Silhouette Workshop at Tempe Center for the Arts

This past weekend I gave a workshop at Tempe Center for the Arts.  They asked me to give a workshop that would be available to families coming in to visit the gallery.  It was hard for me to come up with an idea for a workshop that would be interesting and easy for people of all ages and backgrounds.  But, after much thought, I pitched the idea of doing old fashioned paper cut silhouettes.  I felt that it related to my personal work, and the theme of the exhibition and would be something that could reach a diverse audience.  The curator loved the idea and really took off with it.  She had the museum preparator build a modern take on the old fashioned silhouette chairs popular in the 18th century.  

 (Link)

 This is the chair they built for my workshop (and to be up in the gallery for the duration of the "Family Matters" exhibition.)

 It made tracing the silhouettes so easy and I think we got great results.  In the 4 hour period of the workshop we did over 30 silhouettes, all hand traced and cut by hand with an exacto knife. 

 

It was a lot of fun.

 

 There will be free workshops at TCA every saturday for the rest of the duration of the exhibition.  More info here.