Lara Hanson (Good Together)
Lara Hanson, a teaching artist, stands in the center of four tables shaped like a square U. She is smiling at students, as she leads a class on gesture drawing, held at Fresh Eye Gallery (October - November 2022)
Over the course of six weeks at Fresh Eye Gallery, teaching artist Lara Hanson facilitated Gesture Drawing (November - December 2022). In this class, participants explored drawing techniques that literally had folks dancing in their seats! Participants learned how to draw intuitively through the power of line and mark-making. Work produced during the workshop are on display in Good Together, alongside artwork from 5 other workshops led by local teaching artists. Each workshop was designed for individuals with disabilities.
Lara spent time answering some questions about their art background, their experience as a teaching artist, and advice they may have for other artists interested in bringing art facilitation into their practice.
Good Together is on display until February 11, 2023.
Tell us more about yourself and your art background.
I am a visual and performance artist and am fascinated with the beauty and complexity of the human body in motion and how the drawn line can capture that movement.
Line can express so many aspects of movement–like the pathway, speed, weight, emotion, spirituality, truth, and soul of the dance. Not only am I recording the dancer’s actions, but also my own physical/mental/emotional response. This has led me to create works that focus on my own movement. Instead of watching and drawing someone else moving, I’m feeling the movement in my own body and putting those sensations on paper.
Doing this kind of work has naturally led to improvising and performance. I often take my sketchbook to dance and music performances. Sometimes someone next to me will be curious about what I’m doing. People are fascinated with the drawing process, so I decided to bring it to an audience in the form of collaboration with dancers and musicians on stage. The ‘stage’ can take many forms–an actual stage with proscenium, a museum, a storefront, outdoors in the woods or on city streets. I learn so much from the other artists I work with. This part of my practice provides me with a wonderful sense of community and connection. This connection is not only with my collaborators, but with the audience in the form of a shared experience, a witnessing of the creative process.
I have a BA degree in studio art and art education from St. Olaf College, I studied drawing, painting and printmaking at the College of Visual Arts in St. Paul, and got my MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts (dance, drawing and performance) from Goddard College in Vermont. I’ve been an artist-in-residence in Bologna, Italy, Ascona, Switzerland and with the American Dance Festival and have performed and shown my work all over the world.
What led you to adding teaching to your art practice?
My training is in art education. I love sharing my passions with others! An added bonus is being taught by and inspired by my students.
What class did you teach for Fresh Eye? What was the experience like?
I taught “Loosen Up! Drawing Workshop”. I’ve taught workshops like this before, but this was an instance where the students taught me. Each student had a different approach to drawing music and drawing emotions–two very abstract approaches to making art that we played with during the class. Many of the students already were quite good at ‘loosening up’ while drawing, like moving their whole arm to draw, automatically choosing colors that expressed certain emotions, exploring standing or sitting on the floor to draw, trying new drawing materials. Others had their certain way of approaching the drawing process and they were sticking with it. And that’s okay! They shared their unique methods of working with me and I stood back and watched and encouraged them to go their own direction.
Do you remember the very first class you ever facilitated? What was it?
The first class I ever facilitated was when I was in college, observing an elementary school art class for an education course I was taking. The teacher asked me to teach a lesson and so I chose to teach kids how to sculpt animals with clay, focusing specifically on how to create texture.
What type of advice would you have for other artists who are interested in teaching but aren’t sure on how to get started?
Make sure you are confident in your own art before you even start looking for teaching opportunities. Know your stuff. Be a good listener and observer. Be flexible and have a plan B and even C. And NEVER touch your students’ artwork! Unless you’ve agreed on collaborating. Give students complete ownership of their work. Discover their styles of working and encourage them to find their own unique direction.
You can find teaching opportunities through organizations like Fresh Eye Gallery, Springboard for the Arts or various community centers, art councils and after school programs. There is a great book published a while ago called Teaching Artist Handbook that I think would also be helpful (https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/T/bo20145604.html).
Lara Hanson is a visual and performance artist from St. Paul, Minnesota. She is known for her calligraphic drawings of the human body in motion. Working most often with ink, chalk, and graphite, she endeavors to capture the essence of the mover.
Her practice centers on the challenge of trying to depict the movement of the human figure through the drawn line. In her performance work, she draws and moves in front of an audience. The performances are always collaborative. Most often she performs with dancers and musicians, but has worked with spoken word artists and even with her own animation. When not performing herself, she draws during rehearsals and performances by other artists (mainly modern dancers and jazz musicians). She also draws in her studio in St. Paul, focusing on her own movement. Besides drawing and painting, she has dabbled in animation (School of Visual Arts in New York), modern dance, and vocal performance.