Throughout art history, steel has been associated with industry, violence, and strength. This workshop challenges such connections by investigating ways steel can become visually delicate, and by inventing new meanings and visual relationships through combining steel with materials with opposite characteristics. Exercises address technical and creative inquiries regarding how steel is cut, shaped, and physically joined, and how to challenge material assumptions if steel becomes a secondary, rather than primary, compositional element. We explore the aesthetic and technical consequences of combining steel with soft, vulnerable, contradictory, and unexpected materials.

Students explore mixed media as they create works on paper in this dynamic and experimental workshop for students of all levels. The beauty of gouache and its potential for vibrancy and rich, matte tones is introduced and put into practice. Paper and its seductive surface quality and versatility as a substrate is used in a variety of ways to create collaged and multilayered imagery. Students produce multiple works on paper and discover new skills through prompts and exposure to materials, with both abstraction and the figure as options for subject matter.

Join an engaging exploration of the synthesis between two distinct art forms: photography and painting. Students discover transfer techniques that integrate photographic images and text directly onto painted surfaces, resulting in intriguingly layered works. Participants explore traditional collage and photomontage, and master new methods that allow for opaque and translucent layers. Reductive methods, such as sanding and scraping, reveal the history of earlier photographic layers and suggest an archaeological approach to image development. The workshop emphasizes experimentation and exploratory approaches. Students produce a portfolio of physical examples of all techniques.