mineral and plant pigments and gold leaf on reclaimed wood
to register, email 
Saturday, April 21st from 10AM til 4PM
Sliding scale $22 to $44 plus $10 for materials
Register for directions. The workshop is held in west Springfield, OR, near Island Park.
If you have this, something that represents your work -- anything 2D or 3D or if necessary, an image that we can look at together. Also, any food or beverages you may want. You'll have access to a stove, toaster oven and microwave. Also, if you have materials that you're working with right now, bring those. And lastly, if you have samples of artists whose work you enjoy or aspire to, bring those too.
What are challenges to currently face as an artist?
In the context of art-making, for many, PERFECTION is a vision of what one wants to make that is so far beyond one's grasp that in attempting to create it one becomes paralyzed by fears, doubt, and insecurity.
Aspiration poses a challenge that stretches us and leads us into exciting territory where we do our best without becoming discouraged. A vision we aspire to gives us a direction to follow, a context for inspiration that does not bind us inflexibly to a rigid or "perfect" outcome, but gives us a tangible context for revelation and invention.
Attachment to a "perfect' outcome, a fixed final product, can bring up frustration and self-defeating feelings that put a stop to art-making. On the other hand, enjoying process without a vision to guide us can leave us feeling that our work lacks a voice and a direction. In THE ART OF IMPERFECTION, we will seek balance between process and product by dismantling our fears and honing our personal visual vocabularies.
On Materials:
Do I like the materials I work with (their texture, color, origin?) Is
it stressful for me to acquire and use my materials? Do I have ideas
about the "right" materials to use? What's my favorite texture/color
palette/object to work with? How big or how small do I really want to
work? What restricts the size of my work?
On Techniques:
How conscious do I want to be of the marks i make? How much accident
do I want to invite? Do I want to use my own hands to create? Do I
want to copy or recreate a particular style? Do I want to paint or
draw realistic images? Do I want to create expressive or abstract or
symbolic images? How much do I want to learn about image-making, and
how much of my own inexperience to I want to preserve?
On Influences:
What influences me visually? In what ways can I most benefit from
these influences? How can I increase my exposure to influences that
help me grow as an artist? When is it helpful for me to copy works by
artists who influence me?
Come prepared to engage in exciting experimental exercises and ask deep questions about your own vision for your future as an art-maker!
How conscious do I want to be of the marks i make? How much accident do I want to invite? Do I want to use my own hands to create? Do I want to copy or recreate a particular style? Do I want to paint or draw realistic images? Do I want to create expressive or abstract or symbolic images? How much do I want to learn about image-making, and how much of my own inexperience to I want to preserve?
Saturday, April 28th from 10AM til 4PM
Sliding scale $22 to $44 plus $10 for materials
Register for directions. The workshop is held in west Springfield, OR, near Island Park.
Color is abundant in the natural world, and turning that color into pigments we can paint with is much simpler than most artists imagine. The Make Your Own Color workshop demonstrates first-hand the ease and pleasure of transforming colored rocks, earth or clay into useable pigments. Participants will try their hands at grinding color in a stone mortar and pestle, using water to levigate, and finally, mixing pigments with a simple water-based medium to make rich, luminous paint they will use to create a small painting on reclaimed wood. Perfect for people with chemical sensitivity, permaculture artists, and anyone with a DIY passion.
"A good chef would never rely on store-bought ingredients, so why do artists?" is a question Tilke asked early on in the mineral pigments workshop. Deep reddish-browns with hints of purple, exuberant yellow ochres, soft lichen-greens...I continue to glory in the hues we gathered in a local stream-bed and to recognize them in the world around me. I found it to be intrinsically rewarding, even healing, to grind these subtly colored rocks into pigment powders for paintmaking, and to then create with them. Tilke's insights on the nature of color, paintmaking, and the creative process itself have also pushed me in some exciting new directions artistically. I highly recommend this workshop to anyone interested in learning to create art with sustainable, non-toxic, magical materials." -- Rachel Wassenaar
Color is no more separable from its context than music is from the objects which produce it. The Tilkin School Color Library is an evolving collection of colored objects with a variety of textures and sizes, which provide students and library members the opportunity to experiment with color as it manifests in daily experience.
Donations of natural fibers, children's blocks and other wooden objects, and natural objects with distinctive coloration are always welcome.
to register, email