A two-day virtual conference examining the politics, policing, and perception of African American and Afro Latina women’s natural hair in American society. Attend readings, panels, and workshops discussing the muted but invasive means by which society shames our natural hair from infancy through adulthood.

I will be on an artist panel on August 8th from 11-12:15 discussing a project I worked on 20 years ago on the subject of African & African American Hair as Sculpture.

The conference is 10:25am-3:30 pm, August 7th and 10:00am-4:00pm, August 8th.

https://trauma-tresses-truth-untangling-our-hair-thro.heysummit.com/speakers/

Passages: A Visual Exploration of Personal History - Exploring Personal History through images culled from our personal archives (family, friends, etc). Re-visit and re-write the narrative from the perspective of Now.  

Location: Sonoma Academy

Location: Outside on the veranda (with social distancing) at Sonoma Academy

Zoom introduction and one on one meetings before the workshop. (45 minutes)

Saturday, June 26 / 9:30-4:30

Sunday, June 27 / 9:30-4:30

$450 (supplies included) To sign up, send an email to Hillary at hillary.younglove@sonomaacademy.org

Have you ever wondered what to do with all of the ephemera (all the photos, letters, and other memorabilia) you have collected over the years? Instead of throwing it out or storing it away you can repurpose it and make a symbolic work of art. 

This workshop is designed for individuals, friends and family members. Making a work of art together can be a bonding experience and a way to share your heritage and memories with the younger members of your family.

Here's a chance to take a creative workshop on the beautiful campus of Sonoma Academy, August 1st and 2nd.

More than any other moment in photographic history our lives are documented daily with photographs. Contained in the images is the very fiber of our lives and memories. They comprise our legacy.  And yet we are unsure of how to pass them on for posterity. 

How do we safeguard them from becoming obsolete?  Printing all of them is not feasible. Organizing them takes time.  And “sharing” on social media is a far cry from creating a lasting heirloom.

To find an artistic and long-lasting solution, this course looks to the age-old human desire to make things (objects, incisions, marks), which has existed since humans first started expressing their thoughts and emotions. As a way to generate initial models for this work, we’ll look at a variety of approaches by established artists for inspiration.

The process begins with selecting images from your personal collection and re-arranging these fragments of your life to create an artful, tactile piece. You are therefore encouraged to use images from your phone, old family photographs, letters, postcards, textiles, garments and journal entries. (We will scan precious pieces should you choose to keep the originals intact.) Then, we’ll layer and embed these items onto a surface, while incorporating paint, photo transfers and mark making to imbue your imagery with personal symbolic meaning. 

By the end of the workshop, this process will have produced a unique and highly personal artifact that represents your conscious and often subconscious rewriting of events and people in your life. The result will be a personal tapestry of your process in which the past emerges and mixes with life’s experiences to create a tactile and layered piece of art, a lasting artifact condensed from your life journey. The objective is not to create an illustration of our life but to add richness and interpretation with the eyes of today - to give meaning or re-create narratives that we have of our own life in a mostly symbolic and intuitive manner.

The marks made by ancient cultures are still here today. Where will our digital marks and photos be in as little as 20 years?

No prior art experience necessary.

Hillary Younglove has been teaching all ages for over 20 years. After teaching alternative photography courses through the UC Santa Barbara and UC Berkeley Extension programs and The San Francisco Academy of Art University she became a founding instructor at Sonoma Academy where she developed the arts program, and now serves as head of the Art Department. She is adept at a variety of techniques and media. Her personal work spans from alternative photography to puppet making to fresco and encaustic painting. Her work has been published in the New York Times, Atlantic Records, Essence Magazine and more. Hillary has exhibited nationally and internationally. She has a BFA from The Rhode Island School of Design and an MA from NYU and studied at ICP.

Artifact-A Photo Tapestry/Textbook ( A book of work by students ages 14-19.)

Here are two books on the exhibit, Passages as well as a virtual tour of the show.

• Passages/Book 1

• Passages/Book 2

Lost Techniques of the Ancients- Encaustic Painting

 Over 2000 years ago, encaustic painting was quite pervasive in the ancient world. From what we know, the ancient Greeks first practiced painting with wax and pigments. Most notably, encaustics were used to decorate mummies in ancient Egypt, marble sculptures and tombs, ancestor busts and ships during the Roman Empire.  Artists have dabbled with encaustics through the centuries, most notably the  American painter, Jasper Johns, but it wasn’t until about 25 years ago that there was a resurgence in encaustics. Today, there are numerous contemporary artists working with wax. In this two day workshop you will learn about the history of this technique and get to experiment with different processes to create one or more contemporary pieces. 

 Location: Sonoma Academy Art Room Veranda

Workshop Dates:

Saturday, June 12 / 9:30am - 4:30pm

Sunday, June 13 / 9:30-4:30

$460 (supplies included) To sign up, send an email to Hillary at hillary.younglove@sonomaacademy.org

Skill level: beginning to advanced

Encaustic Workshop Schedule

Day 1

Introductions

Slides of participants work

Discussion of encaustic method and safety measures

Slide Presentation: Historical Uses of Encaustic

Discussion about supports and surfaces and preparing materials

Fusing Demonstration, demonstration of working with charcoal and pastels.

Demo on working with photos and transfers.

Individual Work time

Day 2

Slide presentation of contemporary artists working with encaustic

Demo of line and edge, demo of adhering collage materials with wax.

Demonstration of combining oil paint with encaustic

Demo on building texture

Individual Work time

You will leave the workshop with one or two pieces and knowledge of:

• The History of Encaustic

• Safety Precautions

• Layering

• Creating texture

• Fusing

• Incising

• Scraping

• Combining Pigments

• Collage

• Working with transfers

Instructor Bio

Since 1996, Hillary Younglove has been working with encaustics in painting and sculpture. In 2010, Hillary received a Fulbright to study the classics at the American Academy in Rome, deepening her knowledge of ancient techniques, which led to the development of the course, “Lost Techniques of the Ancients”. The course that is being offered is an adaptation of the class she teaches at Sonoma Academy where she is head of the arts program. In addition to teaching at Sonoma Academy, Hillary has taught for several years at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, Berkeley and UC Santa Barbara extension classes. Her work has been shown both nationally and internationally. Published work includes: the New York Times, Atlantic Records, Essence Magazine, Corriere della Serra, Random House, Barnes & Noble Publishing, Warner Brothers Records and numerous other publications.

Hillary has a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, and an MA from New York University. In addition, she has studied mosaics at the Scuola Arte Mosaico, in Ravenna, Italy.

Lost Techniques of the Ancients/Textbook

Passages: A Visual Exploration of Personal History - Exploring Personal History through images culled from our personal archives (family, friends, etc). Re-visit and re-write the narrative from the perspective of Now.  

Location: Sonoma Academy

Location: Outside on the veranda (with social distancing) at Sonoma Academy

Zoom introduction and one on one meetings before the workshop. (45 minutes)

9:30-4:30 Saturday

9:30-4:30 Sunday

$450 (supplies included) To sign up, send an email to Hillary at hillary.younglove@sonomaacademy.org

Have you ever wondered what to do with all of the ephemera (all the photos, letters, and other memorabilia) you have collected over the years? Instead of throwing it out or storing it away you can repurpose it and make a symbolic work of art. 

This workshop is designed for individuals, friends and family members. Making a work of art together can be a bonding experience and a way to share your heritage and memories with the younger members of your family.

Here's a chance to take a creative workshop on the beautiful campus of Sonoma Academy, August 1st and 2nd.

More than any other moment in photographic history our lives are documented daily with photographs. Contained in the images is the very fiber of our lives and memories. They comprise our legacy.  And yet we are unsure of how to pass them on for posterity. 

How do we safeguard them from becoming obsolete?  Printing all of them is not feasible. Organizing them takes time.  And “sharing” on social media is a far cry from creating a lasting heirloom.

To find an artistic and long-lasting solution, this course looks to the age-old human desire to make things (objects, incisions, marks), which has existed since humans first started expressing their thoughts and emotions. As a way to generate initial models for this work, we’ll look at a variety of approaches by established artists for inspiration.

The process begins with selecting images from your personal collection and re-arranging these fragments of your life to create an artful, tactile piece. You are therefore encouraged to use images from your phone, old family photographs, letters, postcards, textiles, garments and journal entries. (We will scan precious pieces should you choose to keep the originals intact.) Then, we’ll layer and embed these items onto a surface, while incorporating paint, photo transfers and mark making to imbue your imagery with personal symbolic meaning. 

By the end of the workshop, this process will have produced a unique and highly personal artifact that represents your conscious and often subconscious rewriting of events and people in your life. The result will be a personal tapestry of your process in which the past emerges and mixes with life’s experiences to create a tactile and layered piece of art, a lasting artifact condensed from your life journey. The objective is not to create an illustration of our life but to add richness and interpretation with the eyes of today - to give meaning or re-create narratives that we have of our own life in a mostly symbolic and intuitive manner.

The marks made by ancient cultures are still here today. Where will our digital marks and photos be in as little as 20 years?

No prior art experience necessary.

Hillary Younglove has been teaching all ages for over 20 years. After teaching alternative photography courses through the UC Santa Barbara and UC Berkeley Extension programs and The San Francisco Academy of Art University she became a founding instructor at Sonoma Academy where she developed the arts program, and now serves as head of the Art Department. She is adept at a variety of techniques and media. Her personal work spans from alternative photography to puppet making to fresco and encaustic painting. Her work has been published in the New York Times, Atlantic Records, Essence Magazine and more. Hillary has exhibited nationally and internationally. She has a BFA from The Rhode Island School of Design and an MA from NYU and studied at ICP.

Artifact-A Photo Tapestry/Textbook ( A book of work by students ages 14-19.)

Her show Passages, is currently on display at the Sonoma Academy Gallery, August-November, 2020. Opening reception: To be determined.

Here are two books on the exhibit as well as a virtual tour of the show.

• Passages/Book 1

• Passages/Book 2