Summer workshops at Spiro Arts, provide participants the opportunity to expand their creative repertoire or try something new. All workshops are taught by professional, working artists and educators who share their skills and experience with students through full days of art instruction. Workshops utilize a "hands on" approach which includes individualized instruction, demonstrations, classroom discussions, and time for independent work. All workshop participants will benefit from an intense learning environment made possible by living and working as part of a creative community dedicated to supporting personal and artistic growth. We welcome a range of skill levels, beginners always welcome--unless noted otherwise in the course description. 

Spiro Arts is dedicated to equal opportunity without regard to race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender indentity, national origin, age, veteran or disabled status, or any other basis protected by local, state or federal law.

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March 28th - April 1st 2012

Encaustic - painting with hot wax

Instructor: Daniella Woolf

Tuition: $675

Enrollment Limit: 12 (open to all skill levels)

Workshop Hours: 9 - 5pm

Description: This five-day hands on workshop will provide you with the basic knowledge of the encaustic medium process. Encaustic, an ancient Greek wax based medium, can be used to give unusual dimension to your work, add translucent layers, alter the illusion of space, and transform your imagery. The workshop will combine presentations, step-by-step instruction, and plenty of time to experiment and and create new work. This workshop is a collaboration between Spiro Arts and R&F Handmade Paints (Kingston, NY). Visit R&F handmade Paints website to learn more about the encaustic process, or to purchase encaustic materials. www.rfpaints.com

Activities: Workshop will include studio time to create individual works as well as demonstrations and classroom discussions on: basic studio safety, preparation of supports and grounds, tools and techniques for fusing, transparencies and glazes, layering and scraping/scribbling, building up texture, line and edge, collage, assemblage, casting, carving, and working 3-dimensionally, monotype, image transfer, combining oil and encaustic, dipping and much more. A digital presentation of historical and contemporary work in encaustic will also be given by Daniella. 

Included materials: The use of all paints and tools will be included in this workshop, along with a take home R&F apron.

Materials to bring with you: CLICK HERE for a complete list of materials you must bring with you, materials will not be available for purchase through Spiro Arts before or during the workshop. Please contact Laura Moriarty at R&F Handmade Paints for additional material information (800) 206.8088

Instructor: Daniella Woolf works have been described as visual poetry. She is a 08-09 Rydell Visual Fellowship award winner and a presenter of Encaustic with a Textile Sensibility at Nebraska Weselyn University in Lincoln, NE and the Encaustic Conference in Boston, MA. Woolf was a workshop presenter at the 2009 Surface Design Assoc Conference in Kansas City, MO and the LUX Center for the Arts in Lincoln, NE. Daniella recieved her M.A. in Textile Design from UCLA and a B.A. from CA State at Northridge. She also studied at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts and R&F Handmade Paints in Kingston, NY. Her work is currently represented by the Wexler Gallery in Philadelphia, PA. Daniella is a highly celebrated returning Spiro Arts instructor, this will be her fifth consecutive year. In 2008 she co-instructed Painting w/Wax Encaustic and the Monoprint, and in 2009 she co-instructed Photo Encaustic with Mark Maziarz, and in 2010/2011 she taught Encaustic-painting with hot wax.

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May 28th - June 1st 2012
Encaustic and Pigment Stick Workshop
Instructor: Shawna Moore

Tuition: $675

Enrollment Limit: 12 (open to all skill levels)

Workshop Hours: 9 - 5pm

Description: In this five day workshop we will take a pared-down approach to encaustic painting, using the wax medium to create a luminous ground that we can work into with buttery R&F Pigment Sticks. Applying thin coats of encaustic paint (wax and resin) using wide brushes, we will encapsulate our marks, drawings, and "happy accidents" within layers of clear and colored wax to create mysterious pools of imagery. Learn how to create smooth, depth-filled paintings. Workshop projects will cover abstract, landscape and collage techniques, offering a variety of opportunities and techniques for manipulating the wax and learning about this exciting medium. If you are new to encaustic painting, don't worry, we will cover the basics to get you started and then begin adding design, image and additional media to the process. This workshop is a collaboration between Spiro Arts and R&F Handmade Paints (Kingston, NY). Visit R&F handmade Paints website to learn more about the encaustic process, or to purchase encaustic materials. www.rfpaints.com

Activities: Workshop will include studio time to create individual works as well as demonstrations and classroom discussions on: basic studio safety, preparation of supports and grounds, tools and techniques focusing on the use of Pigment Sticks. 

Included materials: The use of all paints and tools will be included in this workshop, along with a take home R&F apron.

Materials to bring with you: CLICK HERE for a complete list of materials you must bring with you, materials will not be available for purchase through Spiro Arts before or during the workshop. Please contact Laura Moriarty at R&F Handmade Paints for additional material information (800) 206.8088

Instructor: Shawna Moore is an established, professional painter and encaustic artist living in Whitefish, Montana. She exhibits her work nationally in galleries and regional museums. Anchored by the use of color and the immediacy of art making, Moore has spent the past 20 years developing and refining her artistic process and intention. Her art integrates elements of painting and drawing, and reflects both her education in architecture and fine art, and her inventive and experimental nature. In recent years, the ancient method of encaustic painting is Moore's medium of choice. This unique and dynamic technique incorporates pigmented bee's wax, which is heated, re-worked, etched and scuffed to achieve dimensional depth. As each layer cools, another can be applied, resulting in a radiant and complex terrain of light, color and texture. Her work is shown locally in Park City on Main Street at Gallery MAR.

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July 27th - July 29th 2012

Land/Nature/Human Connectivity: Site-Specific Fiber Installation

Instructor: Erin Coleman-Cruz

Tuition: $300

Enrollment Limit: 12 (open to all skill levels)

Workshop Hours: 9 - 5pm

Description:  This is an intensive outdoor three-day workshop that explores art making on the local mountainside as a site-specific locale for considering environment/place/space and integral land-nature-human connectivity. We will consider art-making beyond the studio. Spiro Arts at Silver Star in Park City contains a rich natural and cultural history.  Our time will be divided between looking at and discussing the works of relevant artists, choosing the locale for a site-specific installation, planning, independently making artwork, and group critiquing. Each participant will select their chosen medium. Paper-making, weaving structures, natural dying of fibers, and/or other techniques will be demonstrated. At the end of the workshop you will have created a site-specific installation that engages with its surroundings and may be transient and able to move to a new site, may be ephemeral and dissolve in a rainstorm, or it could hold up against the elements over many years' time.

Activities: As a group you will explore Spiro Arts' neighboring environment through its histories and contemporary roles by hiking and/or walking to seek out locations for installation. As a participant you will select a natural or human-made location that interests you (e.g., a creekbed, cluster of rocks, abandoned parking lot, gutter...). Participants will look at and discuss critical artists and accessible theory of socially driven works that incorporate land and environment. Individually or collaboratively you will use humble materials and an economy of means to create site-specific installations that may be temporal or become transient. This workshop will largely employ sculptural and fiber techniques that hold us in close connection to pre-industrial skills such as weaving, tying, wrapping, dying, burning stitching, stacking, forming, carving, and cutting. The materials will largely be found on-site, collected, or brought with you. You may draw upon the resources available, perhaps with partnerships with local persons or businesses.

Included materials: CLICK HERE to view the list of tools that will be available for use through Spiro Arts, basic supplies such as twine, wire, sandpaper, glue, nails, and screws will also be included. Tools needed for paper making or dying techniques will also be provided. Participants may bring additional personal equiptment or materials not listed, contact Spiro Arts for additional material questions or concerns. 

Materials to bring with you:

Required:

• Sketchbook and drawing/mark-making utensils of your choosing.
• Work gloves, safety glasses.
• Appropriate clothing and shoes for walking. This will be a rain-or-shine art-making experience where we welcome the elements into our process. Plan to wear layers, bring rain gear, socks, sturdy sneakers or hiking shoes. Expect that the terrain could be uneven and the weather fickle.
• Small pack to carry your tools, snacks, and materials. You will move between your chosen site for the installation and the Spiro Arts studio space.
• Watch/phone to keep track of time.
• Collected materials of your choice such as old clothing, and linens, broken items, recyclables, yarn, plant matter (grape vine, yucca, sticks, grasses, ect.), scrap wood, symbols and items that represent local history and contemporary life. Some of these items can be collected during the workshop and in your time off during the three-day period, but consider collecting in advance. Some individuals may not only use what is found on-site ans that may be limited to water, stones, soil, refuse, and plants (which poses an excellent challenge).

Optional:

• Digital camera/video camera (make sure to have batteries and memory cards) for site work and artwork documentation.
• Spiro Arts and Erin encourage you to bring specialty tools that you prefer or envision using during this workshop such as wood carving tools, stone carving tools, stitching tools, paint sets, dyes, ect.
  
• Other tools and media of your choice.

Instructor: Erin Coleman-Cruz is a working and teaching artist. She works on projects that are often collaborative in nature, and that frequently contain elements of the re-use or conservation of land, objects, or places; nature; land-use; sustainability; and the interconnectivity between lived experiences and places/spaces. She has an MFA in Sculpture from Northern Illinois University, and a BA in Art Education from Goshen College. She has led Clothing Rebirth workshops at the NIU Art Museum for creative re-use of clothing, and From T-shirts to Totes, a children's workshop on recycling t-shirts at the Beverly Art Center in Chicago, IL. She incorporates mixed-media assemblage, fiber techniques, historical "women's-work," found objects, installation, performance, and video into her art. Some of her favorite media are salt, embroidery thread, and found domestic objects. With Bradley Cahill, she completed a large-scale public outdoor sculpture at the Beverly Art Center entitled Transduce, which reuses materials that represent both transience and stability and the birth-death-rebirth cycle. At the Civil War-era Dole Mansion in Crystal Lake, IL she installed "I'm thinking of changing my smile" with artist Christina Gregor. The installation spanned two floors and multiple rooms and incorporated works that uses/reuses simple household materials in a playful and contemporary way.