“Making Art for Navigating this Time in the World”

A new series of in-person workshops (eventually online as well)

“Making Art for Navigating this Time in the World”

You are invited to sign up for a series of art workshops being held this fall in Beverly Naidus’ studio in the Merlino Art Center. Come collaborate and connect with others through our creative responses to these uncertain times. All levels of experience are welcome!

With multiple crises breathing down our collective necks, it is important to have creative tools to process the challenges we are facing as a society and a species. Making art to tell the story of what we are going through can be a very important strategy for building the kinds of communities we will need for the times ahead. Our 3-hour workshops will provide participants with an opportunity to use art, meditation, movement, storytelling, and brainstorming to develop expressive work in a trusting environment. We will also visualize and plan community projects that will offer positive possibilities for the future. We will be writing, drawing, making collages, moving our bodies in gentle ways and working with found & scavenged objects. We will learn supportive ways to provide useful feedback on each other’s work.

Dates for five Saturday afternoon workshops from 1-4 pm. Dates: 9/21, 10/5, 10/26, 11/2, and 11/9. Participants must bring a journal, pen, and a folding chair. The studio is NOT ADA compatible – you will need to climb 3 staircases in the Merlino Art Center to get to Naidus’s studio space.

Prospective participants MUST contact Bee at bnaidus@uw.edu to discuss your interest and ask questions. Cost: suggested donation is $100 per session (with a sliding scale for those who need one). Class size maximum is 10. It is recommended that you sign up for all 5 classes, but it is not necessary.

Beverly, also known as “Bee,” is an internationally known artist who wrote, Arts for Change: Teaching Outside the Frame, a book that offers an approach to teaching studio art with a focus on socially engaged themes like body image, the ecological crisis, economic insecurity, systemic oppressions, and how to process the trauma of violence through art making. She taught in UW Tacoma’s interdisciplinary program for 17 years developing a unique curriculum in art for social change and healing. Originally from the Northeast (New England, NJ, and NYC), she has triangulated the Salish Sea since 2003, first living on Vashon Island, then in Seattle, and finally settled in Tacoma in 2016.

Bee was a student of Joanna Macy, Thich Nhat Hanh, Augusto Boal and many others, and received her BA from Carleton College and an MFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design (fully paid for by her teaching fellowship). She was mentored by many significant artists as well as Jubilee Arts from the UK with whom she deepened and strengthened her community art practices. She has taught at many universities, museums, and community centers, including the Institute for Social Ecology where she co-taught “Activist Art in Community” with her late husband, Dr. Bob Spivey. She is currently developing essays for her new book on her Substack, Gravity Humming:

For more information about Beverly Naidus, please go to her website: www.beverlynaidus.net