Fantastic Fish – Three day workshop

“Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.” Chinese Proverb

Most likely you have heard this proverb quoted before. Here is another way to interpret this wisdom.

“Give an artist a comfortable project to do and she will be nourished for the day. Teach an artist how to fish for ideas and they will enjoy a lifetime of creative abundance.”

During this workshop you will create a fish sculpture from polymer clay and found objects:  that can be mounted on the wall, hung from the ceiling or become part of a table-scape in your studio. Whether your metaphorical fish is inspired by an existing fish species or is pure fantasy is totally up to you.

I will walk you through each stage of the decision making process from choosing a body shape to fine tweaking the tail fin. Group brainstorming, auditioning alternatives and relying on your intuition are all important parts of this process. The emphasis in this workshop is on developing your personal idea fishing skills rather than making a “perfect” fish sculpture.

Along the way to your completed piece, you will experience and explore six different approaches to fishing for artistic ideas including:

• The catch of the day
• The deep dark and “ugly”
• The joyous celebrations
• Creative sparks- detours, enrichments, challenges
• Creating an inspirational idea library as a resource to draw upon
• Swimming upstream by incorporating the un-expected

Frequent demonstrations throughout the weekend will be directed towards expressive alternatives using polymer clay, addressing construction challenges and helping to make your fish fantastic.

“Desire for an idea is like bait. When you’re fishing, you have to have patience. You bait your hook, and then you wait. The desire is the bait that pulls those fish in–those ideas.

Ideas are like fish. If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you’ve got to go deeper.

Down deep, the fish are more powerful and more pure. They’re huge and abstract. And they’re very beautiful.” David Lynch

Diving deep, examining your creative process, honing your skills and trying new approaches…perhaps kinda scary? Not so much, especially when you are learning essential and bountiful idea fishing skills.