You wouldn’t think Andy Warhol, one of the most famed pop-art icons known for his cool arts-centric, experimental series of creative, experimental NYC hubs dubbed “The Factory,” would be the person who comes to mind when you think about nature. Soup cans and movie stars? Yes! Woods and seaside vistas? Not so much.
But like so many artist before and after him, the Hamptons and the East End served as a place of inspiration and reflection for Warhol — and in October and November, his former estate in Montauk will do just that for budding local artists, too.
For four Saturdays this fall, the annual Andy Warhol Visual Arts Program, in partnership with the Nature Conservancy, will host a series of free three to five-hour classes focusing on a specific art techniques:
- Pleinair Drawing on Black Paper (Oct. 4) — a session learning to use colored pencils and watercolors to capture the wild landscape of Montauk, led by artist Art Werger.
- Shaping the Shoreline (Oct. 11) — harnessing the sounds of the shore by creating wind chimes, percussive pendants and other ornamental sound devices led by local ceramic artist Jessamyn Go.
- Colors of the Living World (Nov. 1) — using local plants to create paints and inks for art, led by artist Alia Knowlan.
- Observing Birds Through Art (Nov. 8) — using sketch, embroidery and fabric collage to capture bird life on the East End, led by fiber artist Eleanor Kagan.
Taking art beyond your basic live drawing courses, these four unique sessions occur on Warhol’s former 15-acre Montauk estate, now the Andy Warhol Preserve, which was gifted to the Nature Conservancy in 1992 and is rarely open to the public.
Warhol, who passed away at 58 years old in 1987, made sure to instruct his estate to create a foundation whose mission would be to support the visual arts, artists and the vital nature of freedom of artistic expression, which, according to the foundation’s mission statement, “is fundamental to an open and enlightened democracy and are committed to promoting and defending it.”
Add to that the availability and preservation of the East End’s precious natural resources, or as Warhol put it himself: “I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want to own.”
The classes are free of charge, but you must register in order to attend. Click here to sign up.
