Academy for Fine Arts Center at Wesleyan College: Summer Camp

I wasn't sure it was going to happen, but our Wesleyan College Fine Arts Camp met in person this summer and it was a huge success! We were still taking Covid precautions, which included making it a day camp instead of residential and it was only 3 days instead of our usual six. I taught the printmaking class, which everyone took, even the music and theatre people, so I decided to just do a quick introduction to several processes in printmaking.

Day one we made monotypes. Each person rolled ink onto a piece of plexiglass. Then then rubbed away at it with a Q-tip, or paper towel. Some students were just making white line drawings on a black surface, while others created more balance through wiping out more ink to create shapes. Just learning to tear, soak, and blot paper, was a good lesson, but of course the exciting part is running the paper on top of the plexi through the press. The sandwiched ink transfers to the paper in a mirror image. A few students were surprised when their letters came out backwards, but that's the nature of printmaking. Mind your p's and q's!

Another day we made transfer drawings. No time to come up with an image and work out the drawings. This was just an introduction. I got out books of the masters for them to trace a favorite painting onto tracing paper. The tracing paper was taped along the top edge of good, printmaking paper. Then students rolled ink lightly onto a piece of newsprint paper and placed it down on the good paper before flipping the traced drawing on top. As the drawing was traced again, the ink transferred onto the good paper. It's tricky not to get finger prints all over the finished piece, so I encouraged  everyone to not put ink on the edges of the newsprint so they'd have a way to hold it down with one hand on the edge, while tracing with the other.

The third day some students chose to do transfer drawings again, while others cut stencils out of paper to create screen prints. Three types of printmaking in three short sessions. Chances are slim that anyone will build a career out of these processes, but you never know. In the mean time it's opened their eyes to new ways of creating images. 

Other activities included an art tour of campus and learning about the curation process. There were drama games and exercises in character development in theatre. An afternoon class made short claymation films. I loved that process! 

The Confucius Center leaders taught our students how to make dumplings for lunch, how to make traditional cut paper art, and how to make traditional brush strokes with sumi ink. And a science professor took us on a nature walk in the arboretum to teach the budding fine artists about the importance of observation and listening.

Friday's finale was a field trip to down town where we went into several galleries during exhibit openings.

Triangle Art, is an up-and-coming artist community. It was fun to hear the founder explain the vision of the place and how he'd done similar things in poor areas of Detroit and Atlanta. The stories were amazing. When I told him that I taught Art at the Academy for the Blind. He pulled out a painting by my former (she had just graduated two weeks earlier) student that he bought at one of our Goodwill Shows a couple years ago!  That was fun!

 We went out for Indian food before going to a really impressive theatre performance of Once on this Island! Everyone had a great time and learned a lot. Being the Assistant Director of the Center for Fine Arts Academy is a lot of work, but it is rewarding work.