Throughout the year, Cheekwood holds a variety of adult workshops related to art and horticulture to provide exciting, unique. hands-on opportunities for participants over the age of 18. With the help of our wonderful instructors, we strive to provide participants with the skills and materials needed to learn something new in a relatively short period of time, whether it be painting, floral arrangement, working with organic dyes, calligraphy, etc.
All our instructors are local artists and teachers who are interested in adding teaching experiences to their repertoire as well as sharing their skillset with new audiences.
Here, we’d like to take an opportunity to highlight our instructors from the 2022 Cheekwood Harvest season, and give a little more detail about their backgrounds as artists and experts in their fields.
Our next adult workshops will be held during Cheekwood’s Holiday Lights season, which runs November 19, 2022 through January 8, 2023. Please keep an eye on the Adult Education and Programs page for more information about upcoming workshops.
The Nashville Rose Society
The Nashville Rose Society (NRS) serves all of Middle Tennessee by sharing knowledge and information about America’s national flower, the rose. Through monthly newsletters and meetings that feature regional and nationally known speakers, NRS provides advice and instruction geared to growing healthy roses in the specific soil and climatic conditions of this area. We meet monthly at Cheekwood, typically on the first Sunday of the month, to discuss rose growing topics which are relevant to that particular time of year, followed by hands-on demonstrations in Cheekwood’s Rose Study Garden. Meetings are free to the public. We also hold workshops on different aspects of growing roses as well as popular events at Cheekwood, such as the “Pick Your Own Bouquet” event and the annual “Music City Rose Show”. And, our group of Consulting Rosarians are available to mentor new members and provide one-on-one advice on growing roses to anyone who needs assistance. For more information about the Nashville Rose Society, upcoming activities and events and how to join, visit our website at https://www.nashvillerosesociety.org/
Dani Taylor
Dani is a self-taught watercolor artist. She began painting as a way to recover from a concussion after a serious car wreck in the summer of 2018. She loves being self-taught because she gets to learn outside of the traditional rules and paint what makes her happy, which is usually landscapes and trees as a throwback to family vacations spent in the Smokies and on the Blue Ridge Parkway. She loves teaching and seeing adult learners take a few hours for themselves in a busy world. Taking that time to shut out what needs to be done and just learn something new, is a gift. Her favorite classes to teach are plein air, and anything outside of the box where people get to be creative.
When not teaching, or working out of her studio in Germantown, she is probably planning her next travel adventure or getting coffee from a local shop.
Rolinda Stotts
I believe the second greatest power we possess is our ability to create. I learned about creativity growing up on a dairy farm, but I did not discover art until I was 22, when my husband took me to Italy for the first time. That started a quest of using my own creative powers, to develop a textural oil painting style I call Bella Rotta which means Beautiful Broken. Finding artist oil paints was like finding my soul. As a professional artist, I am represented by 10 fine art galleries across the country in cities like Aspen and Vail CO, Park City UT, Jackson Hole WY, South Lake Tahoe CA to name a few. Each time I teach an oil painting class at Cheekwood, my goal is to provide an artistic experience that activates the creative power of each participant. What joy this brings!
Liza Slaughter-Barker
Liza Slaughter-Barker is a local artist, specializing in subtractive sculpture—carving anything from pumpkins to eggshells to clay. Inspired by the work of Ray Villafane, Liza got into pumpkin carving as a way to create memories with her children and engage in a unique artistic outlet. While she claims to carve only as a hobby, Liza’s incredible pumpkin sculpting skills have been featured in numerous Food Network Challenges, including Halloween Wars and Outrageous Pumpkins. Continuing to challenge herself and improve her sculpting skills, Liza will also be featured in a Disney+ special this coming holiday season, titled: Best in Snow.
Christine Croom – Planted Self Care
Planted Self Care is a Nashville-based company focused on bringing together nature, creativity, and mindful practices to enhance wellbeing. Planted Self Care offers mindfulness based creative workshops, sound healing, nature-based meditation, as well as self-care and well-being coaching. Interested in learning more? Private and group sessions are available. Services can be booked through linktr.ee/plantedselfcare and workshops can be arranged by contacting Christine Croom at [email protected]
Stony Creek Colors
Stony Creek Colors manufactures 100% plant-based natural dyes. Their US-grown indigo is cultivated in partnership with family farms, and processed at our vertically integrated factory in Springfield, Tennessee. Stony Creek Colors works with independent makers and designers as well as globally recognized fashion labels like Levi’s and Patagonia to ensure brands know exactly what is in their dyes from seed to finished product. Their team is devoted to replacing harmful synthetic dyes in the denim industry and artisan community with safe, clean color that is good for people and the planet.
Eva Sailly, dye specialist, offers the following workshops:
- Bundle Dyeing with Foraged Native Plants
- Japanese Shibori Techniques with Natural Indigo
- Eco-Printing: Printing with Natural Dye Plants
- Yarn Dyeing with Natural Colors
Tennessee Language Center
The Tennessee Language Center (TLC), an agency of the University of Tennessee Institute for Public Service, is focused on facilitating intercultural communication goals of Tennesseans and others. TLC offers affordable, small group classes in some of the most popular world languages in convenient nine-week terms. Japanese instructors Naoko Takeda and Tomi Kawamura, both natives of Japan, have been teaching Japanese for TLC for a number of years. Both like to focus on a Communicative Approach to language learning by asking “What will learners be able to do with this language outside of the classroom?” For more information about the Tennessee Language Center and our world language classes, visit our website at tlc.tennessee.edu.
Beth Reitmeyer
Beth Reitmeyer is a visual artist who likes to make people happy with her colorful installations. Her work investigates landscapes and the joy of unexpected yet beautiful spaces and places that are discovered as one explores the land and structures within it: clouds, rivers, caves, geodes, stars. These environments allow viewers to explore the land and get to know one another in a more profound way, providing a space for renewal and hope for persevering.
Beth attended Northwestern University (MFA) and Penn State University (BFA). Her work has recently been exhibited at the Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN; TedX Nashville; The Elizabeth Foundation, New York; OZ Arts, Nashville; 1708 Gallery/Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA; FIGMENT, Chicago; The Downing Museum, Bowling Green, KY; Kindling Arts Festival, Nashville; Zg Gallery, Chicago. Beth has been an artist-in-residence at The Studios at MASS MoCA, The Golden Foundation, ChaNorth, and CONVERGE. Recently awards include grants from Metro Nashville Arts Commission/National Endowment for the Arts and a finalist for a Burning Man grant.
Beth loves to make art with people and teaches with Cheekwood Estates and Gardens, the Frist Art Museum, and Western Kentucky University.
Jennifer Fleischer – Ibu Textiles
My name is Jennifer and I’m a weaver and fiber artist based in Nashville. Weaving is my first love and I’m often seen experimenting on my floor and frame looms. A little over a decade ago, I learned to weave at a small textile studio in Connecticut and immediately fell in love. I saved up and bought myself a floor loom whom I named Patsy. Working on everything from wall hangings to scarves, all of my work is made with natural materials that I carefully source. I like to incorporate natural dyes, dried flowers and other natural elements such as driftwood into my art as well. You can often see me popping up at markets around town and teaching workshops as well. Working with Cheekwood, The Forge, Nashville Art Studios and more, I teach everything from weaving, macramé, needle felting and Indigo dyeing. Originally from New York, I have made Nashville my home and love the community here. Hope to see you around town!
Upcoming markets
- Tennessee Craft
- Firefly Artisan Market
- Franklin Makers Market
- Crafty Bastards
- East Nashville Holiday Bash
To learn more about upcoming workshop opportunities at Cheekwood, please visit:
https://cheekwood.site/learn/adult/
Interested in teaching an adult workshop?
Please visit https://cheekwood.site/class-workshop-proposal/ to submit a workshop proposal.