Teaching at the Alabama Folk School

As I wrote the other night, I will be teaching at the Alabama Folk School at Camp McDowell in Nauvoo, Alabama. Camp McDowell has been a camp and conference center for the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Alabama. Since 1948, people of all faiths and walks of life have used it as a place to rest, learn, grow, worship and play.

In 2007 The Alabama Folk School was added to the Camp McDowell offering and I am truly honored and excited to have the opportunity to go there to teach during Summer of 2008. It is an 1100 acre playground of forests, canyons, and waterfalls. Located in the northeastern quadrant of Alabama http://www.campmcdowell.com/FolkSchool/Directions.htm the Alabama Folk School promises some wonderful scenary. Megan Huston, Director of the School, is great to work with and if that is any indication, we will have a great class. It has been a longtime puzzlement to me how Alabama can have so many talented natives and yet, for a long time had no folk school. I am very glad about this. I will write about Alabama natives on another post. sometime.

I will teach two classes. Each class is one week, and June 22 - 27, I will teach "Let's Kick Some Glass!!" and it will entail all of the basics of how to work in kilnformed glass. The class does not require prerequisites and will include basic design theory and basic studio practices. Glass selection, glass cutting and grinding, and firing schedules will be covered. I hope that we will have a good reception to the class and I think it will be fun.

The second class, August 24-29, will be Mosaics: Telling a Story or Painting a Picture with Stones, Twigs, glass and ceramic tiles, broken china, yarn and anything else we can find.

That is a long title, but I want anyone who reads this to be inspired and motivated to come and spend a week with us. This class is going to be a blast! At this point, I plan to lead the class on some walks around the campus to find unusual materials that they can use. I have not completely decided on each and every project and I may give a choice of projects. Hopefully, we will have time to conquer a class project that we can leave at the school as contribution. Each person will leave with at least one (large) project or a couple of smaller projects.

The last class that I taught was at the Birmingham Museum of Art. http://www.artsbma.org/ and, yes, when you go to the main page, that is a glass gallery. More on that at another time.