Workshops – Fish McGill Studios

Workshops

Hands-on collaborative activities are my favorite way to explore new concepts and learn new skills. Here is a selection of workshops I have created for different groups and learning spaces to build skills, understand new ideas, and engage in design thinking.

An "Under Water Mural" at The Boston Children's Museum.

I was invited by the Arts Progam Manager Alice Vogler to help create a three part mural about the environment with youngsters at (one of my all-time favorite places) the Boston Children's Museum. The mural project is a partnership with FOCUS (Forest, Ocean Climate and US) a program of the US Forest Service and Seeds of Hope. The project aims to help families learn about the natural world around us and how to be environmentally friendly. The three part mural consisted of “Water” by yours truly, “Land” by Silvia Lopez Chavez, and “Air” by Eugene Finney.

Alice and I met in advance with the other artists to go over logistics for the live painting event. Working with exuberant young artists on a mural like this poses some interesting challenges, including:

How do you keep this interesting for the young artists?
How do we design the process to be fun and have the final piece be visually exciting for the viewers?
How do we do this in 3 hours?

Having a museum staff help with a project like this is an amazing and resourceful team to work with. The team did an outstanding job at documenting the process, gathering materials, escorting guests over to participate, setting up stanchions in front of the painting area, and more to help the event run smooth.

Inspo

Before getting to work, I spend time thinking about artists I admire and how I can use their approaches.