Good Afternoon Makers!
I am trying to see if there would be interest in starting a Visual Arts committee with the end goal of creating a Visual Arts Area/Lab/Gallery for the space. Anyone with interests in watercolor, acrylic, or oil painting along with papercraft (origami, scrapbooking, mache), polymer clay sculpting, resin working, sketching, charcoal, pastels, street art (spray can painting) or calligraphy please toss your name and area of interest below.
Thank you.
That sounds awesome. I would love to help if I can.
It was my understanding that the gallery committee was for displaying of art/works of makers. My intent is to have a dedicated art space for the above operations.
If ink and graphite were acceptable…
Why not?
We’re wanting to have a Visual Arts Area to further grow MakeICT and benefit members. Members who want to work on wood have the woodshop to go to. Members who want to throw a pot have ceramics. Members who want to 3d print have the Fablab. But members who want a place to sit and paint/sketch, pour resin, work with polymer clay, scrapbook, etc., don’t have a dedicated storage and space to work. Those members usually have to check the calendar to see which classrooms are open. Not having a Visual Arts Area deters many members from working on these things at MakeICT.
Please let us know if you’d like to join the committee so that we can work together to achieve this. 
I was pretending it was thurough. It was not. Comic artistry is its own subset. Manga and old school animation by cells can also fall into Visual Arts.
I’ve been wanting a place to do resin work, but you’d need a well-ventilated area that doesn’t get too hot or cold and respirators to wear while working in it.
If you put your thing outside to cure, you have to worry about heat preventing it from curing as well as bugs flying into it, though there are nets/tents you can get to prevent that.
For polymer clay you’d want some kind of dedicated oven— nothing fancy. A toaster oven would do just fine.
For charcoal, painting, etc. you’d ideally want a sink, and some easels.
Plain ol’ drawing/inking would only need paper and pens/pencils/markers.
(All of the above assuming the availability of space. and flat surfaces to work on, which are the biggest deal of course.)
Ooh ooh…and mini painting! How about space for that?
The ideas floated currently are working with low-to-no odor resins like the UV resins used in jewelry (or nail salons for that matter) and more friendly versions of deep pour.
Space wise there is a good idea being floated around, but the bylaws require a committee to form and a chair/lead be appointed before space can be allocated. There is already a sizeable stock of easels and painting material ready to be donated if we can get this going, and i have volunteered my time to creating new wooden benches for the area as well. Just need to go through formal steps.
Painting, drawing/sketching, clay, resin supplies all awaiting donation once we have space.
If room 4 had temp control and door access control, I’d be willing to host free resin workshops. (BYOS)
Im going to set up a meeting time for interested parties this coming Monday from 6-7p in Classroom 1. I’ll also set up a remote meeting and link it to this thread. If none of the options work for you but you’re interested in joining please direct message me or post here saying so.
Im interested. Ernie
Room 4 does have climate control. Why would you need door access?
I didnt realize room 4 had ac; it always seemed so hot in that room when i go to the garden area. Until last sunday, I actually hadn’t been to the space in a couple months due to the dangerously high temps in the woodshop. Glad to know an unused storage room now has an air conditioning unit installed.
That room has needed door access control for a long time, with the traffic to/from the garden. But if we’re storing several hundred dollars worth of chemicals and materials, i dont feel comfortable at all with some cheap bolt lock and a camera protecting anything i would leave in that room.
Its not an unused storage room. It is a classroom filled with junk.
