Discover how visual art can inspire creative writing and how writing can offer a powerful way to experience art. Join Mary Hall Surface, the founding instructor of the National Gallery of Art’s popular Writing Salon, for five online workshops that explore essential elements of writing and styles through close looking, word-sketching, and imaginative response to prompts.
The sessions spotlight a diverse range of visual art chosen to inspire writers of all experience levels to deepen their process and practice. Each workshop has a limited enrollment to maximize interaction among the instructor and students.
Please Note: Individual sessions are available for purchase.
January 10 Place: Unveil Layers
Take inspiration from Japanese American artist Kenjiro Nomura’s The Farm to explore setting as a told and untold story.
January 17 Time: Flashback and Forward
Experiment with the timeline of your narrative writing, inspired by contemporary Puerto Rican artist Antonio Martorell’s La Playa Negra I (Tar Beach I).
January 24 Character: Discover Dimensions
Take inspiration from the self-portrait of 19th-century French artist Suzanne Valadon to imagine and write multi-dimensional characters.
January 31 Story: Imagine Possibilities
Dive into 20th-century American artist Edward Hopper’s People in the Sun to construct multiple narratives from a single source.
February 7 Poetry: View from Above
Experiment with diverse poetic forms and reflections in response to 20th-century African American artist Alma Thomas’ colorful compositions, including Pansies in Washington.
Surface is a teaching artist, playwright, theatre director and museum educator. She presents workshops nationwide in creative writing and drama as a Kennedy Center teaching artist and was a faculty member at Harvard’s Project Zero Classroom.
5 sessions
Photo caption (upper right): Mary Hall Surface
General Information
