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.
February 4 Story: Imagine Possibilities
Dive into 20th-century artist Edward Hopper’s People in the Sun to construct multiple narratives from a single source.
February 11 Character: Discover Dimensions
Take inspiration from the self portrait of 19th-century French artist Suzanne Valadon to imagine and write multi-dimensional characters.
February 18 Place: Layers Unveiled
Step into Japanese American artist Kenjiro Nomura’s The Farm to explore setting as a told and untold story.
February 25 Time: Flashbacks, Fast-Forwards, and Foreshadows
Discover new ways to approach time in your writing, inspired by Antonio Martorell’s La Playa Negra I (Tar Beach I).
March 4 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, and theatre director and producer. 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
General Information
