Welcome My Newest Addition to TraillWorks

I am pleased to announce that TraillWorks has hired it's first employee - Corrie Guddemi! With growth of my space, I felt it was time to bring someone on board to help with a variety of things and Corrie seemed to fit the bill.

Corrie comes to TraillWorks with quite a coincidental background. Corrie and I attended Syracuse University's College of Visual and Performing Arts (she as an illustration major and I as a painting major), studied abroad in Italy, and then graduated together in 2000. Though we shared so many experiences, we existed in parallel lives at SU, with only a few friends intersecting our circles.

Corrie lives locally in Sussex County and was looking for opportunities in the arts when she found me at a time when I was considering hiring someone. It wasn't until after she looked more thoroughly into my bio on my web site that she realized our connection. SU is a big school, and interestingly most of my friends were and still are illustration majors, but we just weren't in the same group.

Corrie comes to TraillWorks in a transition from the social work and teaching fields. She is a passionate, creative person with experience reaching out to special needs populations and an interest in getting back in touch with her art. Prior to the closure of Art at the Mill in Lafayette, NJ, she was beginning to exhibit her work. Corrie's current role at TraillWorks includes marketing, sales, and administration. She will be the new voice behind my monthly e-newsletter (I know it's long overdue), will write some press releases and hopefully sell some art! We are in discussions about the possibility of her teaching in the future, as well. You can expect to see her when you visit on Thursdays and Saturdays.

I'm thrilled to have her here, get some much overdue things done, get some new ideas, and to be able to go home early once in a while. That's going to take some getting used to (I felt a little guilty leaving 15 minutes early the other night). I look forward to introducing you to Corrie in person and to the growth of TraillWorks! Welcome, Corrie!

Student Saturday

I'm going to start a new tradition, beginning today of posting about my students and their work on Saturdays. We'll start with some recently completed works by three students, and hopefully in the future I'll be able to write more about what my students are working on, maybe get into videos of some of my lessons! Who knows where it will go.

But, for now, for those who don't know, I've been teaching private and semiprivate lessons for three years and just this year began small group art lessons to children age 5 - adults. My lessons are very intimate which allow me to develop technique and individual goals with my students. I have a BFA in art education and painting from Syracuse University's College of Visual and Performing Arts, with experience teaching in the public schools.

My philosophy of teaching is somewhat grounded in DBAE (Disciplined Based Arts Education) which was developed in the 80s by the J. Paul Getty Foundation. This is not a curriculum, but an instructional method that focuses not only on studio production, but also on art history, aesthetics, and criticism. How do I apply that to my lessons? Well, I definitely hone in on technique, methods of creating, but then introduce historical context, discussions about personal taste, and constantly modeling constructive criticism.

In the case of Miles' pinch pot below, this was his first real experience with clay. I showed him some examples of pinch pots and hand built pots by potter, Maria Martinez, discussed texture by showing him examples of textured clay and then identifying what created the texture, and finally constructed his own pinch pot while I pinched one of my own. He brought in found objects to implement a repeating texture around his pot and had to consider which textures to use, placement and design. Finally after the pot dried, he applied rub 'n buff in a few select colors to emphasize certain parts of the pot, while unifying the entire structure.


Laurel, an adult student of mine, was given an assignment to develop a mixed media piece focusing on a metamorphosis. In her case we did not look at many examples of the topic, instead I wanted her to develop work in a free thought manner, paying attention to composition, figure ground relationships, and exploring a variety of media. Her piece evolved over several months incorporating acrylic paint, inks, pens, and graphite. Her experience lies in works focusing on representation so this below was quite a departure.


Finally, Tina, another adult student, just completed her first oil painting in several decades. Her goal was to learn to paint again. Because this was our first time working together I gave her an object to paint from life. I did not introduce a lot of contextual examples or ground this piece in art history, aside from the process of painting. She learned to first conduct an under painting (a thin, monochromatic, traditionally neutral layer of paint covering the image that lays out the groundwork for the painting), then spent weeks laying color to achieve the excellent depiction of a depression-era glass pitcher.