Ellen Kochansky Collage Found Objects

Found Object Collage

Dates: October 4 - 10, 2009
Instructor/Leader: Ellen Kochansky

Trip Description
Welcoming all skill levels, genders and professions, Ellen's session will explore language as a window to creativity for artists and non-artists alike. As we engage with this magical town and its history, seeking out text in both common and obscure forms, our own hidden voice becomes more obvious. Nourishing both mind and body where the Slow Food movement originated, we'll wander through the ancient streets of Orvieto, absorbing the foreign flavors while scavenging for free and resonant art materials. A new or different life-perspective will reveal itself. Using found fragments of the town's botanical and cultural debris, we will learn several collage techniques in both two and three dimensions. The class will also engage in some visual
poetry. The theme is a challenging one: What can we learn from another culture's castoffs which can help to re-frame our own future?

In the studio, you'll learn:
~ To find expressive art materials in the most unexpected
   places.
~ To recognize the symbolic, the literal and the humorous in
   our material choices.
~ To create powerful and beautiful collage and sculptural
    images using materials found around Orvieto.
~ To build several simple book structures.

Itinerary
Oct 4 - Arrive Orvieto, group dinner
Oct 5 - Foraging and search for materials. Intro to Italian
              culture, wine tasting
Oct 6 - Creating album pages; using vellum, silk, book-
              binders glue. Etruscan - cave & necropolis
Oct 7 - Altering pages, constructing folder, banner or book.
              Cooking class
Oct 8 - 3 dimensional exercise using native American
              concept. Weekly market, vineyard tour/wine tasting
Oct 9 - Community tea bag project, gift making. Group
              dinner
Oct 10 - Depart Orvieto

Meet Ellen
Ellen owns and
designs for EKO.
She has made
quilts and textile
art for over 20
years. She has served as an American Canvas panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts and as trustee of the American Crafts Council. Her works are in many public and private institutions including the Museum of Art + Design in NY, and the Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC.

Ellen works with communities and groups to produce pieces of art symbolic and meaningful to each. She also works with individuals to help them honor a stage in life or a place in time.

Following is a statement of Ellen's beliefs and approach to what she does.

"My current expressions represent three themes: personal & universal journaling, the simplicity and transparency of a single textile, and my conviction that we scorn and discard what will prove to have mattered most. Calligraphy, storytelling, and the quilter's love of texture combine with a new commitment to the design of the page, the book.

We have what we need. It has comforted me as an artist to forego the nearly limitless material resources that tempt us at every turn. I choose to limit my palette to humble, random debris, and I delight in the study of those trimmings and findings that have taken on a life of their own. While we are looking the other way, they have become a kind of compost, and they will fertilize the future if we let them."

More at www.ekochansky.com