WORKSHOPS
walter gropius masters workshops
Previous Gropius Artists
The Walter Gropius Master Artist Series is funded through the generosity of the Estate of Roxanna Y. Booth, who wished to assist in the development of an art education program in accordance with the proposals of Walter Gropius, who designed the Museum's Gropius Addition, as well as the Gropius Studios. The Museum is indebted to Roxanna Booth's son, Alex, for his participation in the concept development of the Gropius Master Artist Workshops.
Workshop fees -- Workshop fee, which includes materials, is $225 for non-members; $195 for Museum Members; $165 for teachers; and $120 for students. Meet-and-greet, first-day breakfast and daily lunch included in the workshop fee.
How to enroll -- Registration must be received at least 3 days in advance of the class starting date. All checks should be made to the Huntington Museum of Art. Most major credit cards are accepted by fax, phone, mail or in person. For more information, call (304) 529-2701.
Walter Gropius Masters Workshop Series Presents:
Matt Madden and Jessica AbelThree-day workshop: 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. February 26 & 27; 9 a.m. – noon February 28, 2010
Public presentation: Gallery walk with both artists takes place at 2 p.m. Sunday, February 28, 2010.
Exhibition: February 20 _ May 23, 2010
Gallery ThreeDrawing Words & Writing Pictures: A Comics Workshop
In this intensive workshop, Jessica Abel and Matt Madden teach the principles of comics language — a mixture of drawing, writing, and design all marshaled in the service of storytelling. Making comics requires creators to think fluidly of words and images, to smudge the boundaries, and artfully blend the two usually distinct forms of communication to create a synchronized whole. We truly draw words and write pictures. Drawing words means to think of the letterforms as a part of the visual language of the comic. Writing pictures means to think of the images as carrying meaning much like language does. Comics has been compared to calligraphy in the blending of word and image, and to music notation in the visual notation of time passing and emotion written in ink. Participants will learn how to make comics through a series of short activities and exercises, reading, and finally writing and drawing a one-page comic.
Matt Madden Background
Comic book writer and artist Matt Madden is best known for his alternative comics, for his coloring work in traditional comics, and for the textbook 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style, a comic adaptation of Raymond Queneau’s Exercises in Style. He started self-publishing minicomics while living in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the early ’90s, where he co-edited the anthology title 5 O'Clock Shadow with Matt Feazell and Sean Bieri. In 1996 Madden began writing reviews for The Comics Journal and other publications, which he continues to do, albeit infrequently. After having a number of short pieces published in more established publications, Madden published his first graphic novel, Black Candy, with Black Eye Books in 1998.
Madden currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife, Jessica Abel and his daughter. He works in illustration and also teaches comics at the School of Visual Arts and Yale University. His other comics-related activities include translations from
French and Spanish and coloring for DC and Marvel. Madden was recently invited to be the American correspondent of OuBaPo, the French experimental comics group. He is currently working on several new projects. Many of those short stories and experiments will appear in A Fine Mess, his current bi-annual series published by Alternative Comics.
Jessica Abel Background
Cartoonist and writer Jessica Abel is the author of a textbook, Drawing Words & Writing Pictures, about making comics, written in collaboration with her husband, the cartoonist Matt Madden; and the graphic novel La Perdida (Pantheon Books).
Abel is also the co-writer of the graphic novel Life Sucks. Previously, she published Soundtrack and Mirror, Window (Fantagraphics Books), two collections that gather stories and drawings from her comic book Artbabe, which she published between 1992 and 1999. She collaborated with Ira Glass on “Radio: An Illustrated Guide,” a non-fiction comic about how the radio show “This American Life” is made. Abel won both the Harvey and Lulu awards for “Best New Talent” in 1997; La Perdida won the “2002 Best New Series” Harvey Award. She teaches at the New York’s School of Visual Arts, and Madden and Abel are also series editors for The Best American Comics.
Walter Gropius Masters Workshop Series Presents:
Beth Cavener StichterThree-day workshop: Friday-Sunday, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. March 5-7, 2010
Public presentation: Friday, March 5, at 7 p.m.
Exhibition: February 6, 2010—April 4, 2010
Switzer GalleryThe Wildness Within
This demonstration-only workshop will give participants of all skill levels a glimpse of how one can tackle elements of gesture and expression with subtle shifts in line and form. During the course of this large-scale demonstration in which the artist works with tremendous amounts of clay, we will cover a range of practical technical information about working in clay as well as initiate discussion on how we transfer ideas and meaning visually. Fee for this demonstration-only workshop is $100 for Members and $125 for non-Members.
Beth Cavener Stichter Background
Beth Cavener Stichter is known for her dynamic, emotionally charged animal and human figures. Her unusual method of working is accessible to interested individuals at every level: working with a solid mass of clay, often more than 2,000 lbs., and then hollowing each part of the sculpture down to the skin.
Beth is currently a full-time professional studio artist working in the state of Washington. She received her BA in sculpture from Haverford College and her MFA from Ohio State University. She was awarded the Artist Trust Fellowship in 2009, the Jean Griffith Foundation Fellowship in 2006, the Virginia A. Groot Foundation Grant and an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Ohio Arts Council in 2005, and the American Craft Council’s Emerging Artist Fellowship in 2004. She has also been an Artist-in-Residence at the Clay Studio in Philadelphia and the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, MT. She has exhibited nationally (at such institutions as the Smithsonian Museum) and internationally and has taught numerous workshops across the country.
Artist’s Statement:
“There are primitive animal instincts lurking in our own depths, waiting for the chance to slide past a conscious moment. The sculptures I create focus on human psychology, stripped of context and rationalization, and articulated through animal and human forms. On the surface, these figures are simply feral and domestic individuals suspended in a moment of tension. Beneath the surface they embody the impacts of aggression, territorial desires, isolation, and pack mentality.
“Both human and animal interactions show patterns of intricate, subliminal gestures that betray intent and motivation. The things we leave unsaid are far more important than the words spoken out loud to one another. I have learned to read meaning in the subtler signs; a look, the way one holds one's hands, the incline of the head, the rhythm of a walk, and the slightest unconscious gestures. I rely on animal body language in my work as a metaphor for these underlying patterns, transforming the animal subjects into human psychological portraits.
“I want to pry at those uncomfortable, awkward edges between animal and human. The figures are feral and uneasy, expressing frustration for the human tendency towards cruelty and lack of understanding. Entangled in their own internal and external struggles, the figures are engaged with the subjects of fear, apathy, violence and powerlessness. Something conscious and knowing is captured in their gestures and expressions.
“An invitation and a rebuke.”
