Creating More Hours: A Temporal Commons
ORGANIZED BY AMANDA HUCKINS
MARCH 8TH - APRIL 12TH, 2024
Creating More Hours: A Temporal Commons offered humanly-scaled models for combining creative practice, social connection, and mutual caregiving. During a series of workshops designed to expand and reclaim time through cooperative caregiving, the gallery space functioned as a "temporal commons" for caregivers and their children.
Caregivers with children between the ages of 3- and 12-years-old were invited to participate in the free workshops documented below. Collaborative care that allows participants to cycle between caregiving and artmaking was an integral part of each workshop. Workshop participants shared in both caregiving and art-making activities.
Workshop 1: Poetic Expression w/ Maritza N. Estrada
Participants considered the letter as a container for wonder, possibility, transformation, and healing with poet Maritza N. Estrada.
Workshop #2: Interactive Audio w/ Ameen Wahba
Participants explored how touch, connection, and shared experiences using musical technology can build meaningful relationships with musician and therapist Ameen Wahba.
Workshop #3: Resourceful Printmaking w/ Kelly Seacrest
Participants learned how to do relief printing with traditional media and easy-to-cut alternatives in order to create postcard sized duplicates of their designs with printmaker Kelly Seacrest.
Workshop #4: Cookie Decorating w/ Artur Melika
Participants polished their piping skills with artist Artur Melika and learned cookie decorating techniques that led to beautiful and tasty results.
About the Artists
Amanda Huckins is a Nebraskan poet whose work has been published in booklet form as "Trying to End the War" (merrily merrily merrily merrily, 2017) and featured in A Dozen Nothing (adozennothing.com), amongst other places on paper and online. In her weekday hours, Amanda assists multiple infants as they adjust to being. She deeply loves working alongside fellow community members to build self-determination, forge non-transactional relationships, and create radical free spaces (such as past projects The Commons in Lincoln, NE and Media Corp. in Omaha). She is also a letterpress printer who produces postcards (and other ephemera) in her garage print studio, where she teaches typesetting to anyone who wants to learn.
Maritza N. Estrada earned her MFA in Creative Writing at Arizona State University. Estrada’s recent poem “Audience” was published in the Academy of American Poets—the nation’s leading champion of American poets and poetry. Born in Toppenish, Washington to Mexican parents, she calls Phoenix, Mexico City, and Paris, home. ¡Liberar Palestina!
Ameen Wahba (he/him) is an arab-american multidisciplinary artist and psychotherapist living in Omaha, NE - the ancestral homeland of the Omaha, Ponca, Otoe-Missouria and Ioway tribes. He is interested in exploring the liminal space between synthetic and organic modes of being in his art, activism, and therapy practice.
Kelly Seacrest is an educator and artist. With her husband Peter Stegen, she founded Wild Learning in 2020, a Democratic Self Directed learning place for kids. As a facilitator at Wild Learning, she supports kids' learning by practicing democracy, engaging in conflict resolution, creating curriculum and being playful with them. Kelly also practices her art and loves painting, drawing and printmaking.
Artur Melika is an Omaha-based, queer, Ukrainian-American artist. Melika received his BFA from University of Nebraska Omaha in December of 2022. Art’s current work explores the vastness of the queer experience and how it manifests for individuals coming from different backgrounds. His primary focus is in 2D mediums including printmaking, drawing and painting. Melika is also exploring guerrilla style performance-based work, in public and gallery settings.