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Reflections: Art Workshops | 55+
October 13 to December 8, 2023
MCASD La Jolla, Prebys Education Center
Per session (2 days): $50 for Members / $60 for Not-Yet-Members; Full Series (8 days): $200 for Members / $250 for Not-Yet-Members
Reserve your spotReflections is an art-making workshop series designed to serve adults 55 and older.
In this workshop series participants will explore how ideas about the body integrate into contemporary art.
Through close looking, we will engage with artworks where the body is present, and where its notable absence invokes the body. Participants will examine concepts and interpretations of the human form and will learn the following:
- How scale impacts the viewer
- How the body is used as a tool for labor
- How body is present through absence
- How artists engage the senses in a hands-off contemporary arts environment
Each workshop will include an investigation of contemporary art-making techniques and materials. No prior art experience is required. Transportation will be provided, if required. Participants may join one session (two days) or the full series (four sessions; eight days).
Session Dates
Session dates in this series are:
- Session 1: Friday, October 13 and Friday, October 20
- Session 2: Friday, October 27 and Friday, November 3
- Session 3: Friday, November 10 and Friday, November 17
- Session 4: Friday, December 1 and Friday, December 8
Daily Program
10AM: Gallery Discussion
The conversations around the artworks in MCASD’s collection will offer stimulating input and prompts for participants as they think about creating their own artworks.
10:30AM: Coffee and Mingle
Refreshments and time for social interaction will take place in Museum venues that take full advantage of the beautiful oceanside location and views.
11AM: Art-Making Activity
The hands-on workshop will provide a forum for self-expression and developing new interpersonal connections.
Weekly Program
Session 1: October 13 & October 20
Explore monumental and diminutive scales and create a figurine out of clay.
We will draw inspiration from Francisco Zuniga’s commanding sculpture, Juchiteca de pie (1966), with its strong, unflinching stance, and Niki de Saint Phalle’s Big Ganesh (1988), a monumental rendering of the elephant-headed Hindu god symbolizing new beginnings.
Session 2: October 27 & November 3
In this session, examine labor and utilizing the body as a tool. We will discuss what information can be gleaned from a silhouette, while guiding you through your own creation of a cardboard silhouette-based sculpture.
We will draw inspiration from Jonathan Borofsky’s Hammering Man at 3,110,527 (1988), representing the artist as a worker, and Julio Cesar Morales’s Informal economy exploded vendors #1 (2022-2004), bringing heightened visibility to vendors' resourcefulness.
Session 3: November 10 & November 17
Consider how the body is present through its absence in art by creating a papier mâché mask.
We will draw inspiration from Eleanor Antin’s 100 Boots (1971-1973), the poignant photographic novel with an intriguing journey; David Hammons Champ (1989), which highlights the precariousness of success; and My Barbarian’s Universal Declaration of Infantile Anxiety Situations Reflected in the Creative Impulse (2013), which incorporates handmade masks, props, and costumes into live performances and video performances.
Session 4: December 1 & December 8
Explore the sense of touch through artworks that generate a sensory experience, and consider how these works exist within the confines of an art museum where touch is not encouraged. Then, we will guide you through creating a tactile piece and learn the basics of casting.
We will draw inspiration from Kelly Akashi’s Cultivator (2021), which highlights her interest in fluid, impressionable materials and old-world craft techniques, and Robert Irwin’s 1°2°3°4° (1997), which uniquely engages many senses at once.
Funders
Reflections is generously supported by E.A. Michelson Philanthropy.
Top: Photo: Stacy Keck