Spring is the season of love. At Creative Arts Workshop, an a la carte school and engine of New Haven’s arts scene since 1961, it can be the season of loving yourself. CAW’s spring curriculum offers dozens of routes to self-care and -improvement, ranging from one-day flirtations to three-month flings.
Learn to knit a hat and, in the process, “almost anything!” Make Boho bags and pillow covers on your way to “overcom[ing] the mysteries of the sewing machine.” Or go bigger and learn to work a floor loom, which could set you on a path to weaving your own blankets, rugs, tapestries and more.
Ground yourself making functional pots, or turn a page with basic, advanced or even “artists’” bookmaking. Study the human form with figure drawing, or decorate that form by “sawing, filing, cold-connecting, soldering, surface-embellish[ing], forging, shaping, fold-forming, finishing, and patina-coloring” your own jewelry.
Sparks will fly in metal sculpture class, whose activities include “welding (oxyacetylene and MIG), brazing, cutting (torch and plasma cutter), hammering, and more.” Or, like the molten metal itself, pour your heart into the “art of pewter,” or your soul into “writing your own poetry collection.” If prose is more your meter, start or maybe finish writing your own memoir.
Brush up on oil painting, whether a beginner or not, or soak up new watercolor skills. Special painting topics include gesture and personality and, separately, perspective, a focus that takes on a historical dimension in classes on black and white analog and cyanotype photography. Modern tools and techniques, in composition and lighting as well as editing, are also in the frame.
Blend past and present on paper with a printmaking class on advanced etching techniques (exploring “innovative methods that combine traditional etching with contemporary processes like photo and screen applications”), or bring traditional relief, intaglio, and monotype techniques to nontraditional surfaces such as vinyl records and found objects. Or find your bliss with screenprinting, polyester-plate lithography, gel-plate printing, water-based printmaking, or botanical monotypes. A similarly numerous range of pottery classes are also available.
Like so many birds soon to be searching for spring romance, CAW is calling. And, with “fully-equipped studios in eight disciplines” filling a three-story facility on Audubon Street, it’s already got the nest.
Written by Dan Mims. Image provided courtesy of Creative Arts Workshop.
