For beginners:

A one-day, carefully guided ‘drawing’ class addressing the inside of observation, helping you pay closer attention to HOW you see.

Through a sequence of visual, investigative games, your eyes will open to what you haven’t yet noticed.

Working actively from a series of organized, sequential prompts, you’ll make notational shorthand in pencil and collage locating yourself graphically within the moment of observation.

The day will include a few slide talks interspersed with your very active engagement at the worktable. No experience is necessary for this class except your willingness to be a brave explorer.  

Materials will be very simple, some you will bring, others provided.

A few questions:

how do you see what you don’t even know is there?

are you seeing things and objects by way of their rational names or instead, as a set of abstract shape and tonal relationships not defined by words, but rooted in the particularity of abstraction - size, shape and tone? 

and as the French poet Paul Valery reminded us: “Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing Seen.”

This class is fast paced and fun, oriented toward beginners and for those who are not ‘artists’ per se but interested in acquiring a more comprehensive appreciation of visual experience.

The takeaway will be an altered state of mind, eye and hand, and regardless of where you are now, your inner eye will never be quite the same and you will look out onto the world with that much more wonder. 

'we are always at the beginning of seeing'. 

Philip  Guston

For mid-range to advanced artists:

A one-day, guided ‘drawing’ class addressing the interiority of observation, ushering you into paying closer attention to HOW you see within and respond to the saturation of the visual moment. 

Moving through a shaped sequence of provocative and investigative observational games, your eyes will open to what you haven’t yet noticed. Working actively from a series of prompts, you’ll build a vocabulary of notational shorthand in pencil and collage locating yourself graphically within the moment of observation in ways you probably haven’t imagined.

And all of this is oriented toward carrying back new perceptual and thought tools for your studio practice.

The day will include a few slide talks, interspersed with your very active engagement at the worktable.

Materials will be very simple, some you will bring, others provided.

A few questions:

looking out onto the world, what and how do you notice? 

are you seeing things and objects by way of their rational names or instead, as a set of abstract relationships not defined by words? 

For those of us journeying in the visual world, abstract relational seeing is the primary path, and we learn to recognize how all the pieces fit together like a puzzle, one piece always in relation to others and all part of a greater sensuous unity.  

And as the French poet Paul Valery reminded us:

“Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing Seen”

This class is fast paced, comprehensive and fun, and the takeaway will be an altered state of mind, eye and hand, and regardless of where you are now, your inner eye will never be quite the same and you will look out onto the world with that much more wonder. 

'we are always at the beginning of seeing'. 

Philip  Guston