Sunday, OCTOBER 4 | 1p - 2:30p
$15 per person (adult or child) $10 Per Member (Adult or child)
For ages 6+. Children 16 and younger must be accompanied by a paid adult.
Family workshop tickets include MMAM gallery admission.
About the workshop:
This all-ages workshop gives participants the unique opportunity to create their own artwork with exhibiting artist Barbara McIlrath. McIlrath’s paintings and drawings begin with studying the patterns and shapes in the natural world, from land forms, limestone bluffs of the river, plants, trees, clouds, shadows and angles of sunlight.
In this workshop, participants will paint and draw together using our powers of observation. By selecting natural objects and discovering the patterns and shapes that make up the structure of these objects, participants will find the universal patterns. Explore art materials that you may not have tried before, including paint sticks, charcoal, oil pastels, acrylic paint, even collage. These materials will help you discover new dimensions of the world around us with different tools to make color shapes and lines come alive.
The workshop lasts 90 minutes, with extra time as needed to finish your projects.
This event is part of the Fall New Look Weekend, October 2 - 4, 2026. Celebrate a season of mystery, transformation, and creativity with a full weekend of programing featuring four exhibiting artists including, Andy DuCett (Home(town)), Geo Rutherford (Spooky Waters of the World), Barbara McIlrath (LandSkyWater), and Tanya Aguiñiga (Water | Craft).
About the artist:
Barbara McIlrath earned her BA degree in Humanities at Illinois Wesleyan University, MS degree in Education at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, and BFA degree at Minneapolis College of Art & Design, where she received the Vanderlip Award at graduation. She has worked as a graphic designer, illustrator, instructional designer/Mayo Clinic, corporate training consultant and faculty member at Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
Barbara travels along the Mississippi River between her farm studio in Pepin, Wisconsin and her house in St. Paul, Minnesota. The seasonal color changes of the Driftless Region inspire her paintings and drawings. McIlrath is particularly drawn to the shoreline of Lake Pepin in the historic Village of Old Frontenac, Minnesota, as well as the prairie surrounding her farm in Hicks Valley, near the Village of Pepin. Her paintings range from textured impasto paint mixed with cold wax to delicately layered oils and gouache. She describes her work as “including both carefully observed images of land, sky and water to more abstract compositions, discovered in the process of simplifying, improvising and questioning what I am seeing.”
