The University of Georgia’s Lamar Dodd School of Art will offer classes this spring as a part of the school’s new UGA Community Art School. The first class offered at the UGA Community Art School, taught by Associate Professor Benjamin Britton, will introduce members of the Athens community to the art of life drawing.
Britton said that he considers this new school to be “a way of us [the Lamar Dodd School of Art] participating in an already very vibrant cultural landscape in and around Athens.”
According to Britton, the “night-school” style Community Art School classes will allow members of the Athens community to practice the visual arts with faculty members. In Britton’s first class, titled “Drawing Other Humans,” attendees will work with a live model to explore things like drawing skeletons and portraits of the model and practicing gesture drawing, which involves quickly drawing the model in various poses.
“[Life drawing] just seemed like something that could be good for beginners and folks with experience as well,” Britton said. “I just wanted to make something interesting for everybody.”
The Community Art School is an expansion of the Dodd’s efforts to provide art instruction to the public.The art school’s 2024 Summer Art Camp, where high schoolers could explore drawing, painting, printmaking and photography, had a successful debut with over 70 participating campers, according to the Lamar Dodd School of Art website.
Britton’s inaugural “Drawing Other Humans” course, which is currently a full class, will take place weekly on Tuesdays from 6 to 8:30 P.M. The class will begin on Jan. 28 and end on April 8.
Lamar Dodd School of Art’s communications and public relations manager, Francis Oliver, said she was “overjoyed” to hear that so many people were showing interest in the Community Art School. To her, it’s a reason to be optimistic about the future of the Lamar Dodd Art School and the expansion of its offerings.
“Very exciting to see how enthusiastic the Athens community is about this new program,” Oliver wrote in an email to The Red & Black.
Oliver said she hopes that eventually, more Lamar Dodd faculty members will teach classes at the Community Art School, and that her future vision is to offer a variety of regular programming to the public every semester.
Proceeds from the UGA Community Art School will support the studio art program at Lamar Dodd School of Art, according to a press release.