Wesleyan University's Davison Art Center presents fifth annual "The Big Draw: Middletown" on Saturday April 16
"The Big Draw: Middletown"
Free drawing workshops for all ages on
Saturday, April 16, 2016 from 1pm to 4pm
Middletown, Conn.—The Friends of the Davison Art Center present "The Big Draw: Middletown," the fifth annual community celebration of drawing with workshops designed for all skill levels, from beginning drawers to accomplished artists, on Saturday, April 16, 2016 from 1pm to 4pm at four locations across the Wesleyan University campus in Middletown, including the Davison Art Center (301 High Street); the Center for the Arts (283 Washington Terrace); Fayerweather Beckham Hall (55 Wyllys Avenue); and the Usdan University Center (45 Wyllys Avenue). The event is free and open to the public: adults, students, and children ages five and up. Registration will take place on campus the day of the event. The event will take place rain or shine.
"The Big Draw: Middletown" will include nine workshops, facilitated by professors and students from Wesleyan University's Art Studio Program in the Department of Art and Art History. The wide range of activities will include developing narrative through drawing, drawing with inked feet to music, drawing from elaborate still lives of taxidermy and skeletons, using giant Spirograph-style drawing tools, face painting, and more. Drawing study of nude models will be open to adults, and minors with parental permission.
This year, "The Big Draw: Middletown" also features a special Koinobori Project workshop led by Japanese artist Taichiro Takamatsu, who founded the project in 2012, and has led workshops creating carp flags in Australia, Austria, Germany, Japan, Kenya, Sri Lanka, and Uganda. This will be the United States premiere of the Koinobori Project, which is inspired by a Chinese folktale about a carp which was the only fish to succeed in swimming up a waterfall on the Yellow River. For his success, the carp was magically transformed into a dragon. The story symbolizes the carp’s courage, perseverance, and accomplishment; and in Japanese culture it has come to represent the wish for the wellbeing of children. On May 5, the tradition in Japan is to fly flags in the image of a carp to celebrate children and express hope for their success. The flags created at "The Big Draw: Middletown" workshop will later fly during the "Feet to the Fire: Riverfront Encounter" festival, organized by Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts, on Saturday, May 7, 2016. For more information about the "Feet to the Fire: Riverfront Encounter" festival, please visit http://wesleyan.edu/cfa/riverfront.
For more information about "The Big Draw: Middletown," including more workshop details and a map of drawing sites, please visit http://fdac.wesleyan.edu/bigdraw.
"The Big Draw" is modeled after the successful British program that promotes interactive activities designed to celebrate the visual arts.
"The Big Draw: Middletown" is organized and hosted by the Friends of the Davison Art Center, with grant support from the Middletown Commission on the Arts; and special funding for the Koinobori Project from the Community Foundation for Middlesex County in conjunction with the Center for the Arts "Feet to the Fire: Riverfront Encounter." Gold Sponsors include Blick Art Material, Community Health Center, Connecticut Yoga Center, and Middletown Framing. Silver Sponsors include It’s Only Natural, Kidcity Children’s Museum, Middletown Toyota, Mondo Pizza, Munkittrick Associates, Nobul Apparel, Tesoro Artisan Gift Boutique and Gallery, and Ursel’s Web. Additional support provided by Wesleyan University's Arts and Humanities Division, Davison Art Center, Department of Art and Art History, and the College of East Asian Studies.
The Davison Art Center was established at Wesleyan University with the founding gifts of George W. Davison (B.A. Wesleyan 1892). Today, it holds approximately 18,000 prints and 6,000 photographs in one of the foremost collections of prints and photographs at an American college or university. The Friends of the Davison Art Center have been devoted to the growth and public enjoyment of the collection since its founding in 1962. Their primary mission is to expand and promote the Davison Art Center collection at Wesleyan University through a wide variety of events for both its members and the greater community. Davison Art Center gallery hours are Tuesday through Sunday from Noon to 4pm. The gallery is open to the public free of charge. The exhibition "Philip Trager: Photographing Ina" features 40 works by the internationally renowned photographer. For more information about the exhibition, please call (860) 685-2500 or visit http://www.wesleyan.edu/dac.