Museum offers classes to enliven winter

March 9, 2007

BY DIMITRA LAVRAKAS

Frontiersman

It's been windy and chilly here so much so over the past months, that people have just holed up in their homes.

Well, the Palmer Museum of Art and History has come to the rescue with a series of art workshops that are packing the basement of its log cabin on South Valley Way.

Last week, 15 people crowded around long tables, surrounded by displays of Palmer's and the Matanuska Valley's early pioneering years.

Instructor Barbara Bach is with the Art Department at the Mat-Su Community College.

She has practiced sumi-e for years and explains its meditative approach to the class. Brought to China circa 200 AD, it encourages discipline and concentration by the repetition of brush strokes.

“When I start a piece, I meditate on my day ,” Bach said.

Breathing is important too, she said, you can't do Sumi-e while holding one's breath.

It's all about flow. And keeping your entire arm in play - no fair if your elbows are on the table.

Piece after piece of practice paper floated to the floor as the morning progressed through the strokes of stems, nodes and leaves.

Never has so much been done with so few strokes. That's what's so fascinating about sumi-e.

The sumi-e class continues continues on Saturday, 10 a.m.-noon, and costs $15.

Also at the museum: March 23 and 24, 9 a.m.-5 p.m., there's a wall pocket antler basket workshop with Jill Choate, $95; March 15-16 is spring break, but there's a two-day mosaic art workshop, 10 a.m.-3 p.m., with Karen Urroz, $70 for adults and $25 for kids; and April 4, 10 a.m.-noon and 1-3 p.m., Gail Moses will present an Easter-themed polymer clay workshop with Gail Moses for ages 8 and up, and the cost is $22 each session.

Contact Dimitra Lavrakas at 352-2269 or valleylife@frontiersman.com.