Instructor: Alicia N. Ponzio
Date: 19 - 23 August 2024
Cost: 950 euro
Location: Hendrik van Wijnstraat 10, 1065 AS Amsterdam
This August 2024, Alicia N. Ponzio will offer her figure modeling workshop curriculum at Figura. Join us for Designing the Pose, with a focus on the seated figure. A seated pose offers new possibilities for expression and some inherent challenges that are different from standing poses. Alicia's curriculum places emphasis on exploring the gesture and its meaning, as well as developing one's method and problem-solving skills.
Program:
The week will begin with several quick clay sketches from a live model in order to explore various poses and discuss the compositional elements of each pose. Students will be encouraged to participate in selecting poses. The group will discuss each pose in terms of content and aesthetic value as well as expressive qualities. After selecting the pose for a longer study, the group will spend the remaining 4 days developing the pose as a clay model. Alicia will introduce her "Three Stages of Figure Modeling", a framework for helping students to prioritize information and develop a coherent method for describing the human form in clay. Students will work on a wire armature in oil-based clay at a 48 cm scale.
Teaching methods will include brief lectures, step-by-step demonstrations, group discussions, and individual feedback. Alicia will work alongside students throughout the week.
Instructor
Alicia N. Ponzio (b.1974) began her career as a Lieutenant in the United States' Navy Nurse Corps. After experimenting with various mediums in figurative art, she found her voice in sculpture and made the decision to pursue it. She completed her artistic training at the Florence Academy of Art (FAA) in Florence, Italy, where she completed the Sculpture Program in 2008. She was then the director of the Artistic Anatomy and Ecorche Sculpture programs, as well as a figure drawing instructor, at the FAA until 2011, when she returned to the United States and set up her studio in downtown San Francisco.
Alicia brings life to her bronzes and plasters, focusing on the abstract movement of forms as embodied in the human figure, as well as the subtle shades of human emotion. She favors asymmetry, irregularity, and variety in design: qualities that suggest a human touch. Her figure compositions and portraits have received recognition and honors from several organizations including the Art Renewal Center, the Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club, The Portrait Society of America, The California Art Club and The National Sculpture Society from which Alicia received the Alex J. Ettl Grant in 2016. Her work ranges from miniature portraits to larger scale single figure and multi-figure compositions. She works extensively in plaster to achieve her effect, and casts the final product in bronze.
Her work can be seen at the Figure | Ground Art Gallery in Seattle, WA as well as private collections nationally and internationally.
Practical information
This workshop is open to beginning, intermediate and advanced students.
Please bring to the studio: lunch, apron, notebook or sketchbook, pens or pencils and drawing tools as preferred
This course includes:
✓ observation from a life model
✓ working in small groups
✓ instruction by a classically trained sculptor
✓ individual guidance in English at your own level
✓ demonstrations illustrating the instructions
✓ armature and oil-based clay
Date: 19 - 23 August 2024
Time table: 10:00-13:00 and 14:00-17:00
Cost: 950 euro
Sign up here:
List of images (left to right, top to bottom)
Alicia N. Ponzio, tin type image by Greg Shea, 2023.
Demo in progress from previous Seated Figure workshop at Brookgreen Gardens 2023.
Reverie and Abundance, 2023.
Example of quick sketches from previous Seated Figure workshop at Brookgreen Gardens 2023.
Alicia demonstrating at TRAC conference in 2014.
Example of quick sketches from previous Seated Figure workshop at Brookgreen Gardens 2023.
Clay of Reverie and Abundance.
Demo in progress from previous Seated Figure workshop at Brookgreen Gardens 2023.
Reverie and Abundance, 2023.