Monson Arts is hosting a day of short workshops at the Monson Arts Center on Saturday, July 14. Sign up to participate in one of three workshop areas taught by Maine artists. Workshops will run from 9AM – 4PM. The cost to attend is $35 including lunch and all materials. Space is limited and enrollment will be on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information or to sign up, e-mail: info@monsonarts.org or call (207) 997-2070. You must be 18 or older to participate.

Workshop Offerings:

One Shot Slab Ceramic Boxes with Jemma Gascoine

Jemma Gascoine

The morning portion of the workshop will see us using the slab roller to make straight-sided boxes with inset lids to fit. In the afternoon, we shall explore surface decoration techniques like wax resist, slip-trailing and sgraffito. We will use red earthenware clay with grog and glaze the boxes whilst they are still wet as this method is kinder to the environment. Participants in this class will arrange to pick their work up from the Monson Pottery Workshop from Wednesday 18th July.

Jemma Gascoine has been creating and selling her ceramic sculpture and her utilitarian work since 2001, when she moved from London, England, to Blanchard Township, on the Piscataquis River. Initially she studied with the renowned London potter Barry Guppy. She had a solo art exhibition at the University of Maine Museum of Art in 2012. In 2015 she founded the Monson Pottery Workshop at the Monson Arts Center in order to help meet the demand there was for teaching clay workshops. She has been teaching clay to all ages since 2005. Gascoine sells her functional work through the Monson Pottery Workshop, Pinelands Market, Maine Craft Portland and through her gallery in Blanchard, Maine.

Book Arts-From the Start with Rebecca Goodale

Rebecca Goodale

This workshop will introduce you to (or help you review) the two building blocks of book structures- the single section pamphlet and the accordion. From there we will explore the myriad possibilities of the compound form. For content, we will depend on the marks of each other with Dada inspired image exercises.

Since 2000, Maine artist Rebecca Goodale has been creating artist’s books about plants and animals currently listed as threatened or endangered by the state of Maine. With this body of work, now over 80 titles and counting, Goodale aims to raise awareness and appreciation of Maine’s endangered flora and fauna, not as a botanist would, but as a visual artist fascinated by her subject’s complex beauty. Her work is in numerous collections including Bowdoin College Library; The Maine Women Writers Collection; Herron Art Library, IN; New York Public Library; Smithsonian African Museum of Art; and the Library of Congress. She is the Faculty Director of the University of Southern Maine’s Book Arts at Stone House program.

Automata with Wade Warman

Wade Warman

In this class, participants will develop and fabricate wooden automata (kinetic, hand-cranked sculptures). We will focus on melding mechanical engineering principles with artistic conceptsvia traditional and emerging technologies. Participants are encouraged to bring a small, very light-weight object no larger than 2” cubed. No prior experience required.

Wade Warman creates kinetic sculptures that explore the human condition through the lenses of dark humor and theology. With backgrounds in electromechanical and emerging technologies, Warman is a recipient of the Susan J. Hunt Fellowship and his work has been exhibited in galleries such as the Morris Museum in Morristown, New Jersey; the Brooklyn Waterfront Artist Coalition in Red Hook, New York; and the Sally Otto Gallery in Alliance, Ohio. Born in Rockport, Maine in 1978, Warman is currently finishing his Intermedia MFA degree at the University of Maine.