Courses
Instructor(s)
- Geof Alm
- Meg McLynn
- Tory Franklin
- Winnie Westergard
- Beverly Poole
- Brad Taylor
- Daniel Goody
- Emilia Kister
- Nikki Rice
- Sarah Lavin
- Soo Hong
- Alia Swersky
- Dan Shafer
- Ellen Forney
- J. Gordon
- Leanna Keith
- Maja Sereda
- Majinn
- BC Campbell
- Charles Sheaffer
- Ian Bond
- Jessica Jobaris
- Kate Falconer
- Kevin Drake
- Kyungjin Kim (KJ)
- Lex Ramierez
- Paul Lebel
- Renee Plevy
- Robynne Raye
- Ruthie Dornfeld
- Silas Berlin
- Zorn Taylor
- Andrew Joslyn
- Barry Sebastian
- Brian Miller
- Brynne McGregor
- Carolyn Hall
- Casey Curran
- Chelsea Cook
- David Taylor Gomes
- Fumi Amano
- Jeff Brice
- Jimmy Shields
- Kate Jaeger
- Kelly Ash
- Kiné Camara
- Larry Calkins
- Lauren Boilini
- Lily Hotchkiss
- Lucie Baker
- Nicole Beerman
- Samar Abulhassan
- Sarah Bixler
- Zoe Crago
Beginning Welding
Sarah Lavin
I am energized by the spirited exchange of expression and ideas. I am a metal worker, sculptor and installation artist. I have always worked with my hands; gardening, farming, fabricating. I took my first metal working class at Pratt Fine Art Center nearly 25 years ago and went on to get a certificate in Welding/Fabrication at South Seattle Community College specializing in non-ferrous metals and blacksmithing.
I have been a metalworker in various industrial and artistic capacities ever since: I ran public art programs in SE Seattle high school and middle schools, as well as worked alongside established artists and builders. I have recently returned to Pratt teaching forging and welding for adults, families and and teens. I also teach at Burkehead Art Center and Coyote Central. I maintain a shop/art practice on our family farm amongst the goats in Woodinville, Wa.
Life & Still Life Drawing
J. Gordon
J. Gordon brings over two decades of experience as an artist, educator, and curator, to his classrooms. Gordon earned his BFA and MFA in painting from the University of Kansas and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts respectively. While his current professional practice centers primarily around the medium of drawing, he incorporates aspects of traditional and contemporary painterly practices in both his teaching methods and mixed media art works.
Gordon is a recipient of multiple scholarships and awards, as well an artist fellowship from the state of Delaware. He has taught drawing at many colleges, art centers, and museums including the Tacoma Art Museum and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He is currently represented by Gallery Strega, where he also plays a supporting role in exhibition design and curation.
Introduction to laser cutting for sculpture
Casey Curran
I find myself drawn to the foundation of things, to the root of their cause and the long cycle of their existence. It’s a fascination with structures laying between the very vast and the very small. A desire to see a system writ into the nature of things, defining every surface, every thought and idea. A simple piece of humanity laying somewhere between stars and bones, summoning the great and small triumphs of our innumerable endeavors.
Focusing primarily in sculpture, but not limited to any specific medium, I create kinetic environments with an internal logic and history often propelled by a simple hand crank. I invite the viewer to become a part of the work through participation, animating a tableau of flora and fauna that bloom or flutter to life when activated. When conceiving my pieces I center on a hidden narrative and assign visual elements that aline with the concept of the piece, often utilizing ornate structures and simple construction methods to further highlight my interests in Nature, foundation and form. When creating my work I look for patterns in the environments around me, trying to tease out symmetry in their ecosystems. I look for how innovation shapes itself into our ever expanding systems of complexity and knowledge. I create work that attempts to straddle the concepts of chaos, pattern, and emergence. These are the pillars I search for, the thoughtful hands that hold my metaphors.
Letterpress Print Party
Dan Shafer
Dan D. Shafer is a graphic designer, artist, and educator living and working in Seattle. He owns Dandy Co., a graphic design studio specializing in book design, installation, and environmental design (as well as event promotion and branding). The studio's clients include Kronos Quartet, American Cancer Society, Salish Lodge, Herman Miller, and Pratt Fine Arts Center.
Shafer is also the creative director at Chin Music Press. His self-initiated social practice installations explore the nebulous territory that exists between traditional definitions of "art" and "design," and investigate how people interact with objects in their everyday lives.
Explorations in Papermaking
Brad Taylor
Bradley Taylor is a Seattle based artist, and printmaker. He is currently working at Cornish College of the Arts as the Printmaking Studio Technician. Proficient in all forms of printmaking Bradley specializes in woodblock prints. His work has been shown in numerous galleries in the Seattle area. He has also work collaboratively with many notable Seattle Artists.
Introduction to Patterns & Printmaking
Brad Taylor
Bradley Taylor is a Seattle based artist, and printmaker. He is currently working at Cornish College of the Arts as the Printmaking Studio Technician. Proficient in all forms of printmaking Bradley specializes in woodblock prints. His work has been shown in numerous galleries in the Seattle area. He has also work collaboratively with many notable Seattle Artists.
String Band
Ruthie Dornfeld
Seattle fiddler Ruthie Dornfeld’s vibrant, expressive playing is voiced in a wide range of traditional fiddle styles, from Celtic, American Old-Time, and French Canadian, Scandinavian, and Eastern European. She has performed and taught widely throughout the US, Europe, and South America. During her 15 year sojourn in New England, Ruthie studied at Berklee College of Music, was a member of the twin fiddle stringband The Poodles, the bluegrass band Boston City Limits, the Hungarian band The Pulis, was a mainstay on the contra dance circuit, and toured Europe with tapdancer Ira Bernstein and with the Copenhagen-based American Cafe Orchestra. Since returning to the Pacific Northwest in 1996, she has been a member of the French cabaret group Rouge, performs with guitar master John Miller, with the quintet Tangoheart, and for local contra and English dancing.
Intro To Beat Making with Ableton Live
Kate Falconer
Kate Falconer is a performer, educator and music producer based in Seattle, WA. She is a Stranger Genius Award Nominee, a celebrated beat maker and producer, classical multi-instrumentalist and fierce performer at major festivals and venues across the Pacific Northwest. Working as a private instructor and teaching artist for almost 20 years has enabled Kate to share her love of music, audio and digital production with people of all ages. She is specifically interested in increasing equity, access and knowledge for people who might otherwise not have the opportunity or confidence to explore new facets of their musical experience.
Dance Intensive
Exploring Contemporary Asian Abstraction
Soo Hong
Soo Hong is a visual artist whose work explores issues surrounding cultural identity. Having lived and exhibited in places around the world, including, London, Shanghai, her native South Korea, and now the U.S., her experience of varying cultural norms and expectations has precipitated her observational practice. Her paintings represent an unbound freedom of expression released of any formal adherence to a determined identity.
Her work has been shown in galleries around the world, and she has been awarded grants from D&AD (London), GAP (Seattle), Bellevue Arts Program (Bellevue) and was a finalist for the Neddy Awards (Seattle). She had her solo shows in Seattle at Linda Hodges Gallery and AMcE Creative Arts gallery. Her work is part of the permanent collections at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, the city of Bellevue, and the city of Portland. She created public art installations for Redmond Lights, Odessa Children's Hospital (Seattle), and The Vera Project (Seattle).
Street Dance Forms
Social Dance Forms
Lucie Baker
Lucie Baker is a dance artist, educator, and expressive arts facilitator based in Seattle, Washington. Her parents met in a community folk dance group so social dancing is in her bones. She loves social dance for its joy, community, and expansive self-expression. As a teacher, she strives to create a supportive environment where students can connect and explore. Her classes integrate her background in western concert dance and social dance with her love of somatics and anatomy. From a young age she was surrounded by a diversity of dance styles including swing, ballet, modern, balkan folk dance, and more. Her curiosity for movement led her to pursue a career as a professional performer and choreographer in New York City and abroad working with many notable artists including Jane Comfort, Tamar Rogoff, Erica Essner, Phantom Limb and Seattle Opera. In her training, she earned a BFA from the Juilliard School and an MFA from the University of Washington. After many years of performing, creating, and teaching, she became interested in the intersection of dance and mental health and received her expressive arts therapy training at the Tamalpa Institute, founded by Anna and Daria Halprin. She continues to develop her artistic practice alongside while also serving as a faculty member at Cornish College of the Arts, University of Washington and Century Ballroom.
Improvisational Practices
Alia Swersky
Alia Swersky is a movement artist, performer and educator deeply engaged in dance improvisation, durational time-based art, film, site-specific work, and environmental installation. She is an artist and an educator with degrees from Cornish College of the Arts and an MFA in dance from the University of Washington.
Her artistic path over the last two decades has been shaped by this yearning for deep and meaningful connections with people and places. As a co-creator, ritual maker, and a “horizontal” director, Alia seeks to touch others through dance, somatic presence, vulnerability, and fierceness. Her work ranges from full audience participation to intimate acts of One-to-One performances, site-specific dances for film and live performance, as well as durational time-based art that includes physical acts of endurance, repetition, stillness, subtlety, singing, soft energetic grace, abstraction, caricature, and a deconstruction of clichés such as extreme high femme expressions. Her teaching and art-making seek to create practices that embrace endurance on stage and in life as acts of resistance, resilience, release, and beauty.
As a performer, Alia has also toured nationally and internationally as a member of the LeGendre Performance Group and has performed in the works with many Seattle artists, some of which include The Maureen Whiting Company, Khambatta Dance Company, Jurg Koch, KT Niehoff, and Salt Horse.
As an educator, she has taught at Cornish College of the Arts for sixteen years and in the Seattle community at Velocity’s Strictly Seattle Festival, and the Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation (SFDI). She was a long time Co-artistic director of Dance Art Group (DAG), a non-profit organization that promotes the practice and appreciation of dance and somatic education in the Seattle area, including the Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation.
Screendance
Writing for Screen
Samar Abulhassan
Samar Abulhassan is a writer and teaching artist living in Seattle. She's a Hedgebrook alum, Jack Straw Writer and holds an MFA from Colorado State University. She's worked with Seattle Arts & Lectures’ Writers in the Schools since 2008, and for Hugo House's Scribes program and the Skagit River Poetry Foundation since 2010. She was an instructor for Cornish's summer film program in 2019.
Comics Studio
Ellen Forney
Ellen Forney is the author of the bestselling graphic memoir, Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, & Me, and its companion book, Rock Steady: Brilliant Advice From My Bipolar Life. Marbles has been translated into six foreign languages and was the selection for common book programs at the University of Washington Health Sciences schools and UC Davis. She curated an exhibition for the National Library of Medicine on Graphic Medicine, comics about health, and has given talks and lectures internationally at universities, conferences, and institutions, including a recent TED talk. As a visual artist, she created two large-scale murals for Seattle’s Capitol Hill light rail station. She has taught comics at Cornish College of the Arts since 2002 and is currently working on a middle-grade book on making autobiographical comics.
Introduction to Patterns & Printmaking
Brad Taylor
Bradley Taylor is a Seattle based artist, and printmaker. He is currently working at Cornish College of the Arts as the Printmaking Studio Technician. Proficient in all forms of printmaking Bradley specializes in woodblock prints. His work has been shown in numerous galleries in the Seattle area. He has also work collaboratively with many notable Seattle Artists.
Acting for Stage & Screen
Meg McLynn
Meg McLynn is an actor, vocalist, and teaching artist who has been seen on stages and screens throughout North America. Meg loves to share her passion for performance with students of all ages, and it is her belief that the work we do in “the studio” is applicable to all aspects of our everyday lives.
Having studied for 7 years under renowned voice teacher, Kristin Linklater, Meg now works with students to help them take ownership of their wonderfully unique voices. She teaches Voice and Speech at Cornish College of the Arts, and she serves as a vocal coach with Jack Straw Studios. She has assisted with voice training at Columbia Business School and World Leaders Forum in New York City. Meg also teaches Voice and Acting classes at Freehold Theatre Lab and Mighty Tripod Studios in Seattle.
Meg is a member of the Seattle-based vocal trio, Blue Plate Special, and has been an Anthem Singer for the Seattle Seahawks. As a concert soloist, she performed the songbooks of Patsy Cline, Judy Garland, and Carly Simon with Purple Phoenix Productions. Local acting credits include roles with Seattle Shakespeare Company, Book-It Rep, Seattle Symphony, ArtsWest, Seattle Opera, Seattle Public Theatre, Washington Ensemble Theatre, Theatre22, Harlequin Productions, and 14/48: TWQTF, as well as the feature films “Different Drummers”, “7 Minutes”, and “Colton”. You can see her in the series, “The Girl in the Woods” streaming on NBC/Peacock.
Workshop: Emerging Dance Teacher Training
Lex Ramierez
Lex Ramirez (she/her) is a queer, Latinx teaching artist from Oakland, CA who has been teaching dance in Seattle, WA since 2013. She has an extensive background in teaching artistry, community engagement, program creation and DEI work. Her experience includes working and consulting for Seattle Theatre Group's education and community engagement programs as well as teaching numerous workshops for MoPop, University of Washington, Cornish, Seattle U, Seattle Public Schools and more. Lex has a keen understanding of what it takes to be a successful teacher in both dance and program facilitation. She is passionate about sharing her knowledge and space to support emerging teachers.
Books by Hand
Carolyn Hall
Carolyn Hall is a writer, novelist, theatrical costume designer, artist, and educator. She was born in Seattle and was in the first class at the Evergreen State College. She has also studied Spanish in Guatemala, painting and ceramics at Cornish College of the Arts, and Creative Writing at the University of Washington. She is an alumnus of The Cottages at Hedgebrook. Carolyn co-authored and co-illustrated the children's book, In My Village (2014), which was written in Khmer and English, with Lauren Iida (Cornish graduate), and other Cornish artists. Her novel, Rose Concannon, was published in July 2016.
Carolyn has been a life long educator and has taught all age levels in the Seattle Public Schools. She has also taught at Antioch University, the Muckleshoot Tribal College, the Seattle Gypsy Alternative School (a program for Romany children), and the Hugo House. She has taught education, creative writing and book-making at Antioch University since 2000. She began teaching Integrated Studies and writing courses at Cornish College of the Arts in 2008. She is also the mother of two adult children.