Blue house reflection, encaustic by Katie HutchisonRecommended New England course in encaustic painting

Last fall I took my first encaustic workshop. I chose a RISD Continuing Education weekend workshop much like the one RISD is offering this spring. It was great fun to experiment with a new-to-me, unpredictable medium. The encaustic painting I created above was my favorite by-product of the weekend. I say “by-product” because it’s the process of making that so engages me. It’s an added bonus when I’m happy with the resulting artwork.

Rhode Island School of Design Continuing Education

As a RISD alum, I am an unabashed fan of all things RISD. If you live within reasonable driving distance from Providence, I highly recommend you explore RISD’s continuing education offerings. If you live more than a reasonable driving distance from Providence, consider booking a weekend getaway. You’ll be glad you did.

Encaustic (Weekend Workshop)
Instructor: Taleen Batalian
Saturday and Sunday: April 21 and 22, 10am-4pm
Tuition: $220
Lab fee: $20

“Encaustic, an ancient technique used to create commemorative wax portraits in Roman and Egyptian art, is once again becoming a popular medium for artists. Also called hot wax painting, encaustic is the process of creating an image from molten beeswax colored with pigments and then applied to a surface -- either wood, masonite or canvas. The wax cools in minutes, enabling the application of many successive coats. Smoothing and scraping the wax, painting between each layer, and using heat to bind the layers creates a finish with a lustrous enamel-like appearance. By working from both invented imagery and direct observation, students of all skill levels are encouraged to experiment and allow their paintings to evolve as they reheat and rework surfaces until the desired effect is achieved.”

Class and schedule are subject to change so check program websites for updates.

Take a look at my continuing-education posts from previous seasons to get a sense of the many quality continuing education programs operating in the region. Enroll in a workshop, demonstration, or presentation on a lark, and get your creative juices flowing.  Experience continuing-education bliss.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

Perhaps I’m over-reaching by placing The School of Life in the “web neighbor” category. I suppose House Enthusiast is more of a wannabe web neighbor of The School of Life, the brainchild of Alain de Botton and a few of his colleagues. For one, The School of Life broaches the broader topic of living a fulfilling life, while House Enthusiast wanders the narrower topic of engaging with a fulfilling home. Secondly, The School of Life presents most of its offerings in person in London, as opposed to House Enthusiast’s virtual offerings in the form of online commentary. Still there is a modicum of overlap. According to De Botton in an article in Varsity (the “independent student newspaper for the University of Cambridge”), The School of Life “has big ambitions to define a new, more practical approach to culture.” Bravo. As a fan of culture’s charms, I, too, aim to make it more accessible.

The “tiny institution” (De Botton’s words) of The School of Life offers a variety of evening classes, weekend intensives, events, meals, services and more.  Each offering, the website notes, has been envisioned “in collaboration with leading authors, artists, actors and academics.” Some upcoming class titles include: How To Have Better Conversations, How To Realise Your Potential, How To Make a Difference, and How To Change Your Mind. As a student of human behavior, each sounds intriguing to me. The School of Life’s online presence includes a blog and videos of the School’s Sunday sermons.  How I wish the School offered online workshops and podcasts of the events, too.

If you’re not familiar with De Botton, he’s the best-selling author of books ranging in subject from philosophy, to status, to, yes, architecture. You may have read my House Enthusiast post about his thought-provoking book The Architecture of Happiness. I find his work inspirational. So much so that his school and a few other entities and organizations, which likewise foster life learning, have prompted me to ponder creating my own school.

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photo courtesy of The Arnold Arboretum websiteRecommended New England course in tree identification

When moseying New England byways, I often ask my strolling companion to confirm the identities of trees on our path. More often than not, my strolling companion is my husband. More often than not, he looks at me quizzically in response. Not because he can’t identify the trees (He generally can’t.), but because he knows I know he generally can’t, yet I ask anyway. I simply wish to know. Finally, a solution: a free tree-identification workshop. I can think of one person who hopes I’ll sign up.

The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University

I’ve taken a couple of plant identification courses at The Arnold Arboretum before. Looks like it’s time for a refresher. According to their website, “The Arnold Arboretum's continuing adult education program offers one-day and multisession horticulture, botany, and landscape-related courses for the beginner, avid amateur, and professional.”

The Common Trees of Boston

Instructor: Ajay Sequeira, Arboretum Docent
Saturday: October 1, 1:00 – 2:30 pm
Location: Hunnewell Building
Free

“Have you noticed a tree as you walked through the city, wanted to name it, but didn't know where to start? Join us for a walk through the Arboretum landscape. We will learn how to identify some of the trees commonly found in the Boston area. We will note some of the characteristics common to families of trees and learn about the differences that occur between species.”

Class and schedule are subject to change so check program websites for updates.
 
Take a look at my continuing-education posts from previous seasons to get a sense of the many quality continuing education programs operating in the region. Enroll in a workshop, demonstration, or presentation on a lark, and get your creative juices flowing.  Experience continuing-education bliss.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

photo courtesy of RISD Continuing Education websiteRecommended New England course in the creative arts

After visiting the Dale Chihuly exhibit (Chihuly: Through the Looking Glass) at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, it dawned on me that glass blowing is one of the few fine arts I never experimented with while at RISD (one of Chihuly’s alma maters, too). If you’ve been to the MFA show or seen Chihuly’s work elsewhere, you can’t help but be impressed by the scale, color, and free-form shapes he creates with blown glass. If you’re unable to attend the show (or even if you're able), you might want to watch the engaging PBS documentary Chihuly: Fire & Light about his work and unique multi-disciplinary process.

Interestingly, Chihuly studied interior design early on. It’s not hard to imagine his work inspiring decorative lighting fixtures, architectural glass panels/walls/windows/enclosures, even architectural facades/massing/roofs, etc… I fully expect a future Chihuly exhibit in which visitors inhabit Chihuly's glass.

RISD Continuing Education
Now’s your chance to discover your own multi-disciplinary inspiration by taking an introductory glass-blowing class. Of course, I can’t say enough to recommend my alma mater. In fact, my first exposure to RISD was as a continuing education student. I was considering making the leap from magazine publishing to architecture and thought it best to sample an architectural class first. It was an architectural model-making workshop that bridged the gap for me. What about you? Might glass-blowing offer the catalyst you crave? In any case, it sure looks fun.

Introduction to Hot Glass

Instructor: Bill Riker
Tuesdays 06/14/11 - 07/19/11, 6-9pm or
Wednesdays 06/15/11 - 07/20/11, 6-9pm
Tuition [Non Credit]: $445.00
Lab Fee: $45.00
Course total: $490.00

“The art of glass blowing is enjoying a lively revival in specialized facilities throughout the country. Join us at a professional glassblower's studio to learn the basics of working molten glass, and see how this transparent medium both accommodates and challenges the imagination. Through demonstrations and hands-on experience, students explore contemporary glass-working techniques under the guidance of a skilled artisan, with historic and modern examples of glass works providing inspiration and perspective. As the course progresses, students are encouraged to experiment as far as their newly acquired skills take them. Note: Space is limited in this course, which meets at an off-campus studio, so early registration is encouraged. Directions are sent to registered participants.”

Class and schedule are subject to change so check program websites for updates.

Take a look at my continuing-education posts from previous seasons to get a sense of the many quality continuing education programs operating in the region. Enroll in a workshop, demonstration, or presentation on a lark, and get your creative juices flowing.  Experience continuing-education bliss.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

I remember an architectural coworker teasing me about my needing time to “take calligraphy classes or whatever”. I wasn’t taking a calligraphy class, and he knew it, but what struck me as so spot-on and funny about his dismissal of my extra-curricular pursuits is that I would have loved to have taken a calligraphy class then or now.

I’ve often pondered what it is about my “non-essential” creative endeavors that captivate me so. I look forward to them the way many anticipate a vacation on the beach or poolside. I find myself completely blissed out in a pin-hole photography class, a creative non-fiction workshop, or a plant-identification field-visit primer. What’s it all about?

mystery-of-being-human books
For a while now, I’ve been turning to books for the answer. There’s been a series of what I’ll call mystery-of-being-human books taking up space on my nightstand over the years, starting first with Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert. Then, moving on to My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D., The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss, How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer, This Is Water by David Foster Wallace, The Upside of Irrationality by Dan Ariely,  A Whole New Mind by Daniel H. Pink, and most recently Happiness at Work by Srikumar S. Rao, Ph.D.

Of course, I read other books in between these, but it wasn’t until finishing Happiness at Work a couple of weeks ago that I realized how much overlap there had been in the books cited above, to which I had gravitated. For me, they all seem to support an aspect of some inescapable truths; we all long for sublime connections to people, experiences and/or entities outside ourselves, and it is within our power to realize those connections. David Brooks describes such a drive, identified by current research in neuroscience, psychology, sociology and behavior economics, as “limerence”.  Brooks explains in The New York Times that “… the unconscious mind hungers for those moments of transcendence when the skull line falls away and we are lost in love for another, the challenge of a task or the love of God”.

choosing how to perceive
Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroanatomist, had a transcendent experience in the midst of a stroke, which struck the left hemisphere of her brain. In My Stroke of Insight she writes,

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