With a new school year starting soon, we’re excited for all our new classes to get underway — and even more excited for you to meet our newest instructors!
See these nine new additions to our faculty below, along with their websites and what classes you can take with them. As always, you can browse the full catalog online.
Robinson is teaching two new collage classes this school year: Mixed Media Abstract Collage (Fall and Summer) and Painting and Collage (Winter).
You can take Throwing/Handbuilding Ceramics with Rakhshan on Sundays this school year. You can see an example of his gorgeous porcelain-slipped stoneware in the photo above, and plenty more of his work on Instagram.
You’ll find Burris in our Jewelry studio this Fall, teaching Mokume Gane on Thursday evenings. Here’s his description of the process:
Mokume Gane, or wood grain metal, is a traditional Japanese technique in which two or more different metals are meticulously cleaned, alternately stacked, compressed and heated to a high temperature. The result is the fusing of all layers into a solid block or billet. The billet can be made into sheet metal with a variety of patterns by repeatedly carving through layers and reducing the thickness. Ring stock can be made by twisting a thick piece to re-orient the layers and removing material to reveal a hidden pattern.
Participants will learn a low tech, low cost, but efficient method to making Mokume Gane-using a refractory brick mini furnace and soldering torch to fire the billet. Participants will start by making their own billet and finish with a seamless forged band ring.
Lopata — who is a visiting artist at the Torpedo Factory this summer — will be teaching Fast Track to Jewelry: Wax Casting and Multiples as well as Wax Carving in the Jewelry studio this year. In her artist statement, Lopata writes: “I’m fascinated by rusty things, the mark of the hand joined with the machine, and how our past shapes our future. My jewelry is my story, whispers from our past and talisman and the amulet. Jewelry can have power in the imagination of the viewer.”
A new addition to our youth department, Vacca will be teaching two printmaking classes: Printmaking for Teens and Printmaking for Young People (ages 9–12). She is a printmaker, book artist, and educator who recently moved here from Los Angeles.
We’re thrilled to have Noorigian joining our team to teach Clay Sculpture for Teens. This eight-week class teaches teenagers anatomy, proportion, and structure as they sculpt a self-portrait bust.
Got manga on the mind? You can dive into comics and cartooning with Ava Soriano this year, as she teaches Manga, Comics & Cartooning For Beginners (ages 8 to adult) and Manga, Comics & Cartooning (ages 10 & up).
Check out that ibis! If you want to learn to create beautiful lithographs like that, you’re in luck: Lyla Shlon is joining our printmaking faculty to teach Lithography on Sundays this fall. Shlon studied printmaking at MICA and the Tamarind Institute, and is currently involved with founding Two Birds One Stone, a collaborative lithography studio in Baltimore.
Also joining our printmaking faculty, Jennifer Dunbar will be teaching Woodblock Printmaking on Monday evenings: a class for beginners and artists with some experience.
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