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ENCOURAGE EXCELLENCE! Help keep Art techniques alive for future generations to enjoy and learn from by encouraging continued growth in the vines of knowledge. When you find an awesome instructor or a talented artist who is passionate about openly & fully sharing how they do their best art ~ one who enriches your techniques or inspires your art ~ remember to recommend them to teaching centers & fellow artists AND to give credit where credit is due! I've had the good fortune to cross paths with some incredibly talented artists over the years, and listed below are several (but by no means all) of my favorites. No hidden techniques or proprietary processes, no veiled egos or insecurity issues in this bunch ~ these instructors are at the top of their game & just enjoy sharing their artform. I definitely recommend taking one of their classes if you ever get the chance. Also many thanks to these and other wonderful artists who've helped me along the way on my own artistic journey! I took his bas relief clay tile classes when he was teaching at Kirkland Art Center a couple of years ago. Steve is one of the few persons to competently & clearly demonstrate how to do a very complicated 5 part press mold; we used my World Tree tile and I still make casts from that mold! He also gave in depth demonstrations on every aspect of how he creates his best known painterly bas relief tiles from start to finish, including how to repair your tiles from kiln disasters ~ information & photos that I still go back and reference today. Susan is an instructor at Pratt Fine Arts Center & Pilchuck Glass School who knows ALOT about ALOT of different artforms, from bronze casting to kiln casting to public performance art. She brings all that experience to bear as she takes you thru a variety of ways to successfully cast glass, starting with the wax working and moldmaking processes (plasters, silicones, & rubbers) and advancing thru the building of open face, the spruing/venting of solid sculptures, creating hollow vessel designs, coddle pours, & handbuilt molds. She also knows & shares lots of tips & tricks for coldworking & display, making her classes well worth your time & money! Patty Gray ~ Advanced Fusing, Pattern Bar Slabs, Deep Casting, & Kilnforming Patty is an instructor at multiple glass centers across the US and other parts of the world. As I said on the fusing page, this lady rocks! Her workshop more than exceeded my expectations ~ I have never come away from a three day intensive with so much hands-on information, detailed photos, & completed works as I did in Patty's class. Her style is fast paced & highly informative, and her class is chock full of important materials & techniques that you need AND want to know, all designed to get you successfully kilnforming thicker pieces. You will walk away infused with a passion to head off in daring directions no matter what your current artform! Larry teaches at Pratt and at KAC. He's another artist that knows alot & is constantly sharing tips & tricks designed to help your art attain that next level of professionalism. His brain is overflowing with tidbits on the old methods for creating texture and depth ~ exquisite nuggets of knowledge that are being forgotten today in the rush to embrace new methods for making art. Larry brings the best of both worlds to play in some very edgy ways that will help you push the limits within your own art. I also loved that he had a never ending supply of collage materials students could comb thru AND use ~ a very generous man indeed! Talk about a dynamic duo, these two ladies teach glass and jewelry making classes at Pratt (and other centers across the US), as well as offer students life changing trips to exquisite destinations around the world, so students can learn from the great Masters of Glass in an up close and personal setting! I just finished their 3 day intensive at Pratt, called "Putting It All Together", and can tell you first hand that you really HAVE to take a class from these ladies -- any where in world you may find them! I say dynamic duo because no matter what question was asked, one of them would either fully explain it or would immediately go find the answer while the other continued instructing -- like having a personal concierge and google master at hand! Thanks to these two gems, my head is filled with exciting new techniques AND I came away with some wonderful pieces of Jewelry, ready to run home and make more! Michael Rocco, Mike Conrad (both do glass blowing & flameworking), and Cheryl Matson (beadmaking & electroforming) are glass artists who teach at Pratt Fine Arts Center and other glass centers in the Northwest (like Eugene Glass School & Frantz Art Glass). Michael Rocco has an empowering sense of humor that makes you feel like you CAN learn this tricky process called flameworking no matter how uncoordinated you may feel at the start; Mike Conrad has studied in Italy and openly shares all that mysterious knowledge of reading the heat bases into his zen-like goblet classes, making that learning process a lot smoother; and Cheryl Matson is just plain fun to be around while she's teaching you all the secrets & tricks for making great beads ~ a born rule breaker & she'll gladly demo any technique she knows when asked ~ she'll take your beadmaking skills to infinity & beyond! You will find John teaching at various fine arts centers around the Puget Sound area. He is a walking encyclopedia full of inventive ways to work with clay that will transform your current work. And I love that he is always willing to give you the recipes HE USES to make HIS art look so good. His brain works in all directions so there's no loop you can throw him that he won't think about & come back with a way to make that work! Ellen has a studio in a cool old warehouse on Lake Union & currently teaches at KAC. What a delight and what a bubbling fountain of knowledge! She leads students thru an exploration of a wide variety of ways to work in printmaking, and by the end of class she pulls everything together and will have you creating some wonderful collage designs that will amaze. True to her southern roots, she's very sharing with her resources, encourages the photos, and is helpful in pointing her students in the right direction to continue building their skill sets so that you feel competent to rent the KAC print studio & start working on your own. Phil Teefy ~ Advanced Fusing, Dimensional Kilnforming, & Pate de Verre Phil teaches around the country and owns Rainbow Glass Inc in Sacramento, CA with his lovely wife, Hazel. I took Phil's History & Marketing of Glass and his Pate de Verre class at Hot Glass Horizons in Portland, OR. The man is a huge collection of history books come to life ~ extremely knowledgable, passionate, & interesting! Take any glass class from Phil & you will walk away knowing why glass has been more than just a pretty bauble throughout history! Betty Stanford ~ Drawing I don't know if Betty is still teaching or not, but she ignited in me a passion for looking at life with a new eye. My favorite thing in her class was learning how to do a gestural drawing ~ totally liberating because it was so immediate and it blended perfectly with my love for using flowing lines to represent emotion and thought. Betty also passed along another very important insight ~ that I had my whole life to be an artist, but only a few short years to enjoy being a mom while my kids were still at home ~ I'll always treasure that bit of wisdom Betty, thank you! |
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