2026 Art Classes at OMAA
Check out our full list of classes below! Since 2025, OMAA has been proud to offer its art classes free of charge to all participants, expanding accessibility and engagement.
Pre-registration is required for all classes unless noted otherwise, and will open for sign-ups later in the spring.
Cara Gonier – Gelatin Plate Monotype Class
Saturday, May 30, 11am-3pm
This workshop covers advanced techniques in gelatin plate monotype. We will explore paint chemistry, including why and how to layer specific colors to achieve painterly and atmospheric effects to create a collectable fine art landscape monotype. We will discuss printmaking tools and terms, the importance of paper selection as well as care and maintenance of a gel plate. All will be discussed in a relaxed and fun environment suitable for the beginner or professional artist. (To reduce emission of VOC’s and encourage an allergy reduced environment, NO solvents, oil based paints, rubbing alcohol or other materials that give off strong VOC’s will be used during this class).
Registration information coming soon.
All are welcome, no prior experience in gelatin plate printing necessary. Materials list will be emailed to registered students. Max Capacity 20 students.
CARA GONIER is a New England based award winning painter and printmaker. Her work is collected internationally and is featured in solo, invitational, museum and juried exhibitions her work was published in International Artist Magazine under the feature “Master Painters of the World”. Cara is the founder and executive director of Rolling River Printmakers of New England and shares her joy of printmaking thru her accessible traveling workshops, teaching students and artists how to create collectible fine art monotypes with minimal equipment.
Heather Lewis – Landscape Drawing Class
Friday, June 12th, 3 – 5pm & Friday, July 10, 3 – 5pm
This workshop is a classic, set in OMAA’s sculpture gardens with its breathtaking views of Maine’s iconic rocky cliffs and sea. Artist/teacher Heather Lewis will share her love of sketching in this location and offer her expertise on capturing what is seen in an outdoor setting, while on the move. Workshop participants will receive admission to the museum with a docent-led tour of the permanent collection and learn about the historic Ogunquit Art communities. Suggested materials: lightweight, easy carry tote: Sketchbook- 8×10, or smaller multimedia, or watercolor paper; graphite pencil, charcoal, pencil sharpener, eraser; Variety of color media– watercolors (pan style set), 3 brushes- large, medium, and small ; pen, crayons, colored pencils, water soluble colored pencils, or pastels, paint rags or paper towels. Suggestions for personal comfort: sunscreen, bug spray, sun hat, water repellent windbreaker, water bottle, snacks.
Registration information coming soon.
All skill levels are welcome. Students will need to bring their own materials.
HEATHER LEWIS possesses a life-long immersion in the arts beginning in Delaware with artist parents, fine art training at The Philadelphia College of Art, and over three decades of actively creating art for exhibition and sale. PASSIONATE about helping others reconnect with their own creativity, she is a seasoned studio arts instructor and creativity coach who inspires learning through her engaging and encouraging teaching style. She has taught and conducted workshops throughout the northeast for all different age levels from pre-school to college. She is an adjunct studio arts professor at York County Community College. As with her paintings, Heather’s classroom instruction serves as a magical conduit through which others discover their own dreams, visions, images, and feelings.
Jenny Ibsen – Handbuilding Ceramic Trophy Workshop
Sunday, July 26, 10am – 1pm
This workshop with ceramic artist Jenny Ibsen will explore relationships between color, illustration and playful forms through handbuilding tiny trophies. Jenny’s most recent series of trophies existed in an imaginary world in which rabbits give each other awards—Head Cabbage, Top Carrot, #1 Bun, and Crown Jewel—trophies in which everyone (or every bun) is a winner. Come make an award for a loved one, a show of gratitude for some delicious vegetables, a thank you to your favorite spot in Maine, a note to self, or even a good-enough Nice Try. We’ll be making whimsical trophies for all—objects, places, people, moments—congratulating them for whatever it is they do. Pieces will be fired by Chases’ Garage and available for pick-up within 2 weeks after the class.
Registration information coming soon.
All are welcome, no prior experience in ceramics necessary. Materials will be provided.
JENNY IBSEN is a Maine-based artist and organizer with a community-centered art practice. Her ceramic works are often colorful, hand-built terracotta vessels that intend to facilitate connection at the dinner table among friends and strangers alike. Jenny moved to Maine in 2014 to pursue her BA at Bowdoin College. She is a co-organizer for Tender Table and lives in Portland, Maine.
Ashley Page – Papermaking Workshop
Friday, August 7, 11am – 2pm
Join Portland based artist Ashley Page in this hands-on papermaking workshop! Focused on the beauty of botanicals, attendees will learn basic sheet forming and incorporate fresh and dried plant material within the papers. Participants can create floral compositions within their pages using embedding or use plants as inclusions in their papers, creating beautiful, unexpected papers. Once dried, these papers can be framed, collaged, written, painted or drawn upon. This is a beginner class that has plenty of space for experimenting and intuitive making! No prior papermaking experience is required, and participants will be guided through each step of the process. Something to consider: Papermaking is a wet process; participants should be prepared with waterproof or water-safe shoes and clothing. Suggested Materials to bring (This is totally optional, but helpful for attendees): Plant matter from your personal gardens, floral arrangements, foraging etc; Botanical related imagery or collage material; A personal pair of tweezers; Waterproof apron (or clothes you’re okay with being wet); Waterproof shoes (or shoes that are okay with getting water on them); Sketchbook + mark making tools.
Registration information coming soon.
All are welcome, no prior experience in papermaking necessary.
ASHLEY PAGE is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Portland, ME. She holds a BFA in Sculpture from the Maine College of Art & Design. Her studio practice serves as a vehicle for storytelling, representation, and intergenerational exchange. Page’s artwork has been exhibited at museums and institutions, including the Portland Museum of Art, Hunterdon Art Museum, the Tate House Museum, and the University of Southern Maine Art Gallery. As a teaching artist, she has taught various workshops in textiles, papermaking, and printmaking at Peters Valley School of Craft, the University of Maine Orono, Waterfall Arts, and Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, among others.
Shane Charles – Site-based activation
Thursday, September 17, 3pm – 5pm
A site-based activation within an engineered sculptural system built from timber, oxidized steel, and machined joinery. Breath, moisture, and pressure operate as material methods: contact transfers residue, corrosion advances, and the surface records what occurs in real time. Time reads as a physical interface—irreversibility and emergence carried forward through touch, weight, and chemical change.
Registration information coming soon.
SHARE CHARLES is a sculptor working across Maine, Boston, New York, and internationally—engineering installations from Eastern Woodlands–sourced timber, oxidized body-print on steel, hand-cast metal, and machined hardware—works in which contact is not image; pressure not metaphor; but consequence. Surface meets surface. Load to constraint. Breath into substrate. The body registers into steel as real transfer; and does not reverse. In this practice, the body is material history; somatic memory is physical—experience as mortality witnessed. Architectural framing and performative activation operate as a single horizon system: condition with contact is form. Touch is the context in which the inert past faces potential—emergence carried forward by irreversibility.
Rachel Gloria Adams – Quilted Vase Workshop
Thursday, September 24, 10am – 12pm
We love an upcycle moment. Learn to transform a glass bottle into a one of a kind quilted vessel. We will hand stitch fabric to create improv quilt vases.
Registration information coming soon.
RACHEL GLORIA ADAMS is a multidisciplinary artist living in Portland, ME. Adams has developed a vibrant, graphic pattern-based visual language filled with references to the natural world and motherhood that possesses an heirloom quality. Her work takes form through quilting, painting, design and murals. She moved to Maine in 2005 to pursue her BFA from the Maine College of Art and Design. She has exhibited artwork at the Portland Museum of Art, Space Gallery, Center for Maine Contemporary Art and Dowling Walsh. Her work has been acquired by the Portland Museum of Art and the Farnsworth Museum. She has attended residencies at Speedwell and Pace House and is an Indigo Arts Alliance David C. Driscoll Fellow. In addition to her studio practice, Adams has been commissioned to create murals for several institutions including the Children’s Museum of Portland, the Farnsworth Museum, and the Worcester Art Museum.
