Teacher Professional Learning Workshops: Thinking Like an Artist

January 26, February 9, March 23, and April 27
5–8 p.m. $25 per person/per workshop (includes a light dinner)
Advanced registration is required.
Register online, call 412.633.3288 or email.
Up to two Act 48 hours available per session.

Join museum educators and curators for gallery conversations revealing how artists observe, question, imagine, and connect us to the world across cultures and time. We’ll discuss ways to incorporate these learning strategies in your classroom.

Individual Workshop Descriptions:

January 26

For six months, Pittsburgh painter Ashley Cecil served as an artist-in-residence at Carnegie Museum of Natural History creating and exhibiting artwork depicting specimen collections and visualizing scientific research. Her artistic practice and teaching strategies make dense science relatable. Her work also endears people to nature, and highlights creatures that serve as barometers, showing us how our shared environment is faring. Following a discussion with Cecil, join museum educators in the CMOA galleries to discover how other artists have explored the natural world as their subject matter.

February 9

Stories connect us to one another and help us make sense of our experiences. They can be funny, dramatic, sad, perplexing, and transformative. So can works of art! This workshop focuses on creative writing inspired by the CMOA collection. Get ideas for your own classroom as museum educators accompanied by a local writer guide you through exercises that ignite students’ creativity.

March 23

Explore fashion, identity, and personal adornment with Pittsburgh-born fashion designer Tereneh Mosley, founder and creative director of IdiaDega, a collaborative global community of women artisans. Find inspiration in the otherworldly dresses in Iris van Herpen: Transforming Fashion to create your own accessory out of non-traditional materials.

April 27

The materials available to artists are constantly changing. This workshop examines technology as an artist’s tool, looking back to film as a medium and forward to 3D printers and digital output. Meet two intrepid CMOA staffers who wrestle with these questions all the time. Emily Davis, Senior Research Associate, tackles the difficult work of cataloguing and preserving film and digital art. Hannah Turpin, Curatorial Assistant, Contemporary Art and Photography works with living artists and photographers as a member of two curatorial teams. Together, they discuss the ever-changing landscape in which art is created and preserved.