Materials Lab

The Materials Lab offers public workshops that provide opportunities for people to explore art making as a means of learning and knowing. The workshops are developed around themes that are generally inspired by an exhibition or a particular material or process. They generally consist of two-hour sessions with experts that combine close looking at art and hands-on experimentation. Workshop information is available through the online calendar. (You can filter for “workshops” in the menu above the calendar.)

Upcoming Workshops
Materials Lab Workshop: Visible Mending, with Maggie Ruth Haaland
Materials Lab Workshop: Visible Mending, with Maggie Ruth Haaland

Past Workshops
Fall 2023
A Brush with Nature—Chinese Painting (English)
Making a Journal
Dissecting Portrait Colors
Visible Mending, with Maggie Ruth Haaland
Ekphrastic Collage Inspired by Modern and Contemporary Art
Rethinking Addiction: A Drama Therapy Workshop with 2nd Act Artist Collective
Annette Lemieux’s Available Portrait Colors
Rethinking Addiction: A Drama Therapy Workshop with 2nd Act Artist Collective
19th-Century French Graphite Drawing Techniques
Rethinking Addiction: A Drama Therapy Workshop with 2nd Act Artist Collective
A Brush with Nature—Chinese Painting (Chinese)

Summer 2023
Exploring Traditional Zapotec Cochineal Dyeing with Porfirio Gutiérrez
Harvard Art Museums at Night
Natural Color Materials from the Past to the Present

Spring 2023
Making a Journal
Step Into Art with Inspiration from Kehinde Wiley
The Art of Peruvian Potato-Plaster Retablos, Session I (English)
The Art of Peruvian Potato-Plaster Retablos, Session I (Spanish)
The Art of Peruvian Potato-Plaster Retablos, Session II (English)
The Art of Peruvian Potato-Plaster Retablos, Session II (Spanish)
Harvard Art Museums at Night
Family Day at the Harvard Art Museums
Art by the Book—Chinese Brush Painting Instruction (English)
Art by the Book—Chinese Brush Painting Instruction (Chinese)
Arts First: Make Art, Light Awash in Watercolor

Fall 2022
Making Faces
Modeling Material Culture in Paper
Modeling Material Culture in Paper
Making Faces
Making Faces
Making Faces (Off-site)
Modeling Material Culture in Paper
Harvard Art Museums at Night
Making Faces

Spring 2020
Investigating Color in Art
Double Trouble—Screenprinting and Relief Printing with Carlos Hernandez and Bill Fick

Fall 2019
Shadow/Substance—Paper Cutting and Kara Walker
Investigating Color in Art
Investigating Color in Art
Investigating Color in Art

Spring 2019
The Matière — Material Experiments from the Bauhaus to Black Mountain College
Josef Albers’s Color Experiments
Anni Albers and the Event of the Thread
Shadow/Substance: Paper Cutting and Kara Walker
Drawn to Art Reproduction
Egyptian Blue
Drypoint Printing with Noriko Saitō

Fall 2018
Alternative Lithographic Processes
Alternative Lithographic Processes
Hands-On Silverworking Demonstration
Animal-Shaped Vessels
Animal-Shaped Vessels

Spring 2018
Direct Animation & Cameraless Filmmaking
Direct Animation & Cameraless Filmmaking
Direct Animation & Cameraless Filmmaking
Byzantine Tapestry Weaving

Fall 2017
Exploring Natural Dyes with Zapotec Master Dyer and Weaver Porfirio Gutiérrez
Optical Devices in Science and Art in Early Modern Times
Dutch Old Master Drawing Materials and Techniques
Shell Bead Carving with Elizabeth James-Perry
Shell Bead Carving with Elizabeth James-Perry

Spring 2017
Shaping Chinese Jun Ware
“Drawing with Scissors”—Matisse’s Painted Paper Technology
Islamic Papermaking
Metal
Data Visualization
Metal
Metal
Metal
Metal

Fall 2016
Carbon
Carbon
Carbon
Carbon

Spring 2016
Earth
Earth
Earth
Earth
Earth

Fall 2015
Silkscreening
Silkscreening
Light
Light
Fresco

Spring 2015
Red
Red
Red
Plaster in Fresco Painting
Plaster in Fresco Painting
Plaster in Sculpture
Plaster in Sculpture
Plaster in Sculpture
Plaster in Sculpture