Description:

Led by exhibiting artist Katie Vota

Artist Richard Serra famously said, "Drawing is a verb." In this workshop, participants will reference Serra’s work Verb List, in which he compiled a series of "actions to relate to oneself, material, place, and process," to create a sculpture. Based on modalities of reuse, participants will collect and transform a quantity of an object into art, using provided fasteners and a verb of their choosing. 

This workshop will guide participants to think about common objects in new ways, sparking creativity and fresh perspectives in their approach to art. Participants are encouraged to think outside the box in their material choices by asking, 

“Where do I see material excess in my daily life?” 

“How can objects considered to be ‘trash’ have second lives outside their intended use?” 

“How do I use my networks and community to accumulate enough of something that it transcends our immediate understanding of the object?”  

Examples of objects include bike innertubes, cardboard paper towel tubes, pop can tabs, Asian pear Styrofoam wrappers, old/worn t-shirts, the plastic tubes at the center of plastic bag rolls (bags like they use for veggies at the grocery). Bring a bag of a collected material (ideally it should either fill a plastic grocery bag, or if the items are small, bring at least 100 pieces), all-purpose scissors, a fastener (such as wire or glue) if there’s something specific you’d like to work with, an open mind, a notebook, and pencil/pen to take notes and sketch ideas.