Illustration Week at Monson Arts

Oct 13, 2026 | Community Programs, Partnerships

Monson Arts will be hosting the Illustration Institute for the second annual Illustration Week in Monson, October 19 – 23, 2026. Founders Scott Nash, Nancy Gibson-Nash and William Roth return as well as Annamay Brown and Joe Diggs. These creative artists and illustrators will spend time engaging with each other and offering special programming to the community.

 

Starting on Monday, Annamay Brown and Nancy Gibson-Nash will work with Create and Collaborate– our local homeschool organization which brings together families to learn through art. They will lead a collage and fabric applique based project to create tiny books and treasures with the student. They will explore story telling and character creation for the little ones.

 

On Wednesday our high school bi-monthly program will be learning from graphic novelist William Roth, who will lead our students in turning words into pictures and pictures into words. They will collaborate to create their own comic style stories and will learn the hidden language of composing pages, scripts, and thumbnails.

 

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Wednesday, October 21
5:00pm – 7:00pm
Collective Painting with Joe Diggs: Interactive Talk
Moore Studio Building – 3 Tenney Hill Road
Free

Community members are welcome to work with Joe on his current painting.  A seasoned teacher and enthusiastic promoter of creativity at any level, Joe encourages collaborative work as way to connect and remove the fear of the blank canvas!  All ages and abilities welcome for an informal evening of shared expression with a renowned narrative artist.Joe will also share insights on his creative process and recent gallery show in Venice. Joe Diggs in Venice, explores the theme of the 61st Venice Biennale, In Minor Keys. Long known for his figurative paintings about his family and African-American community, Joe Diggs now delves into visual abstractions that merge into a spiritual memory of traditional woven surfaces. He is represented by Berta Walker gallery on Cape Cod.

Thursday, October 22
4pm-5pm
Scott Nash: Celebrating Nonsense in Kids’ Books
Monson Maine Library
35 Greenville Rd
Free

Executive Director of Illustration Institute, renowned illustrator of kid favorites Saturday Night at the Dinosaur Stomp, Flat Stanley and author/illustrator of The High Skies Adventures of Blue Jay the Pirate and designer of Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network logos will share his unique perspective on the creative process. All ages welcome!

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MEET THE ILLUSTRATORS!

Scott Nash

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Co-founder of Illustration Institute and illustrator of over 50 children’s books, Scott Nash also helped establish the Illustration department at Maine College of Art & Design. While continuing his graphic design and illustration practice, he also curates illustration exhibitions through the Institute and is a passionate advocate for greater recognition of the importance of illustration in our culture. He is a seasoned presenter at elementary schools, encouraging kids to remain enthusiastic about drawing, providing them with tips and tricks to remove any inhibitions, as well as guiding them in character development.

An avid student of kid culture, Nash’s former design studio, Big Blue Dot, designed iconic logos for Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and Comedy Central. He has written and illustrated his own books including The High Skies Adventures of Blue Jay the Pirate and Tuff Fluff, The Case of Duckie’s Missing Brain.

 

Nancy Gibson-Nash

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Nancy Gibson-Nash is a mixed media collage artist and illustrator. Her 3-D pieces include found objects, paint, paper and usually a beach treasure or two. A big fan of recycling, Nancy gives eclectic objects a new lease on life.  She builds her pieces the old fashioned way, constructing them by hand. Work created as illustration is supplied to her clients in digital form, artfully photographed by Russell French.  Her work has been shown as part of open studios, gallery exhibits and published in magazines, children’s publications, textbooks and for a variety of corporate clients.  A graduate of Connecticut College, she lives on Peaks Island in Maine, with her husband, illustrator Scott Nash and their sweet dog, Bowie. She is the co-founder of the non-profit Illustration Institute.
 

William Roth

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William Roth is a young graphic novelist and RISD alum working from Peaks Island in Casco Bay. He wrote and illustrated the webcomic Witch Heart and self-published it in book form while still in school. Most recently he wrote and illustrated Hindsight Foresight, published last January by VIZ Originals one-shots. While he authors future undisclosed graphic novels, he also works as graphic designer and the assistant curator at the Illustration Institute, where he develops exhibitions about the art of illustration. William has led workshops for children, teens, and adults on the art and structure of making comics.

Annamay Brown

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Annamay is a practicing artist and sewist with experience in day to day operations of summer camps with an emphasis on youth and creativity. Annamay ran sessions for over 50-60 kids per week at Morrisville RIver Arts and Burlington City Arts, VT in illustration,ceramics, screen printing,mural and theater arts. She currently creates upcycled designs for Drift Collective in Portland, ME.

Joe Diggs

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Joseph (Joe) Diggs is a practicing artist, curator, and educator with generational roots on Cape Cod. His paintings range from realist depictions of African American history and personal family memories to gestural plein-air landscapes and geometric abstractions, and they span in scale from large, wall-sized murals to small, intimate works on cardboard.

Joe Diggs’ expansive artistic vision is unified by dynamic textures, perspectives, colors, and forms. Although anchored in his local Cape Cod community, Diggs’ paintings are in many national and international private collections.

Joe Diggs is represented by the Berta Walker Gallery in Provincetown, MA. In 2025 he was named Artist of the Year, Arts Foundation of Cape Cod.  SInce 2015 Joe has been an arts educator teaching Foundations in Art and Expression to incarcerated youths at the Department of Youth Services, Brewster MA and at the Cotuit Center for the Arts in Cotuit, MA.