High school students have the opportunity to win one of five, $500 college scholarships through participation in one of the fine arts workshops at Tusculum College’s Old Oak Festival on Friday, April 17. The workshops will include digital media, playwriting, drawing, flash fiction, poetry, acting, papermaking, music theory and song writing, music improvisation and music business.
The digital media workshop will be an introductory to intermediate level workshop focused on the professional use of Adobe Photoshop. Projects will include working with high frequency separation for photo retouch and photo repair, achieving high quality looks with low quality pictures, and using Basic Digital Illustration techniques. Sam Crowe, visiting professor of fine arts, will be hosting the workshop and will provide all files. Space is limited to 15 participants only.
The playwriting workshop will be located in the Behan Arena, below the Annie Hogan Byrd Theater, and will be taught by Wayne Thomas, interim dean of the School of Arts and Sciences and associate professor of English, and Forrest Richards, who has performed in many prestigious venues around the country. Participants will have the opportunity to work on scripts together with the help of senior college playwrights.
Ashley Gregg, a senior art major at Tusculum, will host the drawing workshop focused on the elements and principles of compositional balance, form and shape. It will be located at the Shulman Center, and participants in this workshop will create still life images using charcoal.
The flash fiction workshops will consist of a brief lecture, and the participants will have the opportunity to complete a full flash fiction piece. This will be taught by Jan Matthews, the author of the fiction chapbook, “Hush,” and will be located in the Hurley Room in the cafeteria with the contemporary poetry workshop, which will be taught by Dr. Clay Matthews, assistant professor of English and author of three poetry collections.
Frank Mengel, Arts Outreach technical director, and Brian Ricker, assistant director of the Arts Outreach program, will teach an acting workshop located in the Behan Arena, beneath the Annie Hogan Byrd Theater.
The papermaking workshop, which will be located in the ceramics studio in Rankin House, will be taught by 2014 graduate Kate Kolodi. Rankin House is the house next to the Whistle Stop and Three Blind Mice.
Jack Furnari will host both the music theory and song writing, and the music improvision and music business workshops. These classes will both be held in the choir room, which is downstairs in the Annie Hogan Byrd Fine Arts Center. Furnari holds two music degrees from UT Knoxville, He is a band director, a full time private teacher and a woodwind instrument repairman.
Morning workshops will be held from 9-11 a.m., and afternoon workshops will run from 12:30-2:30 p.m. The workshops are free and materials and lunch are provided. To sign up or for more information, contact Jan Matthews, assistant professor of English, at jmatthews@tusculum.edu.