Carnegie Art Center presents a series of professional development workshops for individual artists designed to provide techniques and strategies for addressing current issues faced by contemporary artists.  These workshops present topics which offer tools and skills to meet the challenges of succeeding in today's ever-changing arts and cultural environment. Each workshop has been designed to empower artists to strengthen and expand their resources as well as to provide professional networking opportunities.

Using Digital Cameras
May 7, 14 and 21, 2008
Instructor: Lisa Langer
at Pencil in the River Studio, Inc.
83 Webster Street, North Tonawanda
Wednesdays, 7-9:30 pm
Fee: $50 members of Carnegie Art Center / $60 non-members

A beginner’s class on how to use a digital camera to get the best images possible. Designed for artists who own a digital camera or those who are about to buy one. Information covered includes an explanation the many options available on cameras and how and when to use those options. Functions, menus and digital terminology are all explored in an easy to follow non-pressured environment.

Class size limited to 12 students.

Lisa Langer is owner and operator of Pencil in the River Studio, Inc. She is a multi-media professional artist with over 25 years of experience in production, traffic, and project management in advertisement and photography for business.

(Download Registration Form)

Fundamentals of Web Design
May 3rd and 10th
Instructor: Jennifer Witkowski
at Pencil in the River Studio, Inc.
83 Webster Street, North Tonawanda
Saturdays, 10am-1:30pm
$50 members of Carnegie Art Center; $60 non-members

**Class is full - registration is closed.**

This class is an introduction to web design foundations directed toward those who consider themselves as expert computer users and browse the web on a daily basis. Assuming attendees are familiar with basic terms such as url, http, and www, this course will focus on simple web page design using basic HTML and CSS techniques utilizing Adobe Dreamweaver as a primary tool.

Topics covered include basic HTML and CSS, good vs. bad web design, usability, optimizing images for the web, and web hosting and maintenance. Prior knowledge of a photo editing software such as Picassa or Adobe Elements is a must. Users must also have experience using a menu-based program such as Microsoft Word.

Note: Dreamweaver will not be available for use outside the classroom unless users purchase the software or download a free, 30-day trial on their home desktops. Details will be provided on the first day of class.

Class size limited to 6 students.

Jennifer Witkowski is a web designer working in the Western New York Area. She completed her M.F.A. from RIT in Computer Graphics Design and has designed websites and interactive applications for clients nation wide.

**Class is full - registration is closed.**

Media Arts Curating
presented by Joanna Raczynska
Independent Curator, Filmmaker, and Administrator of the Fellowships for the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation
RESCHEDULED for Saturday, March 29, 2-4 pm
at Carnegie Art Center
Free

This work shop will focus on the methods and means for curating media arts exhibitions. Independent curator and filmmaker Joanna Raczynska (guest curator of three media arts exhibits and events at CAC) will draw on her own exhibition and distribution experiences in Buffalo and elsewhere. Topics covered include the initial concepts of a gallery exhibition versus one-time screenings or events, the review and selection of work, communication and collaboration with artists, as well as the nuts and bolts of development, promotion, installation, documentation, and de-installation of temporary exhibitions. A manual with these and other tips and observations will be available at the workshop.

Joanna Raczynska is a filmmaker, writer and curator who currently lives in Baltimore, MD. She’s worked as an arts manager for various non profit organizations for over ten years, and currently administers Fellowships for the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation. From 2002 until 2006 she was the media arts director and curator at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center in Buffalo, NY, where she worked closely with artists and organizations on the production and presentation of experimental and documentary work. She’s a producing member of Termite TV video collective and a founding member of the programming collective Stateless Cinema. Joanna earned her masters degree in documentary film production from the University of London in 2001. Her own short films and videos have been screened internationally and across the US.

(Download Registration Form)

Curating: Thinking It and Doing It
presented by John Massier
Visual Arts Curator, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center
Saturday, April 5, 2-4 pm
at Carnegie Art Center
Free

This seminar will discuss the practice of curating contemporary art. What’s it mean? What is its value? What are its implications and inferences for both audience and artist? We will discuss the various incarnations of curating, as exemplified by different contexts and venues. What is the difference between a curator ensconced at a venue and a curator functioning independently? How many different kinds of curators are there, anyway? And just how much power do they really wield?

The seminar will also address itself to the notion of artist-as-curator. Why should an artist don a curatorial guise? What’s in it for you? What about curating yourself into an exhibition? Is it a complicated endeavor to curate an exhibition? How might you go about it? Is artist/curator a schizoid identity or a valid pursuit?

In the end, we will attempt to widen your perspective about curatorial practices and suggest ways in which you might undertake the practice yourself.

Prior to joining the staff of Hallwalls in early 2001, John Massier was a curator and writer in Toronto for 13 years. Through the 1990s he worked at the Koffler Gallery where he curated more than 60 exhibitions of emerging and established Canadian artists. Since arriving at Hallwalls, he curated over 30 exhibitions featuring U.S. and international artists including Ester Partegás: Hollowmess, Lee Boroson: Lake Effect, Eliza Griffiths: 1995-2002, David Brody: Descent, Karen Henderson: Gallery Cameras, Lynn Cazabon: Story of M, as well as the group exhibitions Half The World Away: Drawings from Glasgow, Sydney, Sao Paulo, B-LIST: Brooklyn, Angst, and Desire, and Parallax Views: Art and the JFK Assassination, Carlo Cesta/Allen Topolski/Alfonso Volo, Jonesing, Suzy Lake, et al. John has written feature articles, profiles, and reviews for various galleries and visual art publications, including Canadian Art, MIX magazine, Coagula Art Journal, THIS magazine, The Buffalo News, and Art In America.  In 1997 he co-founded the local Toronto art magazine LOLA.

(Download Registration Form)

Fine Arts League Figure Drawing

Spring 2008 Schedule
Wednesdays, 12:30 - 3:30 pm
March 26 through May 28, 2008
at Carnegie Art Center

Please contact Penny Ferguson of the Fine Arts League at 716.692.1976 for more information about the figure drawing sessions.

Arts and Healing Network
This website includes a list of grants available to individual artists in a variety of artistic mediums. (Web Link)

Experimental Television Center
The Experimental Television Center provides support to electronic media and film artists and organizations in New York State to encourage creative work; to facilitate the exhibition of moving-image and sound art to audiences in all regions of the State; and to strengthen organizations with active media programs. Since 1989 we have awarded over $750,000 to organizations and artists. The program is made possible with support from the New York State Council on the Arts. (Web Link)

Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation
http://www.midatlanticarts.org
The Foundation is a regional organization of state agencies which offer programs that encourages exchanges and the sharing of resources within the region. Provides support through grants, technical assistance, and information to artists and arts organizations. (Web Link)

National Endowment for the Arts
The primary grantmaking foundation for arts organizations and individual artists in the United States. (Web Link)

New York Foundation for the Arts
NYFA serves artists with funding, information, advocacy, and fiscal sponsorship needs. NYFA Source, an on-line guide, is the most extensive national database of awards, services, and publications for artists of all disciplines. NYFA's Artist Fellowships are awarded on a competitive basis in sixteen disciplines or practices to artists in NYS. The $7000 fellowships in each discipline are available in alternate years. (Web Link)

New York State Artists Workspace Consortium
The New York State Artist Workspace Consortium is committed to making artist workspaces more visible, providing more workspace opportunities for artists, and creating a peer learning network. (Web Link)

New York Folklore Society
Self-Management for Folk Artists: A Guide for Traditional Artists and Performers in New York, by Patricia Atkinson Wells, is designed to assist traditional artists in managing and marketing themselves. You’ll find information here on writing biographical materials, assembling a press kit, starting a business, expanding your audience, as well as resources and contacts. (Web Link)

Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts
Provides free and low-cost legal assistance for artists and arts organizations state-wide. Researches and compiles data on legal issues affecting the arts community. (Web Link)

Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts
The Foundation has established two main programs: Summer Fellowships at the Saltonstall Arts Colony in Ithaca, New York, which provides New York state artists and writers with month-long residencies; and the Individual Artist Grants, providing financial assistance to artists in the central and western counties of New York. (Web Link)