Transforming Grief Through Artmaking with author Sheila K Collins

3-Hour Workshop

Date: Thursday, August 3, 2024

Time: 10am-1pm

Description: Focusing on specific pieces in Contemporary Craft’s exhibit Hereafter, workshop participants will explore how art done on our behalf helps us process our own experiences of loss and grief. And how, for the artmaker, various artmaking forms change their perceptions of a grief experience. Participants will:

1. Explore passages from the Art of Grieving to understand how the visual and tactile images provided by artists can correct western culture’s misunderstandings of the grieving process.

2. Be invited to create and share with one another, using the birthright practices of InterPlay –storytelling, dance, song, and visual arts, the memories and meanings they’ve drawn from their own life experience.

3. Using simple materials, some provided, and some brought from home–make their own art object of remembrance, a memory box, shrine, or memorial.

All students will receive a signed copy of Dr. Sheila Collins' book The Art of Grieving.

Tuition: $55 + $20 Materials fee

Materials: Students should bring several photos or images of treasured items or places you want to honor and remember. All other materials will be provided.

Location: Contemporary Craft (5645 Butler St., Pittsburgh, PA 15201)

Cancellations and Refunds: Workshop cancellations are decided three business days before the start date. If workshops must be cancelled due to insufficient enrollment, the entire class fee will be refunded by check, to your credit card, or Contemporary Craft account for future workshops.

Refund Policy: Student refund requests must be made at least three business days before a class begins. There will be a $25 cancellation fee. No refunds will be given without three-business days notice. Processing of refunds takes approximately three weeks.

If you require accessibility accommodations, please let us know by calling 412.261.7003 and we are happy to assist you.

About the Author

Dr. Sheila K Collins is a grief advocate, improvisational artist, and dancing social worker. A froemr professional dancer and social work professor, she founded the Wing & A Preyer Pittsburgh Players, in Interplay-based performance troupe after she came to Pittsburgh in 2006. She brings her latest best-selling book, The Art of Grieving: How the Arts and Artmaking Help Us Grieve and Live Our Best Lives to the gallery in support of the role art and artmaking can play in metabolizing grief.

Host or Publisher Contemporary Craft