The Intimacy of Memory workshop is a space for you to make art based on the objects you kept after a meaningful loss in your life.  It approaches the complexities of grief and love using art as a central connector. Because so many don’t have language for loss, art can play a pivotal role in communicating emotion and further healing. In this relaxed and mutually supportive workshop we will create a mixed media work on canvas, exploring how the objects you kept prompt memory and how memory changes over time. In what ways does the chosen object represent both the person who died and your shared relationship?  How do objects hold and celebrate a life? If you don’t have a physical object, you can work from a significant memory. Whether the loss is fresh or long past, this workshop gives artistic space and voice to the grief and love you may have been nursing privately. But while the subject is heavy for many, there is often laughter and joy as we share memories. This workshop is 75% art-making with time to discuss the process of making art on this topic.  It is not art therapy, but a safe space for you to address your experiences and feelings using art as a canvas for expression.  No art experience is necessary, just a willingness to explore, create and share.

Nancy Marks has been a Boston-based printmaker and painter for more than twenty-five years. In addition to solo exhibitions, her work has been displayed in galleries and corporate settings, and has been juried into many shows. Her current work explores two different narratives unified by similar art-making approaches.  Urban Abstraction represents a body of work that explores the city, steeped in its aesthetic and social paradoxes. Marks’ other body of work grows out of her experiences teaching art and as an arts and health facilitator. It represents her enduring respect for the human spirit, as it engages in the profound and complex process of healing. Her recent project, The Intimacy of Memory Art and Storytelling Project: Reframing Loss and Overcoming Stigma in the Face of Opioid Overdose, was recently featured on WBUR: http://www.wbur.org/artery/2016/11/18/art-opioid-overdose

You can also read more about her process and work at http://now.tufts.edu/articles/hidden-talents-what-remains-behind. Her work can be seen at nancymarksartist.com