Upcoming events.
Sashiko Mending Workshop
Do you have a beloved piece of clothing that’s showing its age? Don’t toss it—mend it with meaning.
Join us at Hipstitch for a hands-on workshop in Sashiko, a traditional Japanese mending technique that blends function and beauty. Originally developed to extend the life of garments, Sashiko uses decorative stitching to patch holes and tears—adding character while reducing waste.
Whether you're looking to make an invisible repair or add bold, creative flair, this workshop will guide you through the basics and help you give new life to old favorites.
What to Bring: Please bring one or more non-stretch woven garments that need mending. Sashiko works best on non-stretch woven fabrics like denim, canvas, or cotton.
Fee: $60 per person
Space is limited, so reserve your spot today!
Photo Credit: Beth Shedd
Introduction to Painting with Pilar Figueira
Have you always wanted to learn how to paint? Now’s your chance.
Artist Pilar Figueira will guide you through the creative process of painting with acrylics or oils while exploring color, light, texture, and composition. Through hands-on practice with still life, portraiture, and abstract subjects, you’ll develop new skills and discover your unique visual language.
The class meets for 6 weeks on Fridays from 10 am to 1 pm.
January 16, 23, 30 and February 6, 13, 27 (no class February 20)
A small group experience—space is limited to 10.
A supply list is provided below.
Fee: $300
Click the button below to register via the Wellesley Recreation Center. Use activity number #141402.
You’ll need to bring your own supplies to class. Click the button below to download the supply list.
Meet your teacher:
Pilar Figueira is a Portuguese artist currently based in Wellesley, MA.
She creates period paintings of scenes that feel strikingly familiar with brushstrokes of oil and nostalgia. Her work explores the process of the reconstruction of memory and identity that takes place as generations emerge and disappear.
By representing common experiences shared in old photographs, her paintings transform old memories into new narratives, creating figurative portraits that are both anonymous in nature but also very personal.
Figueira intentionally leaves part of the ground layer visible, like incomplete patches, showing the painting as a story yet to be finished. Women play a crucial pictorial role in her work.
Her art has been exhibited at the Blaffer Art Museum in Houston, TX; the Lawndale Art Center in Houston, TX; the Vignette Art Fair at the Women’s Museum Building in Fair Park in Dallas, TX; and at the Reisman Hall Art Gallery in Cazenovia, NY.
Colossal Collage: Maker night.
Let’s create a colossal collage together.
During our community maker nights, we will use found papers to cut, glue, and assemble a botanical-themed collage. Think big, as in colossally big.
Elizabeth Cohen and Jenny Schneider will expertly guide us through the process.
The colossal collage will be hung at the Wellesley Free Library throughout June.
This event is free and open to everyone. No art experience required.
Colossal Collage: Maker night.
Let’s create a colossal collage together.
During our community maker nights, we will use found papers to cut, glue, and assemble a botanical-themed collage. Think big, as in colossally big.
Elizabeth Cohen and Jenny Schneider will expertly guide us through the process.
The colossal collage will be hung at the Wellesley Free Library throughout June.
This event is free and open to everyone. No art experience required.
Monoprinting for beginners
Monoprinting for Beginners
Join Art Wellesley for another printmaking workshop at Shepherd and Maudsleigh Print Studio.
Megan Cascella is the instructor for this workshop.
Monoprinting is a type of printmaking where each print is unique, rather than using a static, repeated matrix like a woodblock. Monoprinting is where we apply ink to thin, clear plexiglass plates, which then go through the press with dampened paper. This process allows for a lot of different marks to be made by painting ink on, rolling the ink on in thin layers and selectively wiping ink off, using paper stencils, or other materials such as thin meshes or fabrics to leave unique impressions and textures onto the plate. Another fantastic part of the monoprinting process is the ghost print, which is created from the remaining ink on the plate from the first impression. These ghost prints offer unique memories of the initial print and can then be further built up in many different ways.
The world of monoprinting is expansive and exciting - and it’s a grand entrance into a lot of the fundamentals of printmaking if you are a beginner or have been interested in learning more!
This class will cover:
-How to dampen & prepare paper
-How to roll out even, thin layers of ink onto plexi glass
-Methods of adding and removing ink from the plexiglass
-Using paper stencils, or alternative stencils
-Printing techniques, including printing the ghost
-Registration Techniques
Students are encouraged to bring:
- Additional paper to print on (Rives BFK, Rives Heavyweight, Rives Lightweight Somerset, Arnhem)
-Pens, pencils, and sharpies for planning compositions
- Pre-cut stencils from copier paper or newsprint
-Other soft, flat items that could be used as stencils (cheesecloth, the plastic from clementine bags, thin fabrics, doilies, etc.)
Colossal Collage: Maker night.
Let’s create a colossal collage together.
During our community maker nights, we’ll use found papers to cut, glue, and assemble a botanical-themed collage. Think big, as in colossally big.
Elizabeth Cohen and Jenny Schneider will expertly guide us through the process.
The colossal collage will be hung at the Wellesley Free Library throughout June.
This event is free and open to everyone. No art experience required.
Artist Talk and Demo with Carrie Megan - SOLD OUT
Join us for an Artist Talk with Wellesley artist Carrie Megan.
Carrie is an abstract landscape artist and will offer a demonstration of the preliminary stages involved in creating a cloudscape in oils.
Photo Credit: Beth Shedd
Artist Talk: Daniela Rivera
Art Wellesley is delighted to partner with the Wellesley Free Library to host an Artist Talk with Daniela Rivera.
Daniela Rivera works with ideas of displacement, memory, and cultural migration to celebrate difference and reject categorization. Rivera builds, paints, and draws spaces to be vulnerable together where she hopes to celebrate difference and cultural exchange. She will be presenting her work from the beginning of her practice in Chile and the dramatic changes that resulted from her move to the US.
Rivera is also part of the current exhibition: In Focus at the Davis Museum in Wellesley. This exhibit highlights the creative range of practices among the professional artists on the Wellesley College faculty.
____________
Daniela Rivera is an acclaimed artist, a Wellesley resident, and the Luella LaMer Slaner Professor in Latin American Studies, in the Art Department, at Wellesley College. Born in Santiago, Chile, Daniela Rivera received her BFA from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in 1996 and her MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts, Boston in 2006.
Rivera has exhibited widely in Latin American cities as well as in the United States at the Davis Museum, the Fitchburg Art Museum, ICA and the MFA. She was awarded residencies at Surf Point, Proyecto ACE in Buenos Aires, Headlands Center for the Arts, and the Skowhegan School of Paintings and Sculpture, among others. She was the recipient of notable fellowships and grants including The Wagner Fellowship (2025) The Rappaport Prize, Now + There, the Massachusetts Cultural Council Award, VSC, the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture, the Berkshire Taconic Foundation, The FONDART in Chile, and the Saint Botolph Club Foundation Distinguished Artist Award. Recent exhibitions include: Generations, Trompe L'oeil Provocations, Donde El Cielo Toca La Tierra/Where the Sky Touches The Earth at Matucana 100 in Santiago, Chile, Praxis of Local Knowledge at the San Francisco Art Commission, and New Worlds: Women to Watch at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, as well as an upcoming solo exhibition at Mass Moca. Rivera works from the experience of displacement and from her reality of cultural hybridism. She is interested in how stereotypes are constructed and attempts to challenge categories that discriminate, isolate and violently define other's identities.
Daniela Rivera
Donde el Cielo Toca la Tierra/ Where the Sky Touches the Ground, 2024
Photography by Benjamin Mate
Adobe and Interactive Sound Installation
Art Workshop: Not-so-still Life
Not-so-still Life.
A painting workshop with Caryl Hull Leavitt
When is a flower not a flower?
When you view it as a series of shapes and color.
Come for a fun afternoon of color, shape and gesture as we paint from a robust still life set up.
We’ll warm up with a few exercises that build to an ala prima/one session painting.
Paint on Canvapaper (provided by Art Wellesley) or bring your own small canvas - 8 x 10, 9 x 12 or thereabouts suggested.
Art Wellesley will provide basic acrylic paints and brushes. Any paint medium is welcomed - experienced artists welcome to bring their own.
Try it!
The course fee is $40. Registration for this workshop is through the Wellesley Recreation Department. Search for Course #441401-02. Link provide below, but be sure to copy course #.
If you have any troubles registering, please call Recreation at 781-235-2370.
Caryl Hull Leavitt is a painter living in Brookline. She paints from observation, memory and intuition. The patterns and dynamics of a fleeting scene and familiar routines often catch her eye in unexpected ways. Throughout any given day she is likely to make quick sketches or snap photos of what she sees for later reference. She views her subject matter as a catalyst for exploration and discovery so that one theme may find its way through painting, collage and mixed media sculpture, each offering its own means of expression.
While you wait for your workshop, read an interesting article on the history of the Still Life here
Small Art, Big Party
SORRY, THIS YEAR’S EVENT IS SOLD OUT…
Join us for an evening of art and chance!
Art Wellesley announces our second annual Small Art Big Party.
Guests peruse, select, and compete for donated art, while enjoying wine, beer and light appetizers! Each donated artwork is sold for $100.
Last year’s event was sold-out!
$35 per ticket
AW Executive Board Elizabeth Butcher, Annie Newman, Randy Parker, Elise Rodino, and Jenny Schneider.
2025 Party Committee Beth Cook, Todd Cook, Gordon Green, Coryn Hall, Alyson Jenkins, Amy Letteney, Dave Olson, Randy Parker, Liz Reynolds, Mason Smith, Elizabeth Svedlund, Heather Steele, and Ann Williams.
Intro to Cyanotype
Art Wellesley is collaborating with Shepherd & Maudsleigh Studio in Newton.
Join Liz Shepherd for this introduction into the exciting world of Cyanotype.
Cyanotype is a photographic printing process that results in a distinctive cyan-blue print. It is an inexpensive and simple process that yields lovely results.
Liz will explain the process of making blue cyanotype prints. We will start with a short history of cyanotype and then discuss paper/fabric selection, tools and supplies needed, how to mix the chemistry, and how to coat and dry the paper/fabric. There will also be a discussion on what materials are ideal for the cyanotype process (flowers, leaves, objects, lace, etc). Then we will learn to expose and actually make the prints using UV light - plus we will discuss how this can be done outside in the sunlight or with an indoor exposure unit. You’ll learn the signs that tell you when your print is ready for washing, how to wash and dry your prints, and finally how to best display and store your prints.
You are encouraged to bring your own materials to print with including large negatives if you have them. We will supply paper, chemistry and tools to make prints. You may wish to bring a smock or apron as the solution does stain.
Workshop Fee: $125
Space is very limited.
In Focus: Guided Tour at Davis Museum
Join us for a guided tour at the Davis Museum with David Teng Olsen.
In Focus highlights the creative range of practices among the professional artists on the Wellesley College faculty. This exhibition presents works in various media, such as photography, painting, collage, sculpture, book arts, printmaking, installation, video, sound, and interdisciplinary art forms. The nine artists included are Kathryn Abarbanel, Genevieve Cohn, Claudia Joskowicz, Kathya Landeros, Phyllis McGibbon, Andrew Mowbray, Daniela Rivera, Katherine Ruffin, and David Teng Olsen. As part of Wellesley’s anniversary celebrations, In Focus honors 150 years of faculty excellence at the College.
In Focus is curated by Dr. Nicole Berlin, Associate Curator of Collections, with contributions from Mark Beeman, Manager of Exhibitions and Collections Preparation. This exhibition is generously supported by the Mellon Academic Programs Fund, the June Feinberg Stayman ‘48 Art Fund, and the Wellesley College Friends of Art at the Davis.
This event is free but please reserve your spot.
Artist Talk with Liz Shepherd
Please join us for an artist talk with printmaker Liz Shepherd.
Liz Shepherd is a printmaker and sculptor. She produces large-scale sculptural installations, which often merge her two interests using printmaking to enhance objects made of wood or paper. She also produces small, hand pulled print editions. In the past 20 years she has exhibited in the United States and internationally.
Domestic Spaces
For the past 20 years Liz Shepherd has been working on expressing her vision of American homes and family from the viewpoint of parent and as a daughter. Her installations employ images of furniture that she associates with modest domestic spaces and appropriated parts of houses and furnishings. Her installations are immersive, unabashedly occupying space.
Along with Rebekah Lord Gardiner, she co-owns the Shepherd and Maudsleigh Studio in West Newton, MA
This event is free but space is limited.
Creative Mending
Resurrect your favourite shirt, jeans or sweaters.
Art Wellesley is partnering with HipStitch Wellesely, for this fun workshop where you will learn the art of Creative Mending.
Creative mending is a technique that transforms damaged or worn clothing into unique, artistic pieces. Instead of hiding repairs, creative mending highlights them with visible stitches, patches, or other decorative elements. This approach not only extends the life of clothing but also adds a personal touch and reduces textile waste.
Bring in a favorite worn item for repair. Hipstitch and Art Wellesley will provide fabric, thread and direction to guide you through the process of creative mending.
Fee: $40 per person
Call for Art
Art Wellesley welcomes donations of 8" x 8" submissions from local professional and amateur artists.
How can you participate?
Art Wellesley provides 8x8 panels which are available for pickup at 15 Harvard Street in Wellesley. ( Limit 2 per person)
Create your art using the 8x8 panel-any medium welcome.
Sign only the back side of your artwork, leaving the front of artwork “anonymous”.
Drop off artwork and provided form no later than Friday, October 10, 2025 in the plastic bin on front porch at 15 Harvard Street in Wellesley.
Join the party!
The Small Art, Big Party event is a fundraiser for Art Wellesley that is free for participating artists, with all art sale proceeds supporting Art Wellesley programming.
All art will be sold for $100 each at the Small Art, Big Party show on November 6, 2025. Contact elise@artwellesley.org with any questions.
Art in the Park:Yarn Bomb
Join us for a celebration of Community, Collaboration and Creativity.
The yarn bomb will be assembled and installed at Linden Square.
Celebrations will include art making activities, music and more.
Yarn Bomb Installation RAIN DATE ONLY
Volunteer to help install Wellesley’s first yarn bomb! We need your help. Bring your enthusiasm, energy, and vision.
We’ll figure it out together!!
Yarn Bomb Installation
Volunteer to help install Wellesley’s first yarn bomb! We need your help. Bring your enthusiasm, energy, and vision.
We’ll figure it out together!!
Studio Visits at Vernon Street, Somerville
Join us for a tour of the art studios of Kathryn Geismar and Wilhelm Neusser at Vernon Street Art Studios in Somerville. We will learn about their work and their creative process and you get a chance to talk to the artists directly.
The Vernon Street Open Studios will follow directly, from 12 pm - 4 pm and you are welcome to visit the other artist studios on your own.
$25 per person.
Space is limited. Sign up below.
MORE INFO ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
Kathryn Geismar is an artist and psychologist who lives and works in Somerville, Massachusetts. Her interest in identity and internal harmony infuses her professional life in both areas.
STATEMENT
My work explores the complex and often fragmentary nature of identity through portraits and abstract collage. My recent figurative series depicts adolescents ranging in age from 14-21. These young adults are claiming an identity in an age when binary definitions of self are under question. Materials include industrial Tyvek, canvas, translucent veils of Duralar, graphite, newsprint, inks and paint. Figures move in and out of focus; layers of mylar promote looking through; grommets pierce through layers like jewelry and at other times like windows into layers below.
My collages use newsprint “catchalls” as a jumping-off point. These are the paper drop cloths that catch unintentional marks and drips but also the ghosts of objects and paper shapes painted on top of them. Discarded newsprint, graphite marks, painted lines and unconscious marks, tracing paper scraps, and fragments of drawings become generative seeds for new works.
In each instance, faces, shapes, and materials are placed next to or on top of one another, asking, “what happens, who am I, what changes, when I land here?
Wilhelm Neusser was born in Cologne, Germany. From 1997 to 2001 he studied at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Karlsruhe with Professors Gerd van Dülmen und Harald Klingelhöller. After his studies, Neusser lived and worked in Cologne until his relocation to the United States in 2011.
Wilhelm Neusser’s artwork has been widely exhibited and he has received numerous awards and fellowships. His work is represent byAbigail Ogilvy Gallery in Los Angeles. Recent institutional exhibitions include the Fruitlands Museum (Harvard, MA, 2019), and MASS MoCa (North Adams, MA, 2018). In 2020 and 2022 he was honored with a finalist grant in Painting from the Mass Cultural Council. Additional awards and recognition include the MASS MoCA Studio Program (2017), Vermont Studio Center (2013), Finalist, Wilhelm-Morgner-Prize, Soest (2010), International Artist in Residence, Boots Contemporary Art Space (St. Louis, MO, 2009), ZVAB Phönix Art Prize (2007). Neusser’s work has been included in notable publications, including The Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, Artscope Magazine, Boston.com, and Big Red & Shiny.
Neusser teaches painting at Boston University’s School of Visual Arts. He lives and works in Somerville, MA.
Artist Talk with Mia Cross
Please join us for this exciting outdoor artist talk with Mia Cross.
You will get a chance to see her working on site on the extension of her newest mural Tight Knit in Needham.
Mia Cross’s work spans multiple mediums, including painting, printmaking, sculpture, sewing, and murals. She roots her work in a strong sense of color whilst exploring themes around the human figure and narrative. Her work stems from moments in the everyday, to observations in mother nature, to chuckling at a good dad joke. Cross’s style is influenced by the technique of classically trained artists to the craft and whimsy of folk art. Currently, her figurative work is semi autobiographical and dances between her inner and outer worlds.
The event is free but registration is encouraged.
Yarn Bomb Assembly Night
Help us assemble samplers for a town wide community event.
In preparation for our first Yarn Bomb to be installed on Linden Street in May 2025, Art Wellesley has partnered with fiber enthusiast and local resident Rosann Fleischauer to lead a series of workshops for residents.
We will begin assembling the samplers into blankets for the final installation!
Yarn Bomb Assembly Night
Help us assemble samplers for a town wide community event.
In preparation for our first Yarn Bomb to be installed on Linden Street in May 2025, Art Wellesley has partnered with fiber enthusiast and local resident Rosann Fleischauer to lead a series of workshops for residents.
We will begin assembling the samplers into blankets for the final installation!
Gallery Visit | Beth Urdang
Please join us for an inspiring gallery visit at Beth Urdang Gallery.
Following a brief private talk by gallery owner Beth Urdang, acclaimed photographer JP Terlizzi will join us via Zoom to talk about his work and process.
This event is free but please let us know that you are coming as space is limited.
Image courtesy by JP Terlizzi.
Yarn Bomb Maker Night #5 Knitting
Learn to knit for a town wide community event.
In preparation for our first Yarn Bomb to be installed on Linden Street in May 2025, Art Wellesley has partnered with fiber enthusiast and local resident Rosann Fleischauer to lead a series of workshops for residents.
During the two hour session, Rosann will introduce participants to the project, provide design guidelines, and guide participants through easy to follow instructions to create a small sampler. Ultimately, the samplers will be connected together and installed outdoors, creating a brightly colored, handmade, temporary installation.
Knitting and crochet sessions will alternate. Instructions for both will be available. Experienced fiber artists are welcome to come and work alongside. Materials will be provided.
Yarn Bomb Assembly Night
Help us assemble samplers for a town wide community event.
In preparation for our first Yarn Bomb to be installed on Linden Street in May 2025, Art Wellesley has partnered with fiber enthusiast and local resident Rosann Fleischauer to lead a series of workshops for residents.
We will begin assembling the samplers into blankets for the final installation!
Monotypes without a press
This three-hour workshop with Carolyn Letvin will introduce you to the process of making monotypes by using litho pencils and Caran d’Ache water-soluble crayons on plexiglass and printing them onto paper – no press needed! Anyone who can make a mark can use this technique. It is a perfect way for artists who are focused on drawing to become printmakers. The simplicity is startling and the results are beautiful. All materials are supplied.
$40 / $50 non-residents
$15 materials fee paid directly to the instructor.
Registration is through Wellesley Recreation Department. Activity #141401.
Yarn Bomb Maker Night #4 Crochet
Learn to crochet for a town wide community event.
In preparation for our first Yarn Bomb to be installed on Linden Street in May 2025, Art Wellesley has partnered with fiber enthusiast and local resident Rosann Fleischauer to lead a series of workshops for residents.
During the two hour session, Rosann will introduce participants to the project, provide design guidelines, and guide participants through easy to follow instructions to create a small sampler. Ultimately, the samplers will be connected together and installed outdoors, creating a brightly colored, handmade, temporary installation.
Knitting and crochet sessions will alternate. Instructions for both will be available. Experienced fiber artists are welcome to come and work alongside. Materials will be provided.
Intro to Silkscreen
Art Wellesley is teaming up with Shepherd and Maudsleigh Studio to discover the magic behind silkscreen printing during this workshop! Silkscreen printing is for everyone - no previous art, drawing, or printmaking skills required! During this class we will briefly cover how silkscreens are prepared for printing, then dive into color mixing and learning how to pull your very own prints! Participants will be using multiple pre-made screens, and will explore how screenprinting many layers on top of one another can create images that are dramatic, unique, and unexpected.
Cost: $125 | Space is limited.
Aiming for freedom Gallery Talk Jewett Art Center Wellesley College
Join us for a private tour of the current exhibition at Wellesley College’s Jewett Art Center!
Aiming for Freedom: Race, Reparations & Right Paths is a traveling exhibition organized by New America Us@250 Lumina Foundation Fellow K. Melchor Quick Hall. Hall is also currently a postdoctoral fellow at Wellesley College in the Anti-Carceral Co-Laboratory, working to advance abolitionist and food sovereignty futures. Aiming for Freedom features work by four core artists--sculptor Darrell Ann Gane-McCalla, painter Destiny Palmer, fiber artist Marla McLeod, and quilter Kimberly Love Radcliffe--accompanied by complementary “abolitionist” works, created anew locally in each location to which the show travels, that speak to Black feminist artistic visions of our shared liberation.
The work in the Wellesley College version of this exhibition was made in an art course for formerly incarcerated women taught by Marla McLeod and a summer '24 quilting workshop for daughters of (formerly and currently) incarcerated persons taught by Kimberly Love Radcliffe.
Aiming for Freedom will be on display in the Jewett Art Gallery from Jan. 21 - Feb. 28 2025, with an opening reception from 4:30-6:00 pm on Friday Jan. 24.
The event is free but space is limited.
Yarn Bomb Maker Night #3 Knitting
Learn to knit or crochet (or come help others learn) for a town wide community event.
In preparation for our first Yarn Bomb to be installed on Linden Street in May 2025, Art Wellesley is offering a series of workshops for residents.
During this two hour session, our team will assist fiber enthusiasts and introduce easy to follow instructions to create a small sampler. Ultimately, the samplers will be connected together and installed outdoors, creating a brightly colored, handmade, temporary installation.
Experienced fiber artists are encouraged to come and work alongside beginners. Materials will be provided.
Yarn Bomb Maker Night #2
Learn to crochet for a town wide community event.
In preparation for our first Yarn Bomb to be installed on Linden Street in May 2025, Art Wellesley has partnered with fiber enthusiast and local resident Rosann Fleischauer to lead a series of workshops for residents.
During the two hour session, Rosann will introduce participants to the project, provide design guidelines, and guide participants through easy to follow instructions to create a small sampler. Ultimately, the samplers will be connected together and installed outdoors, creating a brightly colored, handmade, temporary installation.
Knitting and crochet sessions will alternate. Instructions for both will be available. Experienced fiber artists are welcome to come and work alongside. Materials will be provided.
Workshop with John Rufo: Drawing to explore
“Drawing has always been my entry point to art. Whether exploring new compositional ideas, sketching as a way to just loosen up, or delineating a detailed rendition of a favorite object, drawing with a variety of media and purpose is a great way to underpin your personal art practice.” John Rufo
Join us for a workshop where we explore different techniques and purposes to sketching and drawing.
$40
The class will be hosted at the Warren Center, Wellesley Recreation, Room 216, 90 Washington St, Wellesley, MA 02481
Yarn Bomb Maker Night #1
Learn to knit for a town wide community event.
(11/21 focuses on knitting and 12/12 focus on crochet.)
In preparation for our first Yarn Bomb to be installed on Linden Street in May 2025, Art Wellesley has partnered with fiber enthusiast and local resident Rosann Fleischauer to lead a series of workshops for residents.
During the two hour session, Rosann will introduce participants to the project, provide design guidelines, and guide participants through easy to follow instructions to create a small sampler. Ultimately, the samplers will be connected together and installed outdoors, creating a brightly colored, handmade, temporary installation.
Knitting and crochet sessions will alternate. Instructions for both will be available. Experienced fiber artists are welcome to come and work alongside. Materials will be provided.