James Gallagher's Still-Life Compositions Workshop

Getting this blog up and running is a great excuse to look back at some of the inspiring art moments that happened in the first three months since we opened up The Painting School at 65 Woodhull Street.

One of those great art moments was the Still Life Composition Collage Workshop led by the super talented James Gallagher. (@misterjamesgallgher)

He started with the inspiring history of the art form, followed by a brief demo of tools and techniques. We had a ton of objects (vessels, flowers, fruit, figurines, etc) as subject matter, and loads of source material (colored paper, tear-sheets, textiles, etc - including a bunch of quilting fabric my mom shipped from Sioux Falls).

James brought the participants of his still life intensive to a place of artistic concentration and a thrilling level of attention to process and materials. It made for a creative experience that brought us to a place of focus and mindfulness.

James was there to provide guidance, encouragement, and motivation, and the group show-and-tell at the end, where we put all of the work on the wall, was pretty thrilling. The level of creativity on display was inspiring. The wide range of styles and surprising results was just more proof of the exciting potential of the medium.

We’ll hopefully have James back soon for another afternoon of collage.

James even managed to create two beautiful collages of our blue glass hand while teaching…