Introduction
Join Jill Price to celebrate the distinctive geography and vegetation of Sicily. Exploring plants for their textures, pigments, and forms, participants will use methods of walking, collecting, examining, notetaking, deconstructing, and combining to develop deeper connections with the unique qualities of different plants for image and mark-making.
Location
Sicily is a land of extremes and contrasts where each season has its own idiosyncratic charm. Participants will stay at Villa Salinara in the southwestern tip of Sicily which offers a wealth of inspiring locales with picturesque views. During the week, the group will take short trips in the surroundings to observe and engage with diversified subject matter. Sicilian wines and food will round up an unforgettable experience.
Instruction
Extolling the benefit of walking as an artistic research method, Jill will demonstrate a variety of approaches to documenting, mapping, and drawing botanicals encountered and gathered. Through investigation of plants for their materialities, Jill will demonstrate how to turn them into painting and drawing media, as well as collaboratively explore their potential for sculptural application.
Teaching Philosophy
Acknowledging the importance of situatedness – our lived experiences – together with choices of material, Jill Price facilitates activities that draw out the unique creative voice of each individual. Promoting thoughtfulness over production and play over perfection, the learning environment encourages exploration, self-reflection, and iteration to find inspiration that creatives can further explore when back home.
Media & Skill Level
This workshop encompasses water colours, pencil/charcoal, and mixed media, and is open for all who wish to explore. (Please note that this retreat involves walking over various terrains. Prospective participants are asked to contact us in advance as to any accessibility needs.)
Artist Statement
“Upon investigating my role as a producer and consumer, I have come to realize how “all art is land art”, as it is from the land all material comes across land all material travels, and to the land all materials eventually return. To respect this knowledge, I meander at the intersections of art, ecology, environmental ethics and new materials to shine a light on how interior and exterior worlds are materially and psychically linked.”
Bio
At her best when surrounded by plants, sipping a buttery chardonnay and sitting on a sunny step with a neighbour cat, Jill Price is an interdisciplinary Canadian artist, independent curator, and trained educator, grateful to be living on the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe people and Wendat Nation in Barrie,Ontario. An award-winning mixed media artist and PhD scholar in Cultural Studies, Price completed a portion of her MFA in Florence, Italy. She works at the intersection of drawing, sculpture, performance, digital media, and speculative fiction to explore the material entanglements of human and more-than-human lives. Web: jillpricestudios / Instagram: @jillpricestudios
