Shakerag Workshops - June 2011

Shakerag Workshops
Sewanee, Tennessee
June 12-18, 2011
June 19-25, 2011
www.shakerag.org

Textiles
Electronic Textiles and Reactive Garments: This class will focus on electronic textiles and the principles of soft-circuit design by examining ideas for reactive surfaces. Participants will build a pressure-sensitive squeezable "soft switch" and create an interactive textile structure with stitched pressure sensors and beaded light-emitting components.
Hills, Heather, Lochs, and Bogs: Participants in this class will make fine-to-chunky felt textural pieces reflecting the colors and textures of Scotland. Class discussion will focus on exploring one’s own "place" as inspiration for working in felt.
Local Color: Art, Life, and Local Plants as Dyes: This workshop will examine the meanings of locally gathered plants as dyes, with a focus on how creative output is influenced by the process of making. Participants will examine and reflect upon the artistic potential in the process of natural dyeing through plant collecting, dyeing experiments, research, creative record keeping, and collective engagement.
Collars, Cuffs, and Mantles: This class is dedicated to fashion or wearable felt, focusing on collars, cuffs, and mantles inspired by the fashion of the Victorian period. From this beginning, participants will gain skills for making other wearable articles in felt.
Look, Play, Design: This class is about exploration and creating surface designs, examining how inspiration can become a pattern. Participants will investigate the area around Shakerag, studying motifs, grounds, textures, and repeats to create patterns.
Clay
Adjusting Volume: Insights into Handbuilding: Participants in this class will work on developing and refining clay forming skills with a focus on using a variety of hand-building techniques, including wood and paper patterns, altering, and assemblage. Class discussions will focus on the integration of form and surface in clay pieces.
Thoughtful Considerations in the Making of Everyday Pots: This clay class will focus on throwing and hand-building techniques and their relationship to the creation of personal functional forms. Participants will alter forms, use multiple sections, and add texture to create line, volume, and scale which reflect the maker¹s identity.
Pottery: Ideas and Making: Beginning with personal curiosity as a basis for exploration, this clay workshop will focus on becoming comfortable with new ideas, shapes, and methods. Participants will explore the different factors that spark ideas while making functional pots on the wheel.
From Flat to Fat: Function, Context, and Process: This clay handbuilding workshop will be an intuitive and practical exploration of how to work with two-dimensional patternmaking in constructing three-dimensional form. Students will consider pragmatics of use and function as associated with pots, in addition to considering ideas and symbols associated with pots.
Book Arts
The Unconventional Book: Participants in this class will examine a new book structure each day, exploring the basics of several traditional bindings. All students will work with what they are most fond of to create a variety of unique, personal books.
Photography
Finding Your Visual Voice: Students in this class will work to discover their own visual language through photography. Participants will engage in the emotions and personal connections involved in creating photographs that truly reveal a personal visual voice.
Basketry
Willow Bark Basketry: This class will introduce weavers to black willow bark, a very strong, flexible, and beautiful fiber uncommonly used for basketry. Students will process a roll of bark into weaving elements and use a variety of weaving techniques to construct a simple square or round bottomed basket.
Drawing/Painting
Drawing with Nature: Participants in this class will learn about place by drawing and writing, listening and discovering, using the format of the Field Naturalist’s Journal. Students will observe the natural world closely and will write and draw in journals to describe what has been seen, in practice for continued exploration of seasonal nature in one’s own place.
Metal
Wearable Art using Cold Connections: Participants in this class will learn the beginning skills of classical jewelry making. focusing on techniques used in manipulating metal and incorporating found objects into one’s jewelry.
Digital Media
Sound Art Workshop: Field Recording and Electronic Composition: This workshop encourages a sonic appreciation for the natural environment and an ear for sound manipulation. Participants will take part in listening exercises, outdoor and indoor sound recordings, and audio processing, moving towards production of a sound work.