TOTAL BEAUTY: MAKING ART IN SEQUENCE
Ages 16-29
Summer 2021, Online
As artists, our best friend is time. When things are going well, we might take the time to refine our skills, complete our work, and build artistic communities that inspire us. However, even the best artists lose days, months, or even years to distraction and discouragement. That lost time is our enemy. Fortunately, getting into the habit of practicing art – the way a musician does tone exercises every day, or the way an athlete works out consistently – can keep us going, even when other concerns visit us. In this multimedia workshop, student fellows will develop a habitual practice by taking a picture or video clip, and writing a line of poetry every weekday for the duration of the workshop. To support their discipline, prompts will be provided. The idea will be to establish a productive habit and a collection of material, day by day, regardless of conditions. In meetings the group will review examples of similar work and discuss fellow contributions as they accumulate. Each fellow will then create a video sequence of images accompanied by an audio voiceover of a poem. Work will be shown through a virtual exhibition and on the program website, and stills and poems will be featured in a photobook. Limited to 8 student fellows.
Somer Greer is a writer and photographer who lived in Baltimore for close to a decade, working as a writing instructor at Johns Hopkins University and other schools in the Mid-Atlantic. He now lives on Bayou Vermilion in Lafayette, Louisiana. Currently, he is working on a series of candid photos of Cajun musicians.
Lukas MacKinney is an aspiring filmmaker and musician. They enjoy all aspects of the movies, but especially scoring films and working as a teaching assistant. They hope to continue sharing cinema as a means of joy, education, and representation.
