Making holiday magic can sometimes feel like an exercise in chaos, with endless to-do lists, crowded stores, and the pressure to maintain traditions that make everything special. Layer into that a job and family responsibilities, and it can be enough to make you want to pull the covers over your head. This year, resolve to embrace a slower, cozier type of holiday season – one filled with handmade gifts that show friends and family they matter enough to receive a giver’s love, time, and creativity. Going handmade is also economically sound, environmentally friendly, and likely to be cherished forever rather than tossed in a landfill with last year’s latest gadget. The best part? You don’t have to be accomplished to create something meaningful – in the East Bay, myriad art centers make artistic expression accessible to beginners, whether crafting a gift or uncovering what could be a lifelong passion.
Jan Burling, the education coordinator at Portsmouth Art Guild, says her goal is to bring the arts to people no matter their skill level. She’s looking forward to starting 2025 strong with a mix of classes geared toward beginners and advanced artists interested in a variety of different media. “We cover a range of interests,” she says, “and it’s terrific to introduce beginners to the art scene.”
Her goal is to entice people to try something new in the hopes that they’ll continue to pursue it as a hobby or fall in love with the community at the studio and try something else. The Portsmouth Art Guild has several standard classes, punctuated by pop-ups and workshops. “We’re very blessed with awesome instructors,” Burling says before highlighting a bookbinding class that took place in November. “Some of our workshop instructors – like the bookbinding instructor – are invited to come back year after year, and their class becomes a tradition for people. Students who take that class come away with something they’re proud to give as a gift.”
The guild has strong relationships with local artists and, last year, invited some of them to do free art demos for those interested. It was a popular program that Burling hopes to continue in 2025. Community members are also invited to open studio hours, and in the warmer months, painters gather outside at agreed-upon locations to paint en plein air, or outdoors. Children and young adults can take advantage of classes geared toward them as well. “We had a class for mothers and daughters called Paint Your Dessert and Eat it, Too,” Burling says. “We had all ages join the workshop. One mother was 80!”
Elizabeth Springett, owner at Woven Seas, a makerspace and teaching studio for weavers, says she also has plenty of retirees in her shop learning a new craft, but not exclusively so. Springett is a textile designer who worked in fashion and furniture fabric for years before building a place of her own. “I needed a place to zen out, and weaving does that for me,” she says her colorful studio in Warren’s Handkerchief Factory. “Weaving requires you to concentrate. It slows you down and doesn’t allow you to think of other things.”
Woven Seas rents looms by the month to experienced weavers working on a project. “Once a loom is yours, it must remain yours until the project is complete,” Springett explains. She also teaches a beginner month-long weaving workshop and her popular Make and Take classes where she teaches students how to make a tea towel they can take home that day and give as a thoughtful and personal gift.
Laura Travis, a stone carver who says teaching is in her bones, was a high school art teacher when she first took classes in her craft and fell in love with it. Now she teaches sandstone and limestone carving to students ages 16 and older at the Newport Art Museum, the Jamestown Art Center, the Blackstone River Theatre in Cumberland, and Watson Farm in Jamestown. She also has a studio in Warren that people can visit by appointment.
Travis says she applies a proven strategy to teaching that ensures success for her students. “I break it into some pretty basic things,” she says. “We work on a subject or design idea before starting to carve. We keep pieces on a small scale so they can be completed. In the end, people are often surprised at how nice their art comes out.”
Travis teaches relief carving, which means that designs appear to protrude from the stone, as opposed to carving in the round, which results in a 3D object. “Students can plan stylistic or abstract designs, then pull the design from the surface,” she says, describing the simpler stone-carving technique.
She explains that holding the carving tools properly so they can be used effectively is the most challenging aspect of learning to carve. “Even people who have done other kinds of carving discover that the tools are just a little bit different,” she says. “But they’re some of the simplest, oldest tools that have ever been invented. And there’s something satisfying about that.”
Whether you’re crafting a DIY keepsake for friends and family or gifting yourself the pursuit of a new creative hobby, these East Bay art centers hosting classes are a great place to start.
Sign up for workshops like holiday card making, colored pencil drawing, and a variety of classes that teach different watercolor techniques. BristolArtMuseum.org
Learn stone carving under the careful guidance of a pro at a variety of venues throughout Rhode Island and beyond. Warren, LauraTravisCarving.com
Students at all levels can take watercolor classes, in addition to bookbinding and figure drawing. In the warmer months, students gather to paint outdoors. PortsmouthArts.org
Children and adults alike are welcome to participate in painting and drawing classes at this arts center perfect for beginners. Bristol, InsideOutStudioWorkshop.com
Along with learning the basics of weaving, Make and Take workshops let students create their own giftable items, from tea towels to holiday gnomes. Warren, WovenSeas.com
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