Instructor: Stephanie Hargrave
Monday - Wednesday
June 12 - 14
10am - 4pm
3 sessions

This immersive workshop uses encaustic as an element in assembled sculptural forms. We will be pushing the boundaries of how it can be used, but also where it might be omitted leaving areas intentionally ‘dry’ and making decisions about surfaces that are near one another, being mindful of those transition both visually and structurally. Working on flat surfaces as well as round and multidimensional ones, you will be encouraged to use a variety of materials including ceramic, encaustic, wood, fabric, paper, paint, nails, staples, wire, and thread. Students are encouraged to bring objects of meaning to incorporate (think seeds from a tree you love, your kid’s old pajamas, or some worn out love letter!). We will explore texture, form and meaning executed abstractly by combining them into small repetitive sculptures that speak to one another. The pieces produced during this workshop usually reveal something profound about the maker and often come as a surprise. Multitudes of materials speak to the layers of life - to the ways we problem solve and evolve – the ways we juggle and cope and move forward. Holding recent experiences in our minds while making is encouraged, whether you are focused on the war in Ukraine, the ongoing Covid Pandemic, family, politics, or global warming, your assemblages will naturally reflect your recent life in myriad ways.

Stephanie Hargrave has been painting and working in clay since college (University of Puget Sound), where she studied color theory, ceramics, sculpture, drawing, painting, as well as creative writing. She has shown her work in Seattle, Minneapolis, San Luis Obispo, Santa Fe, Brooklyn, NY, Manhattan, and Atlanta. Her paintings are in several corporate collections including Seattle’s University House, Swedish Hospital and the University of Washington Medical Center, Barclays International in Texas, the Abri Hotel in San Francisco, the Woodmark Hotel in Kirkland, WA, and Kaiser Permanente in Baltimore. Her piece Capra Hircus 3 was juried into the Encaustic Art Institute’s permanent collection in 2015. With her Shift Gallery colleagues, she was juried into the International Seattle Art Fair in 2017, 2018 & 2019. She participated in two Brooklyn, NY based residencies in 2019 with celebrated encaustic artist Michael David and was a resident alongside him for 2 months at Judy Pfaff’s art compound in Tivoli, NY in 2020. She has been the juror for several group shows, completed numerous commissions, and donated work to art auctions annually since 2005. She has taught privately for over 20 years and has instructed workshops at both Pratt Fine Arts Center and Northwest Encaustic in Seattle, as well as Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill in Massachusetts. Her work has always focused (abstractly) on biology, and how we understand ourselves from that scientific perspective. Her 25-year studio practice is her very nucleus.