3. "OTHER" Workshops about the elusive WHY of Making.
What else is happening when you make things, and especially things from natural matyerials?? These can be a few hours, a weekend, or a lifetime.
Tune It Up!
Daniel Mack runs this event with assistants skilled in poetry, handwork and nature study Friday PM to Sunday Noon $325
Contemplative Making
We use making and art as a ways of gathering hints, clues, directions about who we are and where we are now.
Art-Making is not a commodity, not for a marketplace, but a divination tool. It is the practice of seeing, feeling, sorting, combining, destroying, reworking.
The Language of Natural
Materials Alchemy or
Art?
Introduction to how--and why-- of work with nature 
Artist/maker Daniel Mack has been building with trees, logs, sticks and driftwood for over 30 years. He’s done furniture, architectural installations and sculpture. In this day-long workshop, Dan introduces the mortise and tenon joint, mechanical joinery, use of adhesives and as well as lashing, carving and embellishment. Projectsfor the day include several sculptural exercises and the challenges of mounting and displaying them. Attention is given to how projects develop with natural materials. What is the language of sticks, bark, bones and stones? And what level of craft and joinery is appropriate with natural materials?
Mindful Making with Natural Materials
Hands-on workshop about what nature can teach us about human nature. Using common natural materials, we learn to make several different kinds of objects which help “say” things about the changing nature of being human. Over thirty years, Dan has developed unusual approaches to art and craft with ephemeral natural materials and now uses them as the basis of these personal growth workshops. These are for anyone interested in learning more about human nature and the role making things can play in that process. Artists will enjoy Dan’s fresh approach and everybody else will have a good time, too Cost: $40. includes special handmade papers and supplies.
The Art School at Old Church, Demerast, NJ $160
Dorsky Museum, SUNY New Paltz, NY
For several years, Daniel Mack has been developing Artists Trading Cards in the tradition of the surrealists. Using primitive techniques of pounding, burning, scraping, fuming and the more traditional collage, he has developed the making of Artists Trading Cards into a way to encounter your own unconscious-- the goal of surrealists poets and visual artists. In this 2-hour introduction you will learn, and unlearn, enough, to pursue this practice on your own $40 per workshop includes handmade papers.
I introduced The Cards one November evening at a class in the Integrated Design Program at Parsons School of Design in New York. We talked about Design as "conscious Patterning of Material." It can happen in urban landscapes, living spaces, in fashion.... and on a very small intimate scale. It's all a way of refining our capacity to see and speak about human nature in nature.So, we practiced, for 20 minutes, with making statements on The Cards:
Moonlight Workshops
Arts-in-Healthcare Seminar, a support-group for working artists
Dan's Studio, Warwick On November 21 seven people met for several hours to explore the languages of making things...some cards, some tools and other imaginal techlnologies. Let the Right Brain lead!
Drop-In Studio Time two-hour time blocks
Dan has a large, comfortable studio in a Victorian era carriage House. It has many worktables and is filled with compelling materials and tools. He is starting weekly, Drop-In Workshops where people are invited to come to work/play/explore by the hour. This is an experiment in flex-time creativity--- where people can come and be in the company of others, with materials, with tools...or just by themselves....a creative mini-vacation.
Arts and Illness 
All of us are artists and all of us experience illness. For several years, Dan Mack has been developing workshops in the “language of healing by making” he has taught in hospitals, retreat centers and many different school and workshop settings. In this 12 meeting workshop, he shares the many techniques he has developed as he guides you through different exercises. This workshop is good for artists who have come to suspect that the act of making may be more important than what’s made and that making in the company of others enriches all involved. In this workshop we make two and three dimensional objects linked to the well-being of ourselves, others and the earth. $100 (for any four) more>>>>
Writing Skills for Artists and Craftspeople
Versatile writing skills are more important than ever. Small business people, artists and craftspeople especially need the skills to write press releases, artists’ statements, short bios and short, clear descriptions of products and services for websites, blogs and promotion. This 4 meeting workshop introduces the basics of writing, finding appropriate "voices" and editing. There are handouts, discussion, in-class exercises, at-home practices and an email forum for exchanging work. Daniel Mack has been a network radio and TV producer and writer. He has taught writing at Fordham University and has written seven book and many articles. $100 (for any four)
Writing Skills for Artists and Craftspeople,
One-Day Version
In this one-day workshop, writer-artist Daniel Mack helps jump-start the
writing and presentational skills every artist needs to have. He starts
with the Artists Statement, that agonizingly short, direct statement of who
you are and why you make. With that as the base, he then works on
the Press Release and The Article. There will be time in the afternoon
for a broader discussion of books and self-publishing.
Participants should bring a resume, artist statement and any other written materials and pieces of favorite writing. At the end of the workshop, we will discuss if and how to continue this work