Creating autobiographical work or artwork that draws from personal experience can be a powerful and evocative process for an artist and any collaborators. Sharing examples from his own work, filmmaker and photographer Rick Miller offers insights on supporting your mental health through the process of creating autobiographical work, in conversation with friend, collaborator and former Workman Arts Membership Manager, Justina Zatzman.

For one hour, Participants are invited into a conversation about how to support creative work with personal material, not only in caring for yourself, but also to create healthy and supportive creative environments for collaborators. As lifting restrictions allow artists to re-engage more openly with collaborative work, we have an opportunity to envision collective growth in how we care for the artists we work with (including ourselves).

At the end of the conversation, Rick and Justina will share a draft tool that they’re co-creating to offer suggestions for creating trauma-informed creative environments with a focus on filmmaking, but which could be useful for artists practicing collaboratively in any artistic discipline.

The structured discussion will end after an hour, but interested participants are welcome to stay for an additional 30 minutes to share or ask questions.

Join us for a creative animation workshop led by Gil Goletski, a multimedia doer from Vancouver Island. They make animation, illustration and music. Their unique experience as an Autistic transgender person informs most of their work; odd impossible proportioned bodies, ugly porous faces and strange wobbly lines. Recently they have been exploring the idea of identity by using proxies and micro-narratives to explore different aspects of flawed personalities.

Workshop Outline 

1. Introduction /about Gil
2. Pros and cons of professional training: “art school” and learning the “right” away to animate 
3. How to unlearn professional tactics: become a beginner again with an emphasis on having fun: “work VS “play”
4. become a beginner again, emphasis on having fun, animation “work” vs “play”
5. “Show & Tell” brief explanation of a quickly drawn animation by Gil
6. Explanation of different mediums and techniques that are helpful when animating quickly (examples: Crosshair technique and simply tricks on your smartphone)
7. A conversation about different 2D and 3D resources and software for quick animations. 
8. Q &A

The Infernal Grove Study Group

DRUGS, FREEDOM AND THE TYRANNY OF REPRESENTATION

Friday Nov. 5, 5:00-6:30pm EST

Featuring: Margaret Sadovsky, Dani ReStack, Liz Roberts, Mikiki, Cooper Battersby and Emily Vey Duke

Reading: excerpts from Maggie Nelson’s On Freedom (2021) (pdf)

Video: The Infernal Grove

Reading the text and watching the video are not required for participation in the discussion.

The study group brings into dialogue a group of artists from across the continent who have lived experience with substance-use, and who represent a range of current relationships to sobriety and its alternatives. They will discuss Maggie Nelson’s On Freedom. The book is an interrogation of the concept of freedom and the way it is deployed in philosophical, literary and political discourses. We will read a section of Chapter 3 Drug Fugue she describes the frame put around drug use and addiction by ideas of freedom and confinement.

In recovery programs, perhaps by necessity and certainly by design, there is a push to accept received wisdom. But for addict-intellectuals, it’s hard to forfeit critical thinking to recovery. In addiction, connection to the intellectual can become tenuous. It’s easy to lose the relationships and identities that support rigorous critical thinking. Recovery can mean recovering those relationships and identities.

This first session of the Study Group explores the notion of drug-taking as an adaptive strategy in a world stripped of ritual and connection to land.

The Infernal Grove Project exposes the disproportionate effects of public trauma (including the COVID pandemic) on drug users, especially addicts of color. It’s become an organizing principle in our thinking about this work: we need to show the connections between addiction and the socioeconomic forces that create and exploit it.

ig: @the_infernal_grove

The Infernal Grove Project takes place mostly on stolen Mi’kmaq and Onondaga land.

The festival hosting this version, Rendezvous with Madness, is located on the traditional territory of many nations, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.

To those who have allowed us to stay, we humbly extend gratitude and honour.

Join Sarah Trad via Zoom for a glitch art workshop on November 1 6:30-7:30 PM ET

Using the open-source, free and multidisciplinary software Audacity, Sarah Trad will be teaching an introductory workshop on how to glitch still images. Glitch art experimentation uses Sonification as a process within audio software that disturbs the file data of images to create a new visual effect. In this workshop, Sarah will give a step-by-step tutorial on how to glitch an image. As well as provide historical context for glitch art; how it fits into the history of found art and collage including, artists that have inspired her artistic practice.

ABOUT SARAH

Sarah Trad, a Philadelphia-based video artist and curator who explores the relationship between subjective and objective emotionality, navigating daily life and relationships while faced with mental illness and breaking down stereotypes of gender and narrative. Her work also highlights how mental illness and coming from marginalized backgrounds intersect with internal emotional worlds.

This workshop is limited to 12 participants.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing a link to download Audacity, workshop materials and information about joining the meeting.

In spring 2020, Chelsea Watson taught herself how to make art from code by creating 100 computational pieces in 100 days. What started as an exploration of a new artistic medium, this structured approach to creating art became a way for her to connect and cope while self-isolating for the better part of a year. Join Chelsea as she takes you through her challenge, and walks you through a hands-on workshop to explore generative art and introduce the basics of creating art using code.

ART COLLAGE WORKSHOP inspired by the documentary Poly Styrene: I Am A Cliché features an opportunity to make a collage alongside an informal discussion of the film.

Art journaling and collage is a way of expressing yourself in an encouraging environment without judgement or criticism. Make time for yourself, connect with others and share in an experience that can change your life, help you process difficult emotions or just tap into your creative side!

No experience needed.

Facilitated by Anna Redish.

20 participants maximum.

A-site’s cutting-edge, custom workshops and interactive toolkit series provide artists hands-on learning opportunities with an international network of digital and technological experts. Presented by the experimental media arts collective, KRAKlab, A-site’s first pair of workshops introduce mobile augmented reality and AI as essential tools in the contemporary presentation and dissemination of artwork in individual, institutional and public practice. 20 participants maximum per workshop.

Augmented Reality (AR)

Saturday, October 30 2:00 – 6:00 PM EST

This workshop explores some of the more accessible and relevant AR tools for digital exhibition. How public is augmented (AR) public art?

Facilitators: Dr. Christine Sprengler, David Psutka (Halocline Trance), Vladimir Alexeev, Mandy Lam, Xavier Snelgrove, Karen Vanderborght (imagefatale)

In Person: Participants will interact with their own AR creations on site, and publish them through their networks.

Outcomes: “Big tech” offers ubiquitous, accessible tools that abet digital access — but at a cost in areas of autonomy, ethics, and finances – for artist, curator, and public. Do we really want a global conglomerate gatekeeper? A-site offers artists and artist-run institutions the tools, access, and knowledge to benefit more fully from AR and AI technologies.

Equipment and Materials:

This workshop requires the following equipment, materials and/or software: 

• Computer/Laptop or Tablet 
• Access to Zoom
• Google Drive storage space (30 GB Recommended)
• We encourage you to bring chargers for all devices 🙂

For Workman Arts members who require equipment rentals please contact Kais Padamshi at Kais_Padamshi@workmanarts.com before October 18 to make arrangements.

Registration:

Pre-registration is required. This workshop supports up to a maximum of 20 participants. Registrants will be placed on a waiting list once the workshop reaches maximum capacity. 

In-Person Location: 

In-person/outdoor activities for this workshop will take place on-site at Workman Arts further details will be disclosed upon registration confirmation. We will be spending a short period of time outside to test our works in situ — please wear outdoor-appropriate clothing and gear (for wet/cold/etc).

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Sunday, Oct 31, 12-2PM (fully remote)

Explores the treatment of AI as a co-curator and co-creator. Can AI be creative? What are some creative uses of AI in art-making?

Facilitators:

Mandy Lam, Xavier Snelgrove, Karen Vanderborght (imagefatale),  David Psutka (Halocline Trance),  Vladimir Alexeev, Dr. Christine Sprengler

Registration: Pre-registration is required. This workshop supports up to a maximum of 20 participants. Registrants will be placed on a waiting list once the workshop reaches maximum capacity. 

Outcome: “Big tech” offers ubiquitous, accessible tools that abet digital access — but at a cost in areas of autonomy, ethics, and finances – for artist, curator, and public. Do we really want a global conglomerate gatekeeper? A-site offers artists and artist-run institutions the tools, access, and knowledge to benefit more fully from AR and AI technologies.

Equipment and Materials:

This workshop requires the following equipment, materials and/or software: 

• Computer/Laptop or Tablet 
• Access to Zoom
• Google Drive storage space (30 GB Recommended)

For Workman Arts members who require equipment rentals please contact Kais Padamshi at Kais_Padamshi@workmanarts.com before October 18 to make arrangements.

Accessibility:

Closed Captioning services will be provided for the virtual portion of the workshop. If you require ASL interpretation please contact Raine Laurent-Eugene at raine_laurenteugene@workmanarts.com or call +1 416 583 4339 extension 9 by October 18 to request ASL interpretation for the both the online and in-person workshops.

Are you an artist who’s looking to expand your skills in entrepreneurship alongside your creative practice? In this workshop, Entrepreneurship for Artists: Creativity Meets Business, participants will be introduced to the fundamental pillars of business management and administration. Participants will be guided through a series of topics ranging from financial management, branding, and marketing, which are essential to sustaining and further advancing one’s creative practice.

Accessibility:  If you have any accessibility requests or questions, please contact Justina Zatzman at justina_zatzman@workmanarts.com. ASL interpretation is available by request; if you require ASL interpretation, please let Justina know by May 20, 2021.

PUFF Paddy is Queer, Asian-Canadian Artist and Arts educator based in Toronto. Their work focuses mainly on project design for commercial and community events, and installations for public spaces. Their work explores the balance between the ephemeral nature of experience and the joyful permanence of memory. Paddy is passionate about bringing the arts to their community and creating community through the arts. They are interested in exploring the qualities of art healing, playfulness, and communal experience. Their mission is to continue breakdown barriers and cultivate moments of spiritual awareness and powerful, joyous interactions through making art.

Paddy has exhibited and created installations for the Art Gallery of Ontario, The Royal Ontario Museum, The Drake Hotel, Gladstone Hotel, Project Gallery, Whippersnapper Gallery, The Theatre Centre, and Toronto Public Library. In recent years, their practice has focused largely on community arts and providing inclusive programming, primarily for youth. Working with The STEPS Public Art, VIBE Arts, AGO Youth: Free After Three, Xpace Cultural Centre and Design Exchange, among others. Paddy is helping to transform the landscape of Toronto’s community arts scene.

In this interactive workshop, participants will be guided through the fundamentals of preparing a grant application to support their artistic/creative practices. The workshop will also touch upon grant writing from various artistic disciplines from visual artists, writers and performers. In addition to the workshop activities, participants will also be provided with insights for identifying funding opportunities and building relationships with funders and grant officers.

Accessibility:  If you have any accessibility requests or questions, please contact Justina Zatzman at justina_zatzman@workmanarts.com. ASL interpretation is available by request; if you require ASL interpretation, please let Justina know by May 10, 2021.

Marisol Fornoni has worked with non-profits, social enterprises and incubators across the Greater Toronto Area to diversify their revenue streams and create realistic sustainability plans since 2012. She is an experienced fundraiser and currently works with organizations to implement and test their social enterprise ideas. She has worked with organizations like the Centre for Social Innovation, Art Reach, George Brown College and Action Canada for Sexual Health & Right to explore social entrepreneurship and implement their fundraising strategies. She is a seasoned grant writer.

In this interactive workshop, participants will be supported in further articulating their artistic/creative practices within written and verbal communication for public presentation and exhibition purposes. Grounded in a series of small activities, participants will be empowered with different approaches and techniques when creating artist biographies, exhibition statements and proposals that capture the essences of their creative expressions.

Accessibility:  If you have any accessibility requests or questions, please contact Justina Zatzman at justina_zatzman@workmanarts.com. ASL interpretation is available by request; if you require ASL interpretation, please let Justina know by May 18, 2021.

Fiona Raye Clarke is an award-winning Trinidadian-Canadian writer and community-engaged artist. Her writing has appeared online and in print in Broken Pencil Magazine, The Puritan Town Crier, Room Magazine blog, and others. She is on the editorial board of Canthius and a Creative Catalyst Creative Writing Mentor with the Nia Centre for the Arts. She is an alumnus of the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and a certified Amherst Writers & Artists Method facilitator.