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Artist Demos, Seminars, Discussions
and Best Practices
Third Tuesdays at 3 pm and Select Dates and Times
Join the Guild in watching the creative process of one of our fine artists. You will get to see them working for about an hour and explaining why they do what they do. You will be able to ask questions. Since our artists work in a variety of media, over time, you will be exposed to a large number of processes and approaches. The program may be a simplified “how to do” something or it may be a broader demonstration of how to start something, how to finish something, how to fix something or how to proceed when they are stuck. This program is usually held on Tuesdays at 3pm but it can be pre recorded and shown another time upon request.
Please refer to the Calendar for details about specific upcoming events.
Artist Demonstration
Panel Discussion
Best Practices
Marketing Art
Tuesday, December 7, 2021 at 3 pm
Zoom link:
Join on Zoom
Meeting ID: 842 9410 6011
Password: 926317
Artists are invited to a panel discussion led by Susan and David Honneus on zoom about "Marketing Art”. What topics would you like to consider in future seminars and panel discussions? Bring your ideas!
Topics will include :
“How to market your artwork”
Possible future topics which have been proposed include:
"What did you learn “The hard way” and can share with other artists”
“Licensing art”
Artist Demonstration
Jeanne Marklin
Fiber Artist
Tuesday, December 14, 2021 at 3 pm
Co-Presented with:
Ramsdell Library, Housatonic
Milne Library, Williamstown
Lenox Library, Lenox
Bushnell Sage Library, Sheffield
Berkshire Athenaeum, Pittsfield
Zoom link:
Join on Zoom
Meeting ID: 813 3780 8927
Password: 686669
Making art quilts is how I deal with the travails of life, the personal aspects as well as world events. It reflects my feelings as a woman in a society that does not always validate women and their work. It assuages my anger about injustices in society that cause pain to others. It reflects my concern about the environment being destroyed. It is self therapy.
I work in fiber because it feels restorative. It can be dyed, painted, cut up and stitched together again and that feels symbolic of our journey through life. The process is what drives my work.
Artist Demonstration
Panel Discussion
Best Practices
To Lease or Not to Lease?
Tuesday, January 18, 2022, at 3 pm
Zoom link:
Join on Zoom
Meeting ID: 842 9410 6011
Password: 926317
Artists are invited to a panel discussion led by Susan and David Honneus on zoom about "Leasing Space for Making, Selling, or Exhibiting your Art”.
Topics might include:
Financial, Legal, Insurance, and Marketing Issues in the Rental of an Art Space.
What topics would you like to consider in future seminars and panel discussions? Bring your ideas!
Possible future topics which have been proposed include:
"What did you learn “The hard way” and can share with other artists”
“Licensing art”
and many others.
Artist Demonstration
Panel Discussion
Symbiotic Art Relationships
Tuesday February 8, 2022 at 3 pm
Zoom link:
Join on Zoom
Meeting ID: 842 9410 6011
Password: 926317
Artists are invited to a panel discussion led by Susan and David Honneus on zoom about "Symbiotic Art Relationships”
Symbiotic Art Relationships involve the use of space, shared space, or collaboration with other artists, including art-based or other non-profits organizations, or any other way artists can work together with others to benefit everyone involved, including sharing or co-use of resources, efforts, and facilities.
What topics would you like to consider in future seminars and panel discussions? Bring your ideas!
Possible topics which have been proposed include:
“licensing our art”
“What happens to our art when our heirs get it?”
“how to ship large artworks?”
“What did you learn “The hard way“ and can share with other artists”
“Color Interaction using Josef Albers course“ (five of us met weekly from January to June, learned a lot and plan to continue this fall and want to share this with other interested artists willing to work in small groups (we zoomed!).
What are YOUR ideas?
Artist Demonstration
Mark Olshansky
Needlepoint Artist
Tuesday, February 15, 2022, at 3 pm
Co-Presented with:
Lenox Library, Lenox
Bushnell Sage Library, Sheffield
Berkshire Athenaeum, Pittsfield
Ramsdell Library, Housatonic
Mason Library, Great Barrington
Zoom link:
Join on Zoom
Meeting ID: 843 7074 1985
Password: 002957
"I have a passion to create in wool these pictures from my mind, and now that I’ve been doing this for 40 years (with a brief 20-year hiatus), I have the skills to express my ideas in the medium of needlepoint. I do it in needlepoint because I can’t do it in any other medium.
My work is intuitive, I don’t try to figure it out. It works for me, and the end result is all I care about. I study music while I work: I study the constructions of Verdi operas, Brahms chamber music, Bach, and on and on.
My work is all Persian wool stitched on 10″ or 12″ scrim. I design each piece as I go along: I put a blank scrim on the wall and try to visualize what I want to do, and then I always do something completely different. Now that I’ve reached 80, I realize that I chased the wrong things. But it’s really never too late: creating these things is now my life, and it’s a joy."
"I was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., was educated, drafted, married, started a family, and went into business. At about my fortieth year, a friend introduced me to needlepoint at a party. It was meant to be a light-hearted accompaniment to the more serious activity of downing martinis with stylish canapes. Ten years later, I had created many tapestries, pictures, a large rug, and more. Everything was designed as I went along and was made from Persian wool.
In 1980 I stopped my art when my wife and I decided to wet our toes in the wine importing world. Twenty years later, we retired, and I immediately picked up where I had left off. The procedure and material are the same today. In the past ten years, I have produced many pieces of various sizes, and I have exhibited in over 100 shows, both juried and galleried. My favorite way of working is creating pieces in series, such as Art and the Fugue, Mahler and Infant series.
Artist Demonstration
Carolyn Abrams
Mixed Media, Oil and Cold Wax
Video Replay
Wednesday, February 23, 2022, at 4 pm
Zoom link:
Join on Zoom
Meeting ID: 842 9410 6011
Password: 926317
Demonstration of Mixed Media/Collage. This is a video replay of one of Carolyn's previous demonstrations.
"My creative process has been a labor of love for over 40 years. Maybe even earlier but I was not aware of it. I have evolved as an artist as my life called for it.
Presently I find mixed media best suits my process along with a plethora of art supplies and tools. I generally start with a journal and/or sketchbook and experiment and play and eventually move to larger substrates and themes."
Do you have a media or artist whose work you would like to see demonstrated? Please email your thoughts to info@berkshireartists.org
Artist Demonstration
Marita Glodt
Tonalist Oil Landscape Painter
Tuesday, March 8, 2022, at 3 pm
Co-Presented with:
Lenox Library, Lenox
Bushnell Sage Library, Sheffield
Berkshire Athenaeum, Pittsfield
Ramsdell Library, Housatonic
Mason Library, Great Barrington
Zoom link:
Join on Zoom
Meeting ID: 817 0829 6619
Password: 587805
“I paint to capture a mood or emotion, something that draws the viewer into a place that resonates with me and communicates the intimacy of nature.”
Marita is a contemporary American Landscape Painter. She attributes her love of landscape painting to her mother, who enrolled her in the children’s program at the Portland Art Museum at the age of ten, where she learned to appreciate and draw the spectacular Oregon vistas.
After college and a successful career in business, (she retired from The Neiman Marcus Group as Senior Vice President, Chief Human Resource Officer), she realized that the enjoyment she felt during her early years could be the beginning of a full-time passion.
Marita’s painting style is reminiscent of the American Tonalism period. She is inspired by the ethereal possibilities of landscape painting. Her work is infused with subtle color effects and close values, creating atmosphere, mystery, and a soft interpretation of what she sees and draws in nature and then visualizes in her studio.
She paints in oil, landscapes near her homes in the Berkshires of Massachusetts and Texas.
" I documented the stages of a recent painting from an original drawing of the Mill River to the final painting - “Crescent Moon River” using the indirect painting technique. (See photographs.) "
Artist Demonstration
Panel Discussion
Creating an Online Presence
Tuesday March 15, 2022 at 3 pm
Zoom link:
Join on Zoom
Meeting ID: 842 9410 6011
Password: 926317
Artists are invited to a panel discussion led by Susan and David Honneus on zoom about "Creating an Online Presence”
Creating an Online Presence would include: websites, social media, brand building, response building activities, and anything else done online to make people aware of your artwork and art efforts.
What topics would you like to consider in future seminars and panel discussions? Bring your ideas!
Possible topics which have been proposed include:
“licensing our art”
“What happens to our art when our heirs get it?”
“how to ship large artworks?”
“What did you learn “The hard way“ and can share with other artists”
“Color Interaction using Josef Albers course“ (five of us met weekly from January to June, learned a lot and plan to continue this fall and want to share this with other interested artists willing to work in small groups (we zoomed!).
What are YOUR ideas?
Artist Demonstration
Ilene Richard
Demo/Creative Process
Video Replay
Wednesday, March 23, 2022, at 4 pm
Zoom link:
Join on Zoom
Meeting ID: 842 9410 6011
Password: 926317
This is a video replay of Ilene Richard's acrylic painting demonstration highlighting her creative process originally aired 7/13/20.