“The source frees us to depart from something rather than nothing or everything. We do not seek to duplicate the source, but to use it as a reference. It relieves us of thinking we have to make something new or great (a scary idea).”
— Sister Corita Kent
Mondays, June 29—July 27
Class will meet via Zoom
Mondays from 7-9 PM ET
All levels and mediums welcome.
This class is currently in progress. Please feel free to reach out if you're interested in future classes or one-on-one independent study and artist mentorship: jennifer@jennifersullivan.org
Starting from Source: Finding New Meaning in Familiar Forms is a 5-week online course for anyone interested in using source material as a creative tool.
Through presentations, discussions, and creative exercises, we’ll explore the creative process as a relationship and experiment with techniques for transforming existing objects, images, artworks, films, memories, and found materials into something personal and new.
Artists have always worked from what already exists, looking at and analyzing other artists work, retelling stories, and reinterpreting familiar images to make something new. In this course, we will use source material as both a starting point and a companion: something to respond to, transform, question, or reimagine.
Working from a source is not about copying, but about departure. Beginning from something helps ground the process and opens up possibilities beyond the pressure of starting from nothing. Through drawing, painting, and discussion, we will explore how meaning can emerge through observation, invention, and play.
This course draws on my experience as a painter and professor, working with source material in many ways—through interpretation, transformation, and critique.
About the instructor:
Jennifer Sullivan is a painter based in Ridgewood, Queens. Her work explores personal narratives through a combination of observation and invention, drawing on mythology, film, music, photos, found objects, and other artworks as points of departure.
Jennifer has taught studio art for over thirteen years at New York University, Queens College (CUNY), Parsons School of Design, SUNY Old Westbury, Ox-Bow School of Art, and Maharishi International University. She holds an MFA in Fine Art from Parsons School of Design and a BFA from Pratt Institute.
Recent exhibitions include The Tenderness (with Raychael Stine, Emma Gray HQ, 2024) and Sleeper (Turn Gallery, 2021). Her work has been featured in The New York Times and The Brooklyn Rail.