ChathamArts updates this schedule as new classes become available. Check back regularly.
Unless otherwise indicated, all classes are held at the Community Center in Briar Chapel, located just off 15-501 South. Briar Chapel residents receive a 10% discount on all classes. Please inquire about discount registration by emailing info@chathamarts.org. Please Arrive on Time. Directions to Briar Chapel
ChathamArts Offers Classes In:
Dramatic Arts
Photography: Digital & Documentary
Art History: Contemporary & African American
Visual Arts: Painting, Drawing, Fiber, Creativity Counseling
Dance, Movement, & Martial Arts
Children's Programs: Percussion, Visual Arts & Art History, Drama, Creative Movement
Coming in Spring:
Beginning Drawing
Latin Dance
Hoop Dance
Flash Mob Boot Camp
Broadway Bound Drama Workshops for Youth
CLASSES 2011 - 2012
Improvisational Acting
Anoushka Brod
Location: Briar Chapel
ONE WEEK IMPROV INTENSIVE (coming in February):
$100 for five consecutive days of non-stop fun, laughter, and talent-building
ADVANCED IMPROV:
$120 for six weeks
$74 for three weeks
ADVANCED PERFORMANCE: Ongoing, starting January 12, 7 - 9 pm. This is for the improviser who has mastered the basics and is ready for the next level. In this class we will delve deeper into scene work and learn how to up the ante between characters. We will also dabble in some long-form improvisation. Focus will be on side-coaching and direction so that each student gets personal feedback and guidance to ensure growth and improvement. This class will include two public performance opportunities. This is for the serious improviser!!
NEW! IMPROV INTENSIVE for all skill levels: Feb 13 - 16 & Feb 18, 7 - 9 pm: Learn and practice the art of improv theater! In this class we engage in an in-depth exploration of important improv tools such as why it's important to say "Yes,and" to your scene partners, how to create believable characters through body and voice, and why "commitment" is a key word in performance. We will create scenes with our fellow players without any props, costumes or script! Improv teaches us to be fully in the moment on stage and in life! In addition to the play and fun we will have, improv also teaches us important skills such as cooperation, communication and how to enhance our creative thinking. Performing Improv every night for a full week is guaranteed to step up your game, and our prior participants say it's like going away to camp only for grown-ups.
No experience necessary but experienced performers welcome.
Advanced Performance Six Session Series, January 12 - February 16, Purchase Here:
Introduction to Digital Photography
Roylee Duvall
Location: Pittsboro Community House
One Day Workshop: Date Moved to Spring, TBA
Fee:
$125
Learn how to capture, edit, and produce top quality images. By mastering digital camera tricks and techniques, you gain access to a new world rarely obtained by photographers with conventional film photography. Students should have a digital camera with manual exposure control. We will spend three hours on lecture & discussion and four hours in the field & reviewing work.
Documentary Photography Workshop: A Day in the Life of a Small Town
Anna Blackshaw
Location: Pittsboro Community House
One-Day Workshop TBA
$125
Documentary photography is about using images to tell stories. This is a 2-day documentary photography course about learning to find the extraordinary in the ordinary.
In this course we will work to develop your photographers eye. What are the elements that make a photograph interesting? How can you use light and shadow and composition more confidently to make your images tell a more powerful story? How do you take photographs of strangers? We will spend the first part of the course looking at and discussing some iconic documentary images and talking about those elements, as well as practical topics such as the finding and photographing of documentary subjects.
This course will help you find new and interesting ways to photograph things that interest you, but will also help you gain the skills and confidence to photograph people, including strangers, with grace and humanity.
For this course, we will explore the small towns of Chatham County. We will fan out with shooting assignments meant to challenge you and encourage new perspectives in an effort to paint a picture of the what makes these small and historical towns interesting. We will spend class time reviewing the images and will go out into the field again.
Portraiture, From the Inside Out (Intermediate to Advanced)
Judy Katz
Location: Briar Chapel
One Day Workshop, Saturday, Feb 19, 1:30 - 5:30 pm
$75 plus supplies, includes fee for model
Three Session Series, new dates TBA, 6:15 - 8:15 pm (please inquire if interested: info@chathamarts.org)
$75 plus supplies, includes fee for model
This class will concentrate on loosening up ones hand and eye to create portraits that elicit the emotional make-up, spirit, and character of the subject vs. focusing on our expectations of anatomical perfection. In other words, this is not a class where the objective is photo-realism. Each student will learn to follow their own unique artistic vision. Although anatomical perfection and "realism" are not the goals of this class, a solid foundation in traditional anatomy and perspective is a core necessity for any artist; and the instructor recommends that you supplement your education with traditional anatomical study. The companion book for this class is Drawing from the Masters, by Robert Beverly Hale & Jacob Collins. Also, a good anatomy book- such as Grays Anatomy, is recommended. Two years experience with painting, drawing, or illustration highly recommended.
JUDY KATZ is also available for private instruction. Inquire for rates.
Knitting 9-1-1
Lynn Sims
Location: Briar Chapel
Dates Dependent on Participant Schedules
$100 plus supplies
Do you have a knitting project that has you stumped? Have you always wanted to learn to knit? Do you need help in translating all those impossible terms in knitting patterns? Would you like structured help, ideas, tips and tricks? This is the class for you!
Project assistance: the project you’re working on, the pattern working from, proper knitting needles and yarn
Learn to knit: Size 8 straight needles. 1 skein worsted weight yarn, smooth texture, light color
Improve my knitting: 2 swatches 4 x 4 inches in stockinette stitch. 4.5 – 4 stitches per inch, light worsted weight yarn.
Bring notebook and pencils for taking notes.
African and African American Artists of the Southeastern U.S., 1700 - Present
Catherine Howard
Location: Briar Chapel
$100 for 6 weeks
Wednesdays, starting in May, 7 - 9pm
Join us as we explore how the vibrant and violent culture of the Southeastern United States impacted the creation and circulation of visual artwork by artists of African descent. We will study the broad spectrum of perspectives about blackness and desire, "otherness" and primitivism, power and representation, and the contested notion of a global world of art. Included artists must have been born in the Southeastern US and/or spent formative periods of their careers here, such as Joshua Johnson, Henry Tanner, Romare Bearden, Charles Alston, William H Johnson, and Kara Walker.
New! Like a good wine pairing, sometimes some courses go even better when combined with others. Take this one alongside "Getting Unstuck: A Creative Course for Artists" in order to broaden your observational skills and to free your imagination.
Contemporary Art History: Exploring the Motivations Behind 20th and 21st Century Art
Catherine Howard
Location: Briar Chapel
Sunday, February 15, 1-5pm
Fee: $50
What we consider to be “contemporary art” is dependent on participation, interaction, and dialogue. We will start with a functional overview of the basic art period “isms” [fauvism, abstract expressionism, minimalism, etc, etc] and art criticism vocabulary [semiotics, aesthetics, commercialization, etc, etc]. However, the core purpose of this course is to discuss the artistic motivations and historical context behind the stylistic shifts during the 20th and 21st centuries. How did industrialization and urbanization create the modern “artist”? How did changing social structures affect who could be an “artist” and what an “artist” should be discussing? Who in the heck is the “audience” anyway?
In essence, this class perpares you to be the quintessential obnoxious person who's all-too-ready to explain “what this piece means” while walking around a museum.
After the completion of the course, participants will be invited to join me at CAM Raleigh on Saturday October 22 at noon to utilize your new analytical muscles.
New! Like a good wine pairing, sometimes some courses go even better when combined with others. Take this one alongside "Getting Unstuck: A Creative Course for Artists" in order to broaden your observational skills and to free your imagination.
Getting Unstuck: A Creative Course for Artists, Ages 16+
Matt Zigler
Location: Briar Chapel
New Dates TBA. If interested, please email info@chathamarts.org
$150 plus supplies
Are you a painter, sculptor, ceramicist, photographer, digital artist, etc. who is looking for ways to expand your ideas and push past the confines of your medium?
This class is designed to help you unlock your mental potential to express who you are regardless of your preferred medium. By examining the ideas behind our work and why we make it, we can take a journey o that epitomizes what it means to be an artist, a creator, a maker of objects rather than a painter, sculptor or photographer alone.
This class is part seminar, part critique and part studio course.
Some work will be done outside of class. By looking at the work of conceptual and interdisciplinary artists, by talking to peers with backgrounds from other disciplines and by challenging your ideas of what art is and what you are capable of, you will find in this course new sources of inspiration to expand your current work and to generate new work.
New! Like a good wine pairing, sometimes some courses go even better when combined with others. Take this one alongside "Contemporary Art History" in order to broaden your observational skills and to break free of tunnel vision.
Introduction to Movement and Modern Dance
Instructor: Maura Michelle Garcia
Location: Briar Chapel
Fee: $100
Dates: Mondays, February 6 - March 12, 7:30 - 9 pm
Spring: Mondays, April 11-25, May 2-16, 7:30 - 9 pm
This class is designed to introduce students to purposeful movement and the use of the body as a narrative tool. Several concepts will be explored including body isolations, body awareness, improvisational movement, choreographic creation, strengthening & stretching.
Students will grow more aware of what every body part is doing as they move through space. Garcia incorporates techniques from Liz Lerman's Tool Box, Merce Cunningham's Chance Dance, and the visual art world to expose students to a variety of dance creation processes.
The Art of Self Defense, Level I
Instructor: Brother Brock Tate
Location: Briar Chapel
Fee: $150
Dates: Mondays, February 6-12, 7 - 9 pm
Self Defense Instructor Brother Brock combines Go-Ju, Aikido, music, art with healing techniques and secrets to aid each participant to a more powerful, confident, and functional state of be-ing. Authentic and creative, classes include Chi and Chakra work, Karate katas and applications, and some weapons training, ending with a board breaking ceremony.
Non competitive, non confrontational and supportive. This class is tailored for Women and mature.Kids Make Art!! Ages 4-7
Instructor: Nancy Jacobs
Location: Briar Chapel
Dates: Tuesdays, April 17 - May 22, 2:30 - 4:30 pm
Fee: $75 plus supplies
Do you like to draw, paint, and make things with your hands? Then this class will be fun for you. You’ll get to make at least one project each time and learn about lots of different ways to make art.
We’ll work with paint, crayons, paper mache, cloth, salt clay, as well as string, wire and found objects. We’ll also be learning about other cultures and artists as we make these artworks.
Summer Percussion Camp with Matt Vooris!
Instructor: Matt Vooris
Location: Briar Chapel
AGES 5 - 10
Dates: August 6 - 10, 9 am - 4 pm
Fee: $241 plus supplies
Participants learn stick techniques, rudiments, how to read music, and how to apply it all to the drum set. The stage is then set to experience other areas of percussion ensemble and rhythm section performance. Campers will be placed in a band with kids their own age and skill level. Participants will learn about music theory, ensemble playing, promoting a performance, how to get through a concert, how to maximize creativity & improvisational skills, and how to compose. Final Concert is scheduled at 1 pm on August 10. Active participation from all campers is required.
