SESSIONS VOL.1
I am delighted to announce that I will be running Sessions, an online Alternative Art School from the 17th-21st January.
Taking its cue from Jazz jam sessions, the week will focus on pushing and developing your practice and skills. It’s a chance to play and improvise. Each day the class will be given a theme or focus for the Session, alternatively you can create your own.
It is recommended that you dedicate 2 hours a day to completing the work, or 10 hours overall if you’re looking to focus on one session/cue for the week. On Friday everyone will be invited to share what they have created via Google docs, this is only for the class no one else can view anything shared.
The school will be run by artist & educator Andrea Allan.
To keep you motivated the below is offered as an optional schedule for everyone involved, to help create a routine and build contacts and socialise.
// Breakfast club on Zoom from 9-10am
// Each day a new theme/cue will be given
// Class review on Friday (in Google docs) from 7-9pm. A space for everyone to upload their work from the weeks school, you can see what everyone else has done and add comments
// Select texts and audio will be uploaded/shared daily
// Ongoing WhatsApp chats and check-ins
You don’t need to be based in the UK in order to participate, however please be aware of time zone differences..
DAY 1
We started off by introducing ourselves. I discussed why I chose to set up the school and how the week would play out.
The theme was ‘Rituals’ and I decided that mine would be to add work to the case I made each day, along with going for walks at lunch and setting time aside to read.
DAY 2 & 3
An introduction to Oulipo, a group of French writers and mathematicians who wanted to create written pieces with constrain techniques. The exercise we undertook was a word snowball.
Theme - Exercises in Style
Day 3 sees us go through the Bauhaus exercise - skating on paper.
Theme - The study of equilibrium
DAY 4
A Notan workshop was held, a Japanese term which means ‘light dark harmony’. It is used to explore light and dark elements within painting traditionally.
Theme - The practice of not thinking
DAY 5
The last day was passed over the participants. They were given the opportunity to run the workshop, Victoria Doyle took over for the morning at did a free writing workshop.
Theme - XX without YY (with participants decided what XX and YY stood for. I was given the theme Painting without Thinking.
The case takes its design from an old Eastman 5x4 negative holder. In this instance it contains all the information from the week; the timetable, the exercises, the daily themes.
