Artful Workshops Invite Seniors to Get Creative at MCASD La Jolla

 Words and Photos by Lonnie Burstein Hewitt.

 

An almost-finished collage

If you’re an over-55-year-old art-lover who’s ready to try your hand at art-making, there’s a fine opportunity awaiting you at the Museum of Contemporary Art in La Jolla.

It’s called Reflections, a series of eight Friday morning workshops that involve stimulating interactions with artworks, museum educators, and other art-lovers. Inspired by what you see and hear, with an array of materials set before you, you get to create your own personal and often surprising works of art. 

Each two-week session explores a different technique of contemporary artmaking. My initial session in late March focused on collage.

 

Day 1: A work in progress

There were 26 of us that morning--25 women and one man--and our workshop space had a number of small-group tables, all with ocean views.  Our instructors, Kelley Katan and Frankie Martin, gave a brief introduction to what we’d be doing and then led us into the museum’s newest exhibition, a tribute to the late Matthew C. Strauss, a passionate art collector and MCASD benefactor. We stopped in front of two large mixed-media pieces that included elements of collage.  

After a little background on both artists-- Beatriz Milhazes and Mickalene Thomas--we were asked what we thought of each piece. “What do you see?” “What does it mean to you?” “Would you like to have this piece in your home?” Comments of all sorts were encouraged, and some were quite eye-opening.

Back in our workshop space, where the tables were covered with magazines we could clip from, we got down to work. There was also a table of refreshments, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the magazine that was right in front of me as I sat down across from my two friendly tablemates. Its cover featured the Stonewall, a gay nightclub in Greenwich Village whose invasion by police in 1969 kicked off the Gay Liberation movement.

A whole rush of my past came back: I was still a New Yorker in the mid-to-late 1960s, co-writing musicals and living in the Village, and the Stonewall was a major scene then. So my partner got special permission to take me--a straight woman--into the main room, where the music was hot, and there were hundreds of mostly young guys crowding the dance floor and go-go boys doing their thing in niches on the wall.

We stood there awhile, and I think we danced a little…it was all pretty amazing. Everyone I knew in those days is long gone, but that magazine--a far cry from the fashion, travel and lifestyle ‘zines on our table--was clearly meant for me. I started clipping, and cutting up bits of glitter cardstock; I now had a theme for my collage: Remembrance of Times Past.

I came to my second Friday hoping I’d figure out how to make my ‘60s collage look less square, more dynamic. I also brought with me tiny copies of two photos I thought might find a place in my piece.

Day 2: Adding “bling”

 This was “bling” day, and we were shown an image of the piece by Mickalene Thomas we’d seen the week before for inspiration, since she combines rhinestones with photography and painting in her work. So now we had little containers of glitter: rhinestones, sequins, and multicolored gems to add a new dimension to our collages, or we could even try painting in our own shiny pixels of color.

I dug out the brightest glitter-bits, added slivers of glitzy gold cardstock, and wow!  What a difference that made!  

Then I had a chance to look at the other artworks around me… and you have a chance see some of them here.

 

This Writer’s Reflection.

All I can say is: One of the large-scale Murals of La Jolla has it right:  ART IS GOOD FOR YOU.

The weather was cold that Friday, but holding my 11” x 14” collage I felt warm and happy inside. 

If you want to try your own Reflections, the next 8-week series starts May 23^rd and runs through July 18^th. Fridays, 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Cost: $200 for museum members, $250 for others. 

A full description of the series will be posted on the MCASD site  at the end of April, along with a link to register. Questions? info@mcasd.org  

Lonnie Burstein Hewitt is an award-winning author/lyricist/playwright who has been writing about arts and lifestyles in San Diego County for over a dozen years. You can reach her at hew2@sbcglobal.net