WHEN: Tuesdays | Sept 26th - Nov 21st | 9:30 am to 11:30 am
COST: FREE
Mesa Arts Center - Multi purpose room
INSTRUCTOR: Tessa Windt, Visual Artist
REGISTER: engagement@mesaartscenter.com
What is the relationship between inside and outside, between skeleton and skin, between the inner framework of a sculpture and its outer form? Come join us over the course of 8 hands-on sessions to create mixed media abstract sculptures that consider the sculptural armature as a physical foundation as well as a visual and conceptual structure.
In the first phase of FRAMEWORK we will construct an armature via linear and planar structural elements such as wood and flat geometric shapes. We will then begin to alter these sculptural skeletons with color via paint and flexible materials such as papier-mâché, fabrics, cords and net. As the layers build up, participants will decide how much of the inner story of their sculpture to reveal; bringing their artworks towards cohesive volumes with distinct interiors and exteriors, or towards open porous forms whose interiors and exteriors are intertwined. By taking a playful and inquisitive approach to materials and process, participants will build the story of their sculptures from the inside out. No experience necessary!
Registration Limited: 20
About the Instructor:
Visual artist Tessa Windt has worked with individuals aged 55 to 103, from active independent recent retirees to individuals facing physical and cognitive challenges, in settings as broad as senior centers, adult day programs, long-term care facilities, and arts venues; exploring the opportunities found within moments of creative engagement to build connection and address the isolation faced by many older adults. Windt has worked with the Mesa Arts Center on their Creative Aging Engagement program since 2011, developing and coordinating visual arts projects with older adults at several sites in Mesa. Projects commissioned by the Mesa Arts Center reconsider formal abstraction in relation to layering of material, creative process and the stories elicited by the process of making. Since 2015 Windt has been the Artist-in-Residence for the Phoenix Art Museum’s Arts Engagement Program, a program for older adults with memory loss and their care partners. In 2016 she served as a mentor artist to the Teaching Artist Institute for the Arizona Commission on the Arts’ AZ Creative Aging Initiative.
