Voices communicate beyond words. Singing has a visual aspect. We’ll explore vocal tone and expression and use non-verbal aspects of singing to describe and convey elements of visual art such as color, texture, mood, and form. How does sound link to sights? We’ll draw what we hear and sing what we see.
Archives
Collaborative Song-making: How are songs made?
Group/collaborative song-making is a social and approachable way of exploring the craft. We’ll engage in playful aspects of the creative mind in sourcing song topics, lyrics, chord progressions, and melodies. Together we’ll create a song or songs based on a chosen theme or simply pull from the vast realm of imagination. Tools shared can easily be applied to developing a personal songwriting practice. Participants are encouraged to bring a musical instrument, though knowledge of music theory or the ability to play an instrument is not required.
Singing as Self-Care & Embodied Expression
Diane relates the joy of singing through experiential exercises that focus on physical sensation and personal expression. We’ll explore our unique instruments through spontaneous song-making, toning, and finding creative entryways into harmony. We’ll open up our intuitive connection to the voice, fostering a learning/sharing environment that’s encouraging, buoyant and deep. This workshop is for anyone interested in singing, open to all levels of experience.
Color with Sargent
John Singer Sargent was a master of color. His blacks were textured, his whites were complex and his side-by-side use of warm and cool colors gave his work vibrancy. In this one day workshop students will study Sargent’s work through a lecture and slide presentation. Working in either watercolor or acrylic, students will complete color exercises, then copy Sargent’s work and create their own compelling piece inspired by Sargent’s use of color.
Mural Workshop
Spend a few hours tapping into your inner artist working collaboratively with a group to create a piece of public art. Learn what its like to be part of the process to create large scale works of art that will live and enrich its environment. Ideally, the location should have a wall space for this. If not, Mr. Glass can construct a free-standing wall-like surface from the materials he will bring. Free-standing wall will incur extra expense for materials and construction. Mr. Glass normally works with participants for 4 to 6 hours then spends 2-3 hours more to touch-up and finish. Entire process can take 6-9 hours.
Making Place: Nancy Lancaster and the Country House Style
In the early decades of the 20th century, the Virginia-born tastemaker Nancy Lancaster (1897-1994) created an interior aesthetic we now know as the Country House style. Based on a nostalgia for her family home, Mirador, and responsive to the cultural shifts of the post-World War I era, the style conflated ideas born of the Lost Cause and the Lost Houses – the post-war demolition of the great English estates and their pre-war lifestyles. This talk considers the style’s narrative and material composition as symptomatic of an era and Lancaster’s idealization of “home.”
Collecting for the Commonwealth, Preserving for the Nation: A Century of Art Patronage at VMFA
In 1919, John Barton Payne made a gift of artworks to the Commonwealth of Virginia. His vision: a public art museum that could educate and unite a disparate people. A hundred years on, VMFA has emerged a leading repository of great world art. That success is due to the passion and persistence of a century of patrons who, on the example of Payne, have collected, donated, bequeathed, and financed more than 35,000 works for the benefit of the people. Highlighting VMFA’s most transformational donors with representative selections from its diverse holdings, Collecting for the Commonwealth is a celebration of Payne’s legacy and its underscored belief in art as a medium of humanity.
Of Glitter and Grit: American Art from the McGlothlin Collection
From the early investment in landscape as the mythological source of America’s manifest destiny, to the closing of the frontier and the rise of a gilded empire, to the disaffection caused by rapid economic, social and political change: the development of the United States finds visual voice in the American art of the McGlothlin Collection. This talk considers the content and context of the McGlothlin collection as a lens on the evolution of America during the formative decades of 1830 to 1930.
A Return to the Grand Tour: Micromosaic Jewels from the Collection of Elizabeth Locke
Elizabeth Locke’s collection of micromosaics provides a lens on the continuity of the ancient craft of mosaic into the modern era. As well-heeled English travelers crossed the channel to tour the “cradle of western civilization,” Roman mosaicists responded to the demand for classically-inspired works by producing micromosaics evocative of their journey. This talk considers the historical legacy of Locke’s collection within the context of the Grand Tour.
The Gilded Age: A Tale of Two Bedrooms
From the 1880s Aestheticism of VMFA’s Worsham-Rockefeller bedroom to the 1910s neoclassicism of Beulah Branch’s boudoir, the Gilded Age was remarkable for an eclecticism reflective of both technological advances and socio-economic change. This talk considers the content and context of patronage and taste that shaped elite bedrooms of the era.