Join Intuit for Art After Work, a free series of facilitated art-making workshops inspired by outsider and self-taught art and artists from the museum’s collections and exhibitions. This month, Intuit Fellow and interdisciplinary artist and educator Abena Motaboli will facilitate a workshop inspired by self-taught artist Scottie Wilson. In the in-person workshop titled “If memories were lines –,” participants will draw inspiration from Wilson’s thematic style and reflect, discuss and be guided on themes surrounding their younger selves, connection to space and memory.
Materials at Intuit
- Natural materials: Coffee grounds, turmeric, indigo leaf powder, matcha green tea, iron supplement tablets*, honey and hibiscus
- Watercolor paper
- Paintbrushes / sponges for texture
- Jars / cups of water
- Painting palettes for inks
- Paper towels
- Gloves
- Aprons
* Iron supplement tablets can irritate the skin; program facilitators will encourage participants to use gloves if they plan to make inks with this material.
Art After Work is for everyone, including beginners and people who say they “are not artists.” We can all be artists! It is a guided workshop, and instruction will begin at 5 p.m. in the museum’s performance space.
Please contact Courtney Thompson at courtney@art.org with questions related to accessibility accommodations or concerns about allergies to any of the natural materials used in the workshop.
Art After Work is free to join! To show your support to Intuit, please consider the pay-what-you-can option when you complete your reservation. Your contributions help ensure the sustainability of our public programs and support guest lecturers and teaching artists.
Please check your junk folder for event reminders. Unfortunately, these emails are sent there sometimes.
All Art After Work participants must follow the museum’s health and safety procedures. Intuit is closely monitoring COVID-19 guidelines established by local, state and federal authorities and will promptly share information that affects the event.
Art After Work is funded in part by the Alphawood Foundation, the Department of Cultural Affairs, Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, Illinois Arts Council Agency, Illinois Humanities, National Endowment for the Arts, Prince Charitable Trust, Terra Foundation for American Art, and individual donations from Intuit members and supporters.
Meet Abena Motaboli
Abena Motaboli is a Southern African-born educator, visual artist and writer based in Chicago. She grew up in Lesotho, a landlocked country in Southern Africa, before moving to the U.S., where she obtained her bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts at Columbia College Chicago and L’institut Catholique de Paris in Paris, France. Her practice is interdisciplinary, performative and experimental. She is inspired by plants, nature and our living world. Motaboli finds joy in using pigments of the earth, working with flowers, learning about the plants around her and creating art from ephemeral materials. She is also interested in looking at history through reading the land and stories told by plants such as tea and coffee, while deeply listening to them. Her use of tea stems back to her childhood, where she grew up surrounded by numerous tea ceremonies and storytelling with visitors over tea.