Visual Arts | International Center for the Arts

Learn to create mosaics—the most enduring form of pictorial art with a master of the medium – in a country renowned for some of the most spectacular examples of mosaic art.

In this hands-on course, Rick Shelley will demonstrate the methods of mosaic production. Students will shape stone, glass, and ceramic into tesserae for their projects. Experiment with glues and cements to adhere tesserae onto the wooden panels provided. One class will concentrate on working with the beautiful and traditional practice of gold leafing glass. Using this simple, but remarkable technique, color of extraordinary depth is possible. A truly remarkable medium! Students will be encouraged to design and execute several small mosaics. The focus will be on form, outlines, shadows, and highlights. Simple images, letters, or symbols are ideal subjects.

The International Center for the Arts provides the perfect atmosphere to experience the mosaic arts. Surrounded by the Italian countryside, the studio at Monte Castello di Vibio is an oasis in which to work and learn. The course combines intensive instruction with excursions to nearby mosaic treasures. Roman mosaics, Byzantine mosaics, and contemporary mosaics will be studied for inspiration – and experienced in person! Our goal is to enjoy and create beautiful mosaics while being immersed in this wondrous experience.

All the while, participants will be housed in the remarkably well-preserved Umbrian hill town of Monte Castello di Vibio. Your workshop package is all-inclusive, providing welcome and departure services and airport transfer from the Rome Fiumicino, Leonardo Da Vinci Airport (FCO). Aboard our comfortable private bus, single occupancy accommodations with shared bath (a wide range of upgrades with private bath are available), 3 meals per day Monday-Thursday, Prosecco brunch and dinner on Saturday and Sunday (no meals are served on Friday, our excursion day. Your workshop includes one excursion per week and many additional options are available on weekends for an additional fee. Of course, 24/7 access to facilities and 24/7 bi-lingual support are provided. All supplies are included. The course will include visits to Florence and Rome and while in Rome will visit the Vatican Museums.Finally, as an additional excursion, we will visit Orvieto’s splendid medieval cathedral to see the exterior mosaics and interior frescos.

Our Mosaics in Italy with Rick Shelley workshop is a rare opportunity to study with a master of the medium in a country renowned for some of its greatest examples. All the while, participants will enjoy a rare immersion in traditional culture, enjoy incredible views made possible by our mountaintop location, delight in gourmet and traditional food prepared fresh by expert chefs from fresh, locally sourced ingredients all accompanied by excellent local wine (or optional selections from our wonderful Wine List, for an additional fee). It is a rare experience, available to only 10 participants.

In a workshop led by one of the world-renowned masters of the traditional medium of fresco - iLia Anossov, instructs participants in the basic concepts and techniques of the medium. The course will focus on classic fresco techniques while studying the details of both wall and panel preparation and sgraffito techniques.

Here in Italy, a nation perhaps most famous for this art form, participants will have the added benefit of excursions to cities that are home to the world’s greatest examples of fresco in the company of a master of the medium! Excursions to Florence, will visit the works of artists of the Florentine Renaissance, including: Masaccio, Fra Angelico, Botticelli, and many more!

In the second week of the course, our Rome excursion will allow the unforgettable experience of viewing the Sistine Chapel ceiling by Michelangelo as well as other works that adorn the Vatican.

In addition, students will further their understanding of the perspective, value range principals, and the verdaccio underpainting and its consequent effect on the painting process.

In the course of the two-week workshop, students will create one small-scale work, individually exploring the sgraffito technique and one group “fresco bodega” project, an eight by four-foot, wall fresco in the buon fresco technique, which will be adorned with classic sgraffito elements. Students will explore classic techniques of buon fresco, sgraffito, preparatory stages and final wall painting stage.

Our Fresco Workshop with iLia Anossov is a rare opportunity for study with a renowned master of the medium in a country renowned for it. All the while, participants will enjoy a rare immersion in traditional culture, enjoy incredible views made possible by our mountaintop location, delight in gourmet and traditional food prepared fresh by expert chefs from fresh, locally sourced ingredients all accompanied by excellent local wine (or optional selections from our wonderful Wine List, for an additional fee). It is a rare experience, available to only 10 participants.

All materials for the course – including a set of fresco brushes – are included. Also included is Fresco School Membership and a 5-volume video tutorial on Fresco painting by the master!

August 4 - August 25, 2019

In this two week workshop, painter Richard Hart will explore with participants the creation of collaged works that employ a variety of techniques on canvas, linen and other textiles, including figurative painted elements drawn from the natural beauty of Monte Castello di Vibio and surrounds; the use of fabric dyes and water based paints; the use of cyanotype printing and photosensitive inks; as well as the incorporation of off-the-shelf printed textiles.

We will embrace chance and experimentation as we follow curiosity and intuition into unknown creative territory. Once each participant has created a small inventory of textiles and painted elements, we will begin sewing pieces together to create at least one 60 cm x 80 cm collage, which will then be critiqued and hung for exhibit at the end of the session.

This workshop will encourage participants to experiment and move beyond their creative comfort zones. We will actively pursue joy in new modes of mark-making, unexpected color combinations and happy accidents. And once our raw material has been made, we will combine elements with great care (or reckless abandon!) paying attention to considerations including composition, balance, color relationships, scale and juxtaposition.

All this while absorbing the incredible environment and landscape of Monte Castello di Vibio and Umbria, whose eternal richness continues to inspire artists, writers and thinkers worldwide. The workshop will include two Friday trips where we will view millennia of artistic expression in the forms of painting, drawing and architecture (not to mention, fashion).

For more information, contact us.

Amy Weiskopf and Xico Greenwald will co-teach a two-week summer still life painting workshop open to artists of all levels, from beginner to advanced. Instruction will be tailored to individual students within the group. Participants will be able to work from classroom still life arrangements put together by the instructors and also have the option of assembling their own still life arrangements in a private studio space. Still life objects can be obtained during trips to local Umbrian produce stands. This session will include evening art lectures, group discussions, and day-trips to visit Museo Morandi and nearby early renaissance masterworks by Piero della Francesca. Students can also take advantage of unstructured time to explore the Umbrian countryside.

For more information, contact us.

Throughout its history, printmaking has been used to tell stories, whether in partnership with a written text or through images that stand alone. In this course you will draw inspiration from narrative traditions in Italian art and from a personally significant myth, poem, or story. Printmakers and graphic storytellers Ursula West Minervini and Jonathan Poliszuk will guide you in creating of a series of prints that explore a text of your choosing. Friday trips to Rome and to the Fabriano Museum of Paper and Watermark will inspire us and deepen our understanding of illustrative imagery and printmaking in the history of Italian art.

We will study two printmaking techniques in which bright marks are pulled from a dark ground: Reductive Monotype and Woodcut. You will work in monotype to explore broadly and develop your ideas, choose one or more images to develop more purposefully in woodcut, and then combine the techniques to create expressive, colorful images.

Monotypes are unique prints. In reductive monotype a plate is coated with a layer of printing ink and light tones are scraped, dabbed, or brushed away to create a luminous, gestural image, which is printed by hand or with a press. The process is superficially similar to drawing or painting, but the image undergoes a transformation in the transfer of ink from a prepared plate onto printing paper. Working in monotype invites exploration, risk-taking, and an openness to surprise and discovery.

Woodcut is perhaps the oldest form of printmaking, and is inextricably linked with the history of books and illustration. The surface of a woodblock is inked and printed after carving away all but the intended design. The carving process is meditative and purposeful, and many identical or varying impressions can be produced from a single carved block. The technique lends itself to bold, graphic expression, but is also capable of producing subtle textures and intricate detail.

In our first week, you will begin by working rapidly through a series of reductive monotypes, boldly exploring multiple aspects of your chosen text. Through this exploration, you will arrive at themes and compositions that you wish to work with more purposefully, and undertake the design and carving of one or more woodcuts.

In the second week Ursula and Jonathon will guide you through the nuances of the printing process. You will create editions, explore layered color printing, and combine techniques in prints that meld the graphic impact of woodcut with the expressive fluidity of monotype. The class will culminate in a group show in which students will present their new body of work.

For more information, contact us.

Where we live, visit, and create can be a great source of inspiration. In this workshop we will view our surroundings with visitor’s eyes and make note of the details that appeal to us and draw us in. We will translate those details, from mundane to exceptional, (a window, archway, flower, fruit, bottle, hat, etc.) into simple repeatable images using stencils, block prints, and image transfers. You will learn surface design techniques including printing, stitching, mending, embroidery, collage, and dyeing and painting with local earth pigments, etc. Our richly layered papers and fabric will be made into books, scrolls, wall pieces, vessels, bags, and objects. Jody will teach students a number of bookmaking and paper structure techniques as well as how to construct items out of fabric including books, bags, pockets, vessels and other objects. By the end of the workshop each of us will have a different but cohesive collection of richly layered items communicating a sense of place that will be arranged into personal installations.

Field trips will serve as source material and inspiration gathering expeditions as well as personal enrichment. Trips will include visits to Florence and Rome.

For more information, contact us.

The International Center for the Arts is proud to announce a Masterclass with renowned wood-sculptor Bruno Walpoth. Known for the uncanny presence of an internal presence, his lifelike sculptures have been regarded as possessing an almost metaphysical presence: “Bruno Walpoth’s work proves how strong the spell is; his statues are not objects, rather almost animate creations with souls, their feelings bare for the viewer to see.”

The two-week intensive requires experience in working from the human figure on a life-sized scale, as well as at least two years of experience in working with wood. Those interested in admission should provide a C.V. and Artists Statement, as well as 10-20 images of work demonstrating a degree of proficiency in these areas. Participation in the Masterclass is limited to 8.

Participants will be provided with a select log of walnut and worksurface, but must provide their own chisels, rasps, and mallet – although these tools will also be available in our art supply store. The group will be provided with a model and working intensely each participant will produce a life -sized bust. As part of the class, the group will make an excursion to Florence in order to study wooden sculpture in various collections. An optional trip to the National Gallery of Umbria, in Perugia will be available as well.

For more information, contact us.

August 15–29, 2021

We present a unique opportunity to master the two different ways of pursuing street photography. We shall call them “Fishing” and “Hunting”, and they depend on one’s self and the circumstances you face when trying to photograph strangers in the street.

Fishing implies patience, effort, offering something to the other, a way of seduction, a slow pace approach to people that interest you, convincing them to voluntarily and even happily allow you to shoot their image.

Dominique will teach you how to overcome the fear of approaching strangers asking for a photo, how to empathize with them, how to connect with your subjects, creating a friendly atmosphere and avoiding negative reactions. As a result, you will not only get better portraits but also have fun and make new friends.

Hunting means jumping at the occasion to get a candid photo as a testimony of reality, capturing the image without being seen, stealing them in a way, seeing without being seen.

Ximena will teach you how to navigate a hectic world where we look but often don’t see, to immerse yourself in a quasi-meditative-contemplative state to sharpen your gaze to discover and portray details that escape us. How to use photography as a way to slow down one’s mind, connect with the landscape, others and yours, anticipating events through conscious observation, allowing you to capture the decisive moment. As a result, you capture unforgettable images but also better understand yourself in the process.

The end result of this workshop is to help each participant master the different tools that allow you to find or perfect your own photographic style; and to improve and develop your street photography by adapting it to different contexts.

At the end of this workshop, the best images of the participants will be printed and exhibited in ICA’s gallery with a gallery opening.

For more information, contact us.

Keep Up With ICA & Village of Monte Castello di Vibio