Meaningful Marks: Contemporary Painting Workshop:

Meaningful Marks is a contemporary painting workshop, wherein you will learn contemporary painting techniques, theory, and principles while exploring the power of marks to convey meaning and emotion in your artwork. In this course, you will create three paintings that build on the skills and concepts covered in class. We will discuss how color theory, composition, and mark-making techniques affect the concepts, emotions and meaning in your paintings. You will experiment with different materials and tools, such as brushes, palette knives, and mixed media, to further develop your unique style and visual language. In addition, we will discuss conceptual approaches to painting and workshop how we communicate ideas and express emotions through our visual languages. By the end of this course, you will have a solid understanding of contemporary painting techniques and concepts, as well as the confidence and skills to continue exploring and creating meaningful artwork.

Erlin Geffrard is a painter based in Philadelphia, PA. Most of his work is mixed media painting with a variety of styles.Ranging from family portraits, to images derived from imagination. Using new, and repurposed materials in rhythmic combinations. His Current series explores the connections between family memory, ritual and popular culture. 

Erlin has had solo shows at Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, The Armory Show Booth F19 in New York, Allentown Museum, SWIM Gallery in San Francisco, CA, ICA in Philadelphia, PA, and at the Philadelphia Contemporary Museum, among others. In 2021 Erlin was artist in residence at Bedstuy Residency in New York ,NY. He graduated with his MFA from University of Pennsylvania and has his BFA from San Francisco Art Institute.

This is the first time Erlin Geffrard is teaching Meaningful Marks: contemporary painting workshop with the Alternative Art School

Office Hours: TBA

***ALL Classes include FREE & Continuous Membership Access to our virtual Campus Programming
** Payment Plans Available

Professional Practice: The Pursuit of Authenticity in the Arts
with Epiphany Couch
What does it mean to be an artist today? How do we navigate the changing art landscape? How do we seek opportunities that feel authentic to our goals as artists and creators? This course blends playful exploration with practical skill-building to provide artists with the tools and insights needed to navigate their artistic journey with authenticity, integrity, purpose, and resilience. Through engaging discussions, hands-on exercises, and case studies, participants will emerge with an understanding of how to authentically thrive in the complex and dynamic landscape of the contemporary art scene. Together we’ll tackle topics like project management, new technology, arts writing, and more.

Office Hours: Fridays 12:30 – 1:30pm EST

***ALL Classes include FREE & Continuous Membership Access to our virtual campus Programming called Student Life
** Payment Plans Available
Epiphany Couch is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores generational knowledge, storytelling, and our connection to the metaphysical. By recontextualizing traditional mediums such as bookmaking, photography, and sculpture, she looks to present new ways through which we can examine our pasts, the natural world, and our ancestors. Couch’s work is unapologetically personal, drawing from family stories, her childhood experience, archival research, and her own dreams. She utilizes the book not only as a format through which to share these stories but as a precious object — intimate and heirloom-like.

 Couch is of Yakama, Puyallup, and Scandinavian lineage and grew up in the community of the Puyallup Tribe of Indians in Tacoma Washington. She earned her BFA in Sculpture with a minor in Asian Studies from The University of Puget Sound in 2010. Her work has been shown at Carnation Contemporary in Portland OR, Gallery Ost in New York City, and Studio Editions Gallery in Seattle WA. In 2022 she received the Jurors Choice Award for her work included in the Around Oregon Annual at The Arts Center in Corvallis, Oregon. Currently, she lives in Portland, Oregon where she works as a freelance writer and studio assistant to artist Wendy Red Star.

Epiphany Couch is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and arts project manager. Her artwork explores generational knowledge, storytelling, and our connection to the metaphysical. By re-contextualizing classic mediums such as bookmaking, beadwork, photography, and collage, she presents new ways to examine our pasts, the natural world, and our ancestors. Couch’s work is unapologetically personal, drawing from family stories, her childhood experience, archival research, and her own dreams. She utilizes a multidisciplinary approach to create images and sculptural works that hold space for reflection, transforming from mere things into precious objects — intimate and heirloom-like.

Couch is spuyaləpabš (Puyallup), Yakama, and Scandinavian and grew up in caləłali (Tacoma, Washington). Her work has been shown at Carnation Contemporary in Portland OR, Gallery Ost in New York City, and Yuan Ru Gallery in Bellevue WA. In 2022 and 2023 she received the Jurors Choice Award for her work included in the Around Oregon Biennial at The Arts Center in Corvallis, Oregon. She lives and works in Portland, Oregon, and is a member of Carnation Contemporary Gallery.

Maximum Magic Intensive is a two week online art intensive for contemporary artists. In this class, artists will get feedback on their art through various exchanges and explore their art practice’s connection with magic. From smoke & mirrors to spirits & mysticism, this course will be engaging all kinds of magical arts in relation to diverse creative practices, historical developments, and current cultural expressions. To provide a foundation and context for our studio-based endeavors, we will be actively experimenting with, and blurring the lines between, various interpretations of magic vis-à-vis science & sorcery, metaphysics & aesthetics, social engagement & ritual, and plenty of other enchanting topics. In this workshop, artists will get feedback on their art through various exchanges and explore their art practice’s connection with magic.

Aaron Gach’s diverse artistic practice consistently addresses public concerns, social politics, and power dynamics. Inspired by studies with a private investigator, a magician, and a ninja, he established the Center for Tactical Magic in 2000. This collaborative authoring framework is dedicated to the coalescence of art, magic, and creative tactics for encouraging positive social change. Although the collaborations take many different forms, the work is largely the result of creative partnerships with a wide array of individuals and organizations, including hypnotists, biologists, engineers, activists, nurses, military intelligence officers, journalists, radical ecologists, former bank robbers, security experts, street vendors, community organizers, and many others. His work has been presented by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art; Hayward Gallery, London; Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Vigo, Spain; Deutsches Theater, Berlin; and a major public commission for the City of Toronto. In addition to teaching at TAAS, Aaron Gach has taught courses in Community Art, Street Media, Art & Magic, Collaborative Practices, and 4D Art at the University of California Santa Cruz, Stanford University, the San Francisco Art Institute, and currently at California College of the Arts. This is the third time Aaron is teaching Maximum Magic Intensive at TAAS.