Prompt: Create an embroidery using a word, phrase or combination of text and image that speaks to our times. Motifs and imagery should reinforce, amplify or act as a juxtaposition to the text.

Feel free to use your own embroidery materials or pick up a free embroidery kit. The D.R.A.W. has a limited number of starter kits available for those who need assistance in getting started.

The word embroidery comes from the French word broderie, meaning embellishment. Embroidery evolved from the practical act of mending. Mending, patching and reinforcing cloth to extend the life of a piece of fabric led to the development of sewing techniques and stitches that initially served specific functions for various shapes, materials and uses. Mending allowed working-class people, often women, to save money through reuse and helped families survive poverty and harsh winters.

Prompt: Create a commUNITY clay figure. MAD provides the clay, click Read More for pickup/dropoff info. There are only three rules to follow:

1. Must be hand sized

2. Must stand up

3. Must have a face!

The MAD Celebration of the Arts (CoA) is an annual community event to showcase excellence in the arts by representing many artistic styles and the breadth of Kingston’s cultural diversity. The 6th Annual MAD Celebration of the Arts has been radically altered due to the restrictions of COVID-19.

This year we are unable to come together as a community for a daylong gathering of art making. Instead we’re inviting the Kingston community to join us for a month-long clay project while keeping our distance! As of August 15, Bailey Pottery, our generous event sponsor, has produced 500 lbs of clay pugs for our community and we’re preparing the first firing of several hundred figures! Amazing!

Prompt: Locate a “collection” of images, texts, letters, postcards, snapshot photographs, post-it notes, anything you find interesting and evocative that connects to a certain period in your life: past, present, future. Make copies of gathered materials and experiment with how to present your collection in a book format.

Since the beginning of mark-making, artists have been documenting through narrative images their experiences, the world around them, and the cycles of life. The book is a natural form for containing these kinds of stories.

Artists’ books are their own medium. This type of work presents artists with a way of developing aesthetic ideas, telling personal stories, or making political or social commentary. The form is inherently dramatic and suspenseful. It takes time to turn the pages: images and text unfold, change happens, and the reader/viewer experiences that change in an embodied way.

The Power of Art to Create Change

Prompt: Create a poster or sign featuring an inspirational quote that communicates a message that you want to share. Posters and signs may include both text and graphic elements, or it may be either alone. Place your poster where people will see it.

Posters and signs are global art forms that belong to everyone. They use a message to capture the attention of an audience. Over the past century, the role and appearance of posters have evolved continuously to meet the changing needs of society. Posters and signs are powerful tools that amplify one’s voice in a community and they can be used for many purposes.

Green things and green spaces offer respite - a moment away from challenging days and events

Prompt: Using inspiration from the plant world, create an image that incorporates both human and botanical features.

Botanical Illustrations and deeply looking at plants themselves invite us to explore nature with fresh eyes.

Before photography, people depended upon artists and illustrators to share the beauty of botany with the world. Botanical illustrations were used by physicians, pharmacists, botanical scientists and gardeners. The art of botanical illustration can be traced back to Greece sometime between 50 and 70 CE.

A Million Stories Waiting to be Told

Prompt: Collect images, patterns, and text from books, magazines or the recycling bin. Use fabric scraps, doodles, photographs and drawings. Cut out whatever speaks to you, and create a visual image that tells a “story.”

Collage originated from the French word “coller,” which means to glue. A collage can be a mix of many things (paper, painting, newspaper, canvas, etc.) glued together to create a unique image. Images created with “bits and pieces” can tell powerful stories. Collage lends itself to all sorts of inquiry and exploration. Things become connected through association, emotions and/or memory. Sometimes a story is intentional; sometimes it reveals itself to the maker.

Inspired by The Everyday Projects and The Work of William Eggleston

Prompt: Take a picture that captures something about everyday life in Kingston. The photo can be taken anywhere and can portray nearly anything, as long as it isn’t posed or manipulated.  People do not need to be included in the image.

Documenting the community through sharing everyday images creates an opportunity for understanding and awareness. Viewing these images offers an opportunity to learn something new, and perhaps to notice the ordinary as something special.

“Time to go outside and play! Make art everywhere, on the sidewalks and in the streets!”

Prompt: Pick a safe place to create a chalk drawing or painting that has an interactive element. Take a picture and share it with us.

With so much screen time, inside time and alone time, it seems the right time to go outside.

Chalk art painting is a great way to be creative, beautify your neighborhood, have fun and use your imagination. This week’s Marking Time is with our neighbor and KCSD art teacher Christine Howard and her Edson Elementary School students. During this time of online learning, Christine invited her students to create interactive chalk art!

What will your mask say?

Prompt : Design/make or personalize a protective face mask.

As we move through the gradual re-opening phases in our communities, we must continue to practice safe social distancing and remember to wear face masks.

Masks communicate respect for others and a willingness to join a civic safety action to save lives. They also make it harder to communicate and a little more difficult to talk and to see/respond to facial expressions.

Can a face mask overcome the seriousness of this time or communicate beyond its purpose?

Prompt : With “staying home” and social distancing, many of us are spending more time outside and in the forest. How do you look at trees through the lens of COVID19?

In my time I have seen many shifts in the manmade and natural environment in the local surrounding area. Encroachment of the built world, the displacement and resiliency of the natural world, and the innate human desire to commune with nature are in constant dialog.

Judith Hoyt, a teaching artist at The D.R.A.W. studio, describes the narrative in her work as depicting the conflict of people vs nature, with an eye to how each navigates this unfolding history together.

Prompt : Find an object, text or image with a negative connotation (such as sad, broken, dark, discarded) then use the color YELLOW as a metaphor for Optimism and to transform it into something positive, joyful, useful, beautiful, or inspiring. Display your work someplace safe to brighten the world, such as in a street-facing window or door.

Transforming “negative” into “positive” during a global pandemic

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, so this week we mark time with G. Riley Johndonnell, an artist/activist/Optimist and creator of INTO Yellow and Optimism art movement. International Optimism Yellow (INTO Yellow) is a color created in collaboration with Pantone Color Institute and UMEWE.org. It was developed as a tool to inspire artists to explore Optimism, to positively impact reality, and to inspire community connection through collaboration and creativity.

Prompt : Make your own upcycled paper quilt square to be included in The Reher Center’s Digital Cultural Quilt. Describe how your quilt square represents your culture, or give it a title so we can learn about you.

This week we’re marking time with our neighbors! The Digital Cultural Quilt of the Hudson Valley is a virtual, collaborative art project inviting all children, teens and adults in the region to share our heritage during this time of social distancing. See the quilt-in-progress on Instagram at #CulturalQuiltHV and online June 14th at the virtual Kingston Multicultural Festival and Barrett Art Center websites.

Prompt: Using any media and materials, create something or someplace in miniature.

Are you craving a little more space, or missing a place, needing a change of scenery or ready for something to be a little different? How about some small scale world-building to satisfy your desire?

Miniatures evoke a feeling of wonder or awe . . . They suspend reality, taking you out of your surroundings and bringing you into a new world.

Quote excerpt by artist Joe Fig from a short essay about the history of miniatures by Rachel Nuwer for “Feel Big Live Small,“ an exhibition of miniatures organized by Elan Smithee at Apexart at 291 Church Street in NYC.

Prompt: During this “extended pause,” show us how you are marking time.

Art making and mark making are natural ways to practice mindfulness. The colors, textures and sounds of creating pull us into the moment and refocus our attention. In the process, the shape of time shifts. Tom Sarrantonio, a teaching artist at The D.R.A.W. studio, shares his creative process of mark making:

I was working late in the studio a few nights ago, and I was in the zone. I was covering a painting with marks and it occurred to me that I was "marking time" (and grateful that I had just the kind of painting to practice this mindful mindlessness on). I have declared this particular painting "finished" several times in the past two weeks, but keep going back into it, making more marks.

Prompt: Create a “diary” comic or cartoon to chronicle an event or your new daily life. Date your art or give it a title.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Comics and cartoons are graphic storytelling that can make us laugh, move us, captivate our imagination, speak out for our beliefs, mirror our contemporary world or present issues. A comic is a story told with sequential images. A cartoon is a single panel story. Comics and cartoons can be created with images alone or a blend of words and images. The art is in finding the best way to tell a story in the most compelling way possible.

Prompt: Celebrate the coming of Spring by making, and documenting, a site specific installation using found materials from your surroundings.

Spring as Inspiration.

With spring, the world is reborn. For artists, spring has been a constant source of inspiration since the Renaissance.

Today many artists celebrate the natural world, oftentimes with non-traditional materials.

While we’re physically distancing, sheltering at home, washing our hands and connecting online, we are imagining a time when we will all be in the same room to creatively play and make art. In sweet anticipation of that time, we are planning our first Draw-a-Thon and you are invited!