Painting Life/Painting Your Life Syllabus

This is a practice-based workshop, intended to help painters of all levels to develop, advance or renew a painting practice while building a significant body of work. It will ask the question, “what is a painting life?” while encouraging the development a bodies of work that reflect our everyday experience, relationships, and gesture. Participants will be encouraged to think of this process through a number of lenses, including exploring painting as a process of memoir, creating a documentary archive of the months we work together, and/or considering the relationship between our bodies/gestures and our paintings. Painters with pre-existing projects are encouraged to bring those projects to the workshop. There will not be specific assignments, but there will be optional prompts. We will alternate between discussing our works in progress and the works of artists whose practice aligns with the themes that emerge from our work and conversations. Participants will be asked to develop a learning/working plan for the duration of the workshop. The instructor will be available to meet with participants one-to-one in the development of the learning plan.

While this workshop is open to painters of all experience levels, the curriculum is based on my twenty-years of experience working with graduate students in Goddard College’s MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts program. Our work together will be individualized to each participants’ level of experience and learning aspirations. And it will be super fun!

Resources

Schedule of Group Sessions

October 14:  Welcome

  • Overview of the workshop.

  • Short Introductions

  • Discussion of Individualized Learning Plans.

  • Set-up first one-to-one session

FIRST INDIVIDUAL MEETING

October 28: Introductions

  • Longer introductions by showing recent work

November 11: Slide Presentation & Discussion

  • Sharing highlights of Individual Learning Plans

November 25: Work in Progress

  • Looking at current work from each participant

SECOND INDIVIDUAL MEETING

December 9: Slide Presentation & Discussion

December 23: Work in Progress

  • Looking at current work from each participant

January 6: Slide Presentation & Discussion

January 20: Work in Progress

  • Looking at current work from each participant

February 3: Slide Presentation & Discussion

February 17: Work in Progress

  • Looking at current work from each participant

March 3: Slide Presentation & Discussion

THIRD INDIVIDUAL MEETING

March 17: Work in Progress

  • Looking at current work from each participant

March 31: Slide Presentation & Discussion

April 14: Work in Progress

  • Looking at current work from each participant

April 28: Slide Presentation & Discussion

May 12: Work in Progress

  • Looking at current work from each participant

May 26: Slide Presentation & Discussion

June 9: Final Presentation of Work Produced in Workshop