Join artist and curator Reni Gower for a Master Craft Workshop on Motif Matrix/Collage. Under Gower’s guidance, participants will collage motifs inspired by Sacred Geometry (Celtic knotwork, Islamic tile patterns, and Amish piece quilts).
Gower will provide two unique, interchangeable seven-inch-square motifs. VisArts will provide multiple copies of each design on heavyweight white cover stock paper.
To explore collage, one design will be cut into shapes that will be used as stencils for cutting the corresponding shapes in colored, patterned, or recycled papers. The paper shapes will be collaged and glued onto a base sheet, with the original motif intact as a visual guide. Participants, who must incorporate the color red in at least one place in their designs, may modify or elaborate upon the initial patterns.
After the designs are collaged, Gower and workshop participants will collaboratively tile the motifs into a large grid. Pattern-making through motif repetition, tessellation, mirror imaging, rotation, and tiling variations will be explored. The quilt-like result may be displayed at VisArts; otherwise, individual motifs will be returned to the makers.
All materials will be provided. There will be a lunch break; participants are encouraged to bring a bag lunch.
This Mater Craft Workshop is offered through VisArts’ Center for Craft Studies. Registration is underwritten by a grant from the Windgate Foundation.
About the Artist/Curator
Reni Gower received a 2023 Virginia Commission for the Arts Fellowship for Works on Paper. In 2020, she received a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. In 2017, she was awarded SECAC’s Award for Outstanding Artistic Achievement. In 2014, she received the College Art Association’s Distinguished Teacher of Art Award, as well as distinguished teaching awards from Virginia Commonwealth University and VCUarts.
Gower’s artwork is represented in many prestigious collections and has been exhibited at international and national venues for over 40 years. In addition to her painting practice, she curates award-winning traveling exhibitions that include The Garden, FLASHPOINTS: Material / Intent / Fused, Geometric AljamÃa: A Cultural Transliteration, and Pulped Under Pressure: The Art of Handmade Paper. After 37 years, Professor Emerita Gower retired from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2018. She is represented by Chroma Projects (Charlottesville, VA).
Learn more at www.renigower.com