
Week 5
• Painting in the classroom
Week 6
• Painting in the classroom
Class Cancellation Policy:
If a class or workshop needs to be cancelled due to inclement weather or teacher illness, a “make-up” day will be scheduled on a FRIDAY or SATURDAY as the educator’s schedule allows.
Materials:
Students will purchase their own materials and should expect to spend $60-100.
We partner with Meininger’s for local shopping, purchase a kit of your required materials online for in-store pickup, or purchase the below items individually.
Educator:
Born in Denver in 1972, Michael Dowling spent much of his early life as a typical kid apart from being an obsessive drawer. It wasn’t until the age of 25, and after several years studying various subjects as well as working in many fields, that Michael started painting. With that late beginning, Dowling dove full in and began studying extensively. At 28, he decided to sell a burgeoning art sales company and moved to Florence, Italy to focus on painting. He has since returned to his native Denver where he lives and works.
Michael Dowling's work has been characterized as a combination of traditional practices in realism and his explorations of mark, pattern, and color to disrupt that reality. In many compositions, figures presented as portrait, morph into their surreal self, and lone objects tell stories through their subtle positioning. These objects and characters sit in bizarre spaces with intentionally disrupted atmospheres in order to find further meaning within the imagery.