Fall Adult Education Semester Lineup is Launched!
Oxygen has been busily building a fabulous lineup of courses to spark your creativity this fall. With landscape, portraiture, figure drawing, writing, ukulele and courses that dive into the creative process, there is something for everyone.
New this year Oxygen is pleased to present an all-ages three-part series of collaborative drawing workshops in connection with the world-wide event known as The Big Draw, facilitated by artist and educator Anita Levesque. The Big Draw theme for 2019 is #DrawnToLife and explores the healing and unifying impact of mark making and drawing. These family friendly drop-in workshops will run from 11-4 on three Sundays through the fall: September 29th, October 20th and November 17th. Each event is free or by donation and open to all, whatever age or experience.
Oxygen is offering two courses for all creative people, no matter your discipline. Kelly Shpeley will facilitate a series of exercises and perception games in her signature course Idealand to help generate new ideas and ways of approaching your artistic practice. The Artist’s Journey with Susan Andrews Grace is a cross-discipline seminar that invites artists and writers to examine their creative process. Susan explains “The Artist’s Journey by Steven Pressfield will be our text. Every creative person carries a map in their heart but sometimes forgets how to read it. This is for those who have just begun the journey as well as those who’ve been trudging for a while but especially for those who are ready to throw in the towel.”
Oxygen is committed to offering professional development programming for artists, and this fall is excited to offer a public talk and workshop with Naomi Potter, Director/Curator of the Esker Foundation entitled Structurally Porous and Perpetually in Progress. Potter will speak on the development and progress of Esker Foundation as a generous, supportive, and caring contemporary art gallery. The workshop for artists, curators, art writers and others will hinge on both group and individual discussions about the various structures and institutions that make up the contemporary art world.
For the writers out there, there is Liminal Life Writing with Rayya Liebich. By revisiting liminal periods such as birth, grief and separation, discover how to transform your life stories to create powerful prose using literary genres such as micro memoir, creative non-fiction, and letter writing. Ukulele 2 with Catherine McGrath is designed for people who have taken the preceding beginner class, the summer ukulele intensive, or who are able to play three-chord songs in the keys of C and G with a steady rhythm. The class will explore new keys, new chords, and more complex strumming patterns as they relate to a bunch of fun songs from a variety of genres.
There is a variety of visual art programming this fall with artists Deborah Thompson, Kristy Gordon and Natasha Smith. Deborah Thompson is offering two courses this fall: Luminous: Exploring the Human Figure in Drawing and Creating a Series. Luminous starts with a lecture and discussion on Friday night followed by two days of studio sessions, with a model in the morning and working from imagination, photographs and memory in the afternoon. Creating a Series is a four-day studio-based intensive workshop that will offer participants an opportunity to concentrate on the creation of a series of paintings and /or drawings towards the development of a body of work.
Oxygen is excited to have Kristy Gordon join the team this fall to teach a two-day workshop Painting the Portrait Using Photographic Reference. This course is designed to help students of all levels learn how to work from photographic reference while still achieving the appeal of a painting done from a live model. Participants will learn how to achieve a better likeness as well as how to paint convincing flesh tones.
Natasha Smith will be teaching two courses Moving into Abstraction and Landscape as Muse this fall, both courses feed from her current studio practice and focus on exploring materials and process and pushing participants to challenge their preconceptions of what is possible.
Oxygen keeps class sizes small, only hires experienced professional teaching artists and works hard to meet the needs of our creative community through the adult education programming.
For more information on courses and to register: www.oxygenartcentre.org, education@oxygenartcentre.org.