Participants of Art NEPA’s Edgar Allan Poe ‘Make-and-Take Workshop’ pose with their art projects at Circle Center for the Arts in Wilkes-Barre on Saturday afternoon. From left: Amanda Russell, Davienne Piatt, and William Westbrook.
Hannah Simerson | Times Leader
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Participants at Art NEPA’s Edgar Allan Poe ‘Make-and-Take Workshop’ created Poe-inspired dioramas at Circle Center for the Arts in Wilkes-Barre on Saturday afternoon.
Hannah Simerson | Times Leader
Ainslee Golomb instructs participants in Art NEPA’s Edgar Allan Poe ‘Make-and-Take Workshop’ how to create a pen and ink project at Circle Center for the Arts in Wilkes-Barre on Saturday afternoon.
Hannah Simerson | Times Leader
WILKES-BARRE — A room full of art-newbies. A thunderstorm-ridden day. Edgar Allan Poe crafts.
This is exactly what the Art NEPA’s Edgar Allan Poe “Make-and-Take Workshop” delivered.
Poe, the 19th century American writer, is known for his akin to the grotesque and eerie.
The event, which took place on Saturday afternoon, drew over a dozen people to the Circle Center for the Arts in Wilkes-Barre. It came just in time for National Poetry Month, which takes place each April.
The over three-hour craft-building workshop featured lessons from local artists Ainslee Golomb, Constance Denchy, and Donna Scott.
Each artist took about an hour each to instruct participants on how to craft an Edgar Allan Poe-inspired work of art.
“It’s a more out-of-the ordinary theme,” said Daevid Mendivil, director of Art NEPA and the newest member of the Wyoming Valley Art League.
“It’s more on the side of the macabre, mysterious, dark — it’s just a little more interesting.”
First up on the agenda was Golomb’s pen and ink book page project. The process consisted of collaging book pages onto a canvas, then using pens and markers to draw an eye, symbolic of Poe’s short story, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” on top of the pages.
Next up was Denchy’s lesson on collage work, of course littered with Poe references. Participants used recycled art materials and magazines to form a collage on cardstock.
Halloween-esque music filled the halls of the Circle Center, but it could barely be heard over the laughter from participants.
This was certainly the case for a girls’ group — who, despite a few hiccups in the projects themselves, had smiles on their faces for the duration of the event.
The group consisted of a mother and her three daughters.
Alexandria Shaffer, one of the daughters of the group, especially loved the collage project.
“I enjoyed the collages. I thought that was really interesting and I liked putting all the different images together and pulling from those magazines — I had a really good time looking at them,” she said.
Shaffer’s sister, Nicole Middleton, was the one to suggest the event to the group after finding out about it on social media.
“We love Edgar Allan Poe and I love to do dioramas, so we thought it would be neat to get out into the community,” she said.
After the collages, participants made their way downstairs for the final project of the event: Poe dioramas.
Scott, an artist and volunteer at the Circle Center, ran this event– and loved every minute of it.
“I love Edgar Allan Poe. I think he is so interesting and I had skeletons that I had no use for anymore, so I thought, ‘well, let’s just go crazy and do a diorama,’” Scott said.
According to Mendivil, the participants all were non-members who were new to the center.
“With the efforts we made here today, we managed to attract a whole new audience that had never been here, which is quite significant,” he said.
Circle Center for the Arts is the home of the Wyoming Valley Art League, which has been in the community for over 60 years. The league aims to educate and foster the arts in the area.
The league plans to host an opera singer on May 18 and 19 at the Circle Center.
For more information on the league and upcoming events, visit www.artnepa.org.
