PORT TOWNSEND — “Steal Like an Artist.” “Way to Repoussé.” “A Crash Course in Sign Painting.” “Creatures of Sea and Shore” summer camp. The new Spring-Summer Catalog from the Northwind Art School, unveiled last week, offers these and nearly 100 other courses, camps and workshops for all ages.
The full catalog is online at https://northwindart.org.
“We’re expanding, seeking to meet the community’s needs,” Northwind Art Education Manager Kate Lovejoy said of the coming season.
“The goal,” she added, “is to build a school bursting with students and creativity and joy.”
Scholarships are available to Northwind Art School classes, Lovejoy said. Information can be found at https://northwindart.org on the Courses page; scroll down and find the Scholarships for Youth and Adults link on the left.
Lovejoy and her crew seek to offer courses in old-school skills as well as classes that give people a chance to play.
Among the classes are Silk Painting Color and Design with Evette Allerdings, Cultivating Natural Dyes with Katey Rissi, Improvisational Quilting with Barbara Ramsey and Mindfulness Practices for Art-Making with Meg Kaczyk.
Well-known teaching artist Tracy Grisman will guide an oil painting open studio. Allan Jones, “an incredible photographer,” Lovejoy said, will teach a course on his art form.
Lydia Vadopalas will give a class on block-printed bandanas. Port Townsend flower farmer Emmy Gran will teach three floral design sessions: one each in spring, summer and fall.
The Steal Like an Artist class is taught by Max Grover, the Port Townsend painter and arts supporter. Way to Repoussé is led by Nonie Gaines, another popular teaching artist. A Crash Course in Sign Painting will be taught by Heidi Tullman, who is newer to the Northwind Art School.
Bess Ann Corwith, a local resident who tried out Allerdings’ fabric painting class, reflected on it afterward.
“I liked having a small class with individual attention, and being able to choose the subject of the big project. Evette did a great job … Everyone needs a creative outlet. You just have to find what fits for you,” she added.
Leila Block, a staff member and teaching artist at the school, encouraged beginning artists to try a class this spring.
“Be brave,” said Block, adding the school makes lots of space for self-expression.
“We want your flavor,” she said, whether you’re a teenager, a senior, a young child or anywhere else on the artistic map.
Artist Anne Pfeiffer will teach Basics of Oil Painting for Teens, Max Grover will host a Find Your Practice Open Studio and Ann Johnston will lead “Color: An Open-Ended Experience.” Block herself, along with Lovejoy, will teach “Freaky Freaks: Bedazzle Your Wardrobe.”
The Spring-Summer Catalog covers courses and workshops throughout spring and summer and includes information about the more than 40 teaching artists offering the classes.
The catalog also features five summer camps for youngsters. These include “A Hobbit’s Adventure” with Mikal Robinson for ages 10 to 17, “Constellations of Self” with Katey Rissi and Dana Weir for ages 11 to 13, and “Creatures of Sea and Shore” with Robinson and the Port Townsend Marine Science Center for ages 7 to 10.
The Northwind Art School, which began as the Port Townsend School of the Arts eight years ago and merged with the Northwind Arts Center in 2021, has offered classes mainly in Building 306 at Fort Worden. This season, the school is expanding into additional buildings.
“We’re going to have so many more youth classes,” Lovejoy said. One of them is her and Dana Sullivan’s adult-and-child “Art with Heart” class in May.
Also this spring, the Bunker will return. This Northwind Art School offering is a safe, free space for teenagers to come and make art every other Friday night. Details about the Bunker, which will be at Fort Worden, will be announced soon.
Northwind Art also operates exhibition spaces downtown: the Grover Gallery at 236 Taylor St. and the Jeanette Best Gallery and Artist Showcase in the Waterman-Katz Building at 701 Water St. To receive the organization’s newsletter, send an email to info@northwindart.org.
