Larry at the sewing machine

I’ve been a big admirer of Larry Calkins‘ work for a long time. We’re both instructors at Pratt and whenever we have run into each other there we’ve always had great conversations. He’s like a mad scientist/artist. I’d always wanted to take one of his classes but it had just never worked out. Last Spring one of my students, Linda, who had taken classes from both of us suggested that we teach together. We both thought it was a great idea. Thus was Surface, Form and Structure born and we taught for the first time this last weekend.

Marianne using soy wax resist

Larry could put the “multi” in multi-media. He uses encaustic, found objects, fabric, and photography among other things. My practice is more focused on surface design and sculpture. We have pretty different working styles, too, but we share a love of science and experimentation in our work and in our teaching.

Our focus for this class was working with fabric, starting with the surface and then covering multiple ways provide structure for three-dimensions. I covered low-water immersion dyeing and physical resists, soy wax resist, discharge, and metal leaf embellishment.

Larry welding

Larry showed us toner transfers, bending and joining steel for structure, and adding wax to the cloth as a final step. We learned from each other, too. Larry hadn’t used wax as a resist or softscrub as discharge. I hadn’t successfully used toner transfers or used bent steel or wax as a way to form fabric.

When we introduced form and structure to the class we each brought our backgrounds and sensibilities. My favorite part of the weekend was our “two on ones” where we met individually with the students to talk through their ideas of how to go from 2-d to 3-d. There was an easy sense of back and forth between us, bouncing ideas off each other. As teachers I think we share the ability to listen deeply to our students, both supporting them and pushing them when they need it.

Hadijah working on her sculpture

We all had a grand time, made a big mess, and wished for another day to play/work. It was gratifying to me that each of the student’s projects were very different from each others. There were no Cameron or Larry “clones”, just each student using the methods and materials we taught to speak with their own voice.

I’m looking forward to teaching this class again in July. We’ll streamline it a little, and no doubt want to add to it, and look forward to spending another weekend creating a mad scientist’s art lab together. And our star pupil, Linda, has come up with another class idea for us to team teach at Pratt called Finish It! Maybe you’ll see it in the Pratt catalog.

Larry's waxed dresses

Linda's sculpture stitching panels to a steel form

Sarah's poppies

Ethel's wall hanging

Becky's fish