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Instructor: Alexandra Cantwell, Norfolk Botanical Garden

Biophilic design is a design style that draws from the natural world. This involves incorporating materials, colors, and visuals that occur in nature into one's home.
Virginia MOCA members are invited to create their own element of biophilic design with the traditional art of Japanese kokedama! This creative Japanese botanical technique focuses on growing plants in a ball of soil covered in moss. Kokedama is an excellent way to bring natural life into the home and a great introduction to biophilic design.

AGES 6–8
Three Sessions
Instructor: Elijah Chumley

Art and science are tools we use to understand our world. By considering both, artists can imagine new ways to raise awareness about environmental issues and shape a more sustainable future. In this class, we’ll create art inspired by the unique shelters, habitats, and species that exist in the natural world.

AGES 9-12
Three Sessions
Instructor: Elijah Chumley

The objects we surround ourselves with tell important stories about who we are. What could someone learn about you by looking inside your living space? In this class, we will take inspiration from exhibiting More than Shelter artist Erin Fostel as we work on building our observational drawing skills in charcoal and graphite pencil.

ADULTS
Three Sessions
Instructor: Marlowe Emerson

CLASS FULL; Please join waitlist.

The natural environment plays an important role in determining the kinds of structures and spaces in which we live. It can impact everything from what our homes are made of to how they are powered and our choices of decor. This abstract art workshop examines the ways in which nature impacts our ideas of home. Participants will use mixed media techniques to explore their personal connection to the environment and how it affects the spaces where they live.

Join us for Teaching with Art at Virginia MOCA, part of a free professional development series created for educators of all grade levels and subject areas. This program, focusing on our current exhibition More Than Shelter, is specially designed to equip teachers with helpful tools for using contemporary artwork in their curriculum and classrooms.

Join Heather Hakimzadeh, curator, for a conversation with past and current Virginia MOCA exhibiting artists. Guest artists will give us a look inside their studios, share current projects, and discuss process and inspiration. Find us on Instagram @virginiamoca.

This month’s guest will be a Made in VA exhibiting artist David Marion.

ADULTS
One Session
Instructor: Ken García Oláes

CLASS FULL; Please join waitlist.

Learn the fundamentals of drawing and painting to create a realistic oil portrait using the alla prima technique! Walk step-by-step through the portrait painting process alongside Made in VA artist Ken García Oláes. We'll begin by practicing line drawing and composition from a reference image before establishing value in our portraits through underpainting. The class will also delve into color theory, oil transfers, working in layers, and various brushwork techniques to achieve finely rendered, captivating results.

AGES 2-5 (WITH CAREGIVER)
1 session
Instructor: Kim Herman

CLASS FULL; please join waitlist.

Learn about houses around the globe and get inspired by representations of shelter in our galleries! Use a variety of painting media and collage materials to create a beautiful house of your own. Young artists will leave with imaginative multimedia artwork that is ready to hang.

This three-hour professional development workshop will introduce educators to geographic information systems (GIS) and demonstrate how primary source documents, historical maps, and contemporary data from the U.S. Census, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Environmental Protection Agency can be harnessed to explore the lasting socio-economic, environmental, and health impacts of racial segregation. Upon completion, attendees will be equipped to use historical and geographic data to explore dimensions of inequality in their communities.

AGES 6–8
1 session
Instructor: Renee Calway

Homes look different, depending on the available resources, climate, and the needs they serve to the people who live in them. This workshop will feature two reductive artmaking techniques that allow students to study the similarities and differences of house structures in our community and around the world.

Ages 9–12
1 session
Instructor: Renee Calway

What would it be like to adapt to the conditions of a new planet? Together we’ll explore the “last frontier” of space from the perspective of designers and builders! In this investigation, students will imagine they’re tasked with building homes in space. Working with the landscape and available resources, students will discover how to design an extraterrestrial shelter to meet the needs of foreign space grounds. Our research will yield naturalist drawings, architectural designs, and sculptural models to take home!

Children ages 3–8 and their caregivers are invited to join us each month as we look, learn, and make in response to themes from our current exhibitions. This program for families will include close-looking at artwork, reading of a storybook, and a making activity inspired by the theme.

ADULTS
Five Sessions
Level: Intermediate/Advanced
Instructor: Sherrod Faulks

This dynamic class will focus on creating stunning, functional wares for the table, shelf, kitchen, bathroom, and beyond. Each class will develop a specific set of techniques and forms with an interactive demonstration followed by plenty of practice, artistic discussion, and fun.

Join us for a casual conversation exploring current exhibitions, led by Virginia MOCA staff and guest lecturers. This month we will be joined by Will Smith, exhibiting artist, and Todd Walker, executive director of Judeo-Christian Outreach Center, who will discuss their collaboration and the culminating work art of featured in More Than Shelter.

AGES 13-17
4 sessions
Instructor: Renee Calway

Ceramics have served an important role in the lives of humans for the past 30,000 years. From building shelters, to forming cookware and creating sacred objects, humans have long relied on clay to survive and thrive. Today, artists, architects, and scientists have continued to push the medium of clay to exquisite lengths. In this course, we’ll practice hand building, wheel-throwing, glazing, and more as we learn about contemporary and historical applications of ceramics!

ADULTS
One Session
Instructor: Jeffrey Allison

CLASS FULL; Please join waitlist.

Join us for a professional development workshop for artists! Topics include photographing artwork, funding opportunities, developing professional relationships with galleries and publications, copyright matters, artist statements, and digital marketing.

This program has been organized in collaboration with the VMFA Office of Statewide Partnerships.

This three-hour professional development workshop will introduce educators to participant-directed photography, provide a primer on qualitative interviewing, and demonstrate how to use online mapping to create interactive story maps. Upon completion, attendees will be equipped to actively engage students in innovative assignments and projects using photography, interviewing, and mapping to explore how meanings are embedded in places.

Join Heather Hakimzadeh, curator, for a conversation with past and current Virginia MOCA exhibiting artists. Guest artists will give us a look inside their studios, share current projects, and discuss process and inspiration. Find us on Instagram @virginiamoca.

This month’s guest is Pat Jarrett, More than Shelter artist.

Join Homebodies artist Brian Kreydatus for a gallery talk exploring his current exhibition.

ADULTS
One Session
Instructor: Brian Kreydatus

Learn from artist Brian Kreydatus how to enhance your life drawing and printmaking skills to create unique monoprints! We’ll start with a brief overview of the history of monotype and then proceed to make our first prints by arranging a still-life composition and exploring the basics of the materials and printing processes to be used.

AGES 2-5 (WITH CAREGIVER)
1 session
Instructor: Kim Herman

Build a bug shelter and paint your very own birdhouse! Learn how humans can help to protect wildlife and follow along as we create shelters for bugs and birds! After this fun workshop, you’ll walk away with a creative wood shelter for wildlife that can be installed outdoors to protect our wild neighbors.

Current members can join Virginia MOCA staff for an in-depth and interactive look at select works of art from our current exhibitions using close-looking techniques. Plus, enjoy an exhibition-themed cocktail from a local mixologist. A cocktail reception will be held from 5:30–6:15 PM, and the tour begins at 6:15 PM.

In this lecture, Dr. Cassandra Newby-Alexander, the Endowed Professor of Virginia Black History and Culture and emeritus director of the Joseph Jenkins Roberts Center for African Diaspora Studies at Norfolk State University, will provide an overview of the historic African American communities in Virginia and the challenges they faced and continue to face relating to inequalities in resource allocation and redlining. The actions of local and state government resulted in the destruction of African American properties through the location of heavy industries, highways, and other destructive entities adjacent to their neighborhoods. The consequences have reduced Black wealth and increased health issues among many African Americans. By highlighting these issues, Dr. Newby-Alexander will offer recommendations for how Virginia can engage in reparative justice as a pathway for moving society forward.

WORKSHOP FULL

Workshop full; please join waitlist.

This day-long professional development workshop will be broken into two sessions. The morning session will introduce educators to geographic information systems (GIS) and demonstrate how primary source documents, historical maps, and contemporary data from the U.S. Census, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Environmental Protection Agency can be harnessed to explore the lasting socio-economic, environmental, and health impacts of racial segregation. The afternoon session will introduce educators to participant-directed photography, provide a primer on qualitative interviewing, and demonstrate how to use online mapping to create interactive story maps.

Children ages 3–8 and their caregivers are invited to join us each month as we look, learn, and make in response to themes from our current exhibitions. This live-streamed program for families will include close-looking at artwork, reading of a storybook, and a making activity inspired by the theme.

Members can start their evening at the VIP reception ahead of the main event, Community Conversation: Affordable Housing in Hampton Roads. Beverages and light hors d’oeuvres will be served.

Free for Virginia MOCA members; registration required.

Join us for a panel discussion exploring affordable housing in Hampton Roads. Our panel will include artists, organizations, and community members who are working to create awareness on the issues of cost, quality, instability, overcrowding, and racial disparities in housing. We’ll discuss the efforts being made within our community to establish affordable housing for all despite the structural inequities that exist within our economic systems.

Current members can join Virginia MOCA staff for a private tour of Assembly led by one of our exhibition partners for More than Shelter, Work Program Architects. Following the tour, members can engage in casual dialogue with WPA project managers to learn more about the collaboration with More than Shelter artist Heather Beardsley and other upcoming projects, including the Elizabeth River Project.

Members will enjoy a light brunch provided after the program.