Practice paring down visual information to the bare essentials: shape and line. In this session, we will learn 3 observational drawing tips for identifying and capturing these essentials, take inspiration from the gallery space and figure models to try them out for ourselves, and speed things up with an exercise called gesture drawing to develop our eye-mind-hand connection.
Danielle Rives is an artist and educator. Her art-making practice involves mining both family history and present experience to construct painted, drawn and mixed-media compositions. She uses objects and patterns from domestic interiors as a visual framework to explore relationships between color, mark, and form, as well as her relationships with family, herself, and her surroundings. You can learn more about her work here.
Mary Scott (D
J Dulce Veeta) has been a radio DJ since 2013 at Radio K (Minneapolis) and WTUL New Orleans. A lover of experimental electronic music of all types and also the youtube channel “lofi hip hop radio” by Lofi Girl, you can expect chill vibes only with a hint of the unexpected during their set.
Virtual Tip Jar: @dulceveeta on Venmo
Eva Foldy was born and raised in the Midwest. She received a BFA in Printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2016 and relocated to New Orleans, LA, where she lives with her ball python, Lilith, and has the opportunity to pet hundreds of cats and dogs. She began producing E.E. Foldy printed goods in the spring of 2020.
Virtual Tip Jar: @eveloveslilith on Venmo
D
aylight Rodriguez is a multifaceted recording artist from New Orleans using creative direction, music, graphic design, and more to create a worldly experience for his art to live in. He’s currently working on an album due to drop later this year.
Commissioned in honor of NOMA’s centennial, Forever is a large-scale wall painting by the Philadelphia-based, Nigerian-born artist Odili Donald Odita. Extending 150 feet, the mural contains 87 colors, calibrated to respond to the physical space and changing light of the McDermott Lobby.
The title conveys the impressions of dynamism, musicality, and continuity Odita gathered from spending time in New Orleans: “I want to create a wall painting that shows the jubilation of life and culture, that spirit, that vitality of New Orleans,” he said. “New Orleans is an accumulation of different histories and cultural groups, all of which coexist in a vibrant patchwork.”
The idea of “crossroads” or moments of decision plays an important role in Forever. The artist explains that this includes “crossroads of class, race, culture, and crossroads of space. In the face of calamity, New Orleans has found ways to survive and has made many choices as to what it will become.”
The work is comprised of three main zones: on the southern end bright colors streak in like rays of morning light, conveying the impression of beginning. On the center wall, two planes of color converge at a centerfold, in a butterfly or mask-like shape. On the third wall, toward the north, vertical vectors imitate the forms of a forest or curtain veils.
Odita’s palette for the mural, which draws from skin tones, political concerns, and Mardi Gras Indian suits, should not be regarded as strictly representational. Rather, it is a summary of emotional states and experiences. The white background penetrates the colorful designs, articulating Forever as a wall painting, distinct from a work on canvas.
– Object Lesson: Forever mural by Odili Donald Odita, June 11, 2020, noma.org