The Intuitive Brush: Experimental Brushmaking and Drawing

What happens when we make our own creative tools rather than purchasing them?The Intuitive Brush invites participants to reconsider their relationship with artistic materials by creating handmade brushes from locally foraged natural materials. The workshop begins with a guided walk to observe and respectfully gather fallen plant materials—grasses, reeds, twigs, seed heads, bark, and fibers—while considering relationships to place, sustainability, and the histories embedded in artistic tools and materials. Participants then construct one or more unique brushes using simple binding techniques before exploring expressive mark-making with sumi and India ink on paper.  Rather than emphasizing technical mastery, the workshop encourages experimentation, curiosity, and responsiveness to the unique qualities of each handmade tool. Through making, participants experience how the materials of a place can become collaborators in creative practice, opening conversations about ecology, process, and alternative ways of engaging with art-making. Participants will: • Learn respectful and sustainable foraging practices for art materials. • Construct one or more handmade brushes from natural materials. • Experiment with sumi and India ink using self-made tools. • Explore the relationship between materials, place, and creative expression. • Create expressive ink artworks that reflect the unique qualities of their handmade Brushes. Olomidara Abla Yaya (also known as Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle) is an award-winning writer, author, educator, and interdisciplinary creator whose work explores memory, history, material practice, and the transformative possibilities of creative quest. Through writing, teaching, and public projects, Yaya creates spaces for reflection, experimentation, and deeper engagement with the creative process. Yaya holds an MFA in Art & Critical Studies–Creative Writing from CalArts and is a U.S. Fulbright Program alumna, having conducted research at the University of Lagos in Nigeria. She is the author of Kentifrications: Convergent Truth(s) & Realities (Occidental College and Sming Sming Books, 2018), SIR (Litmus Press, 2019), and The Evanesced Tarot Deck + Guidebook (Sming Sming Books and KACH Studio Press, 2023). Her writing has appeared in Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, Supervision: On Motherhood and Surveillance, ENTER>TEXT, Call & Response: Experiments in Joy, Films for the Feminist Classroom, and Among Margins: Critical & Lyrical Writing on Aesthetics. Her work has been reviewed by The Brooklyn Rail and Strange Fire Collective, among others. Yaya has presented, exhibited, and performed her work at institutions including The Studio Museum in Harlem, Project Row Houses, The Hammer Museum, The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, and The Museum of Art at the University of New Hampshire. Her honors include the SECA Award from SFMOMA, the Litmus Press First Book Prize, the Jacob K. Javits Fellowship for Graduate Study, and a U.S. Fulbright Fellowship.  Through her interdisciplinary practice, Yaya brings together writing, making,research, and embodied approaches to creativity, inviting participants to explore new relationships between materials, memory, sound, and imagination.