Women of Trade OC: Molly Sydnor, Cat Rigdon, Corri Pocta, Niki Dionne. Charli Miranda and Brooke Chaney.
We elaborated a couple months ago about the women of Trade Oak Cliff, including East Dallas resident and artist Brooke Chaney, also known as MOM, the onetime schoolteacher whose whose vibrant geometric paintings, handmade apparel and person-sized fabric flowers (commissioned for immersive art shows like Sweet Tooth Hotel) lend blasts of color to Trade store at Tyler Station.
Well, aspiring artists, here is an opportunity to learn from MOM.
Thursday, August 4, MOM is holding a painting class at Trade, where pupils will learn technical painting tips and have a true and gifted professional artist and educator on hand as they create their personal canvas/masterpiece.
Registration is $95, and you will walk away with a work of art made by you.
Upon arrival at the Tyler Station storefront, 6-6:20 p.m., you choose a canvas design. After a warm up and intro, participants begin painting their “official composition, working on the base layer for the first hour and the striping layer the second hour, as MOM walks around to answer questions and assist” as needed, Chaney explains on the registration page. At about 8:20 p.m. you begin to wrap up, and at 8:40 it’ll be time for your big reveal.
OK, for an example of what a satisfying undertaking this will be, check out the video below of Brooke at work. Nah, odds are you won’t be as good but, so?
Chaney and her co-op partner Corrie Pocta say teaching is a major component of the mission at Trade. Aside from sharing tips about craft, they also aim to help consumers understand what goes into an art piece or a ceramic mug or vase or any of the other goods one might purchase at the collective’s shop or markets.
“Giving people an opportunity to be creative and engage with things and understand the process hopefully gives them an appreciation for more sustainable items,” Pocta says. “Maybe they are going to buy a special piece of art because they now have an appreciation. Maybe they want to buy less, buy local, want things in their life to be a little bit more meaningful.”
And for Chaney, so much of her love of this endeavor is about the community that is drawn to Trade — ” … creating genuine and authentic friendships, not just customers, and the cross-pollination that we get at markets or just by hanging out here at the space.”
If you drop in on her, be it a workshop or a regular day, she promises to “talk you under the table.”
Read more about Trade Oak Cliff here.
