The Magic of Everyday Life

\ Led by George Kevin Jordan
\ November 8th & 9th, 2025

In this workshop, teens explored how ordinary objects, moments, and materials can be transformed into extraordinary works of art through mixed media. 

This workshop was led by artist George Kevin Jordan, our 2025 Local Artist Studio Resident. Jordan is a D.C.-based artist and journalist whose ’80s–’90s pop culture inspired work explores identity, climate, and public life through a Black gay Gen-X lens.

Guest Speaker: Fabiola R. Delgado
Independent curator and creative producer.

Memory in Material Form: Cotton Candy + Dragon’s Beard + Clay

\ Led by Adele Yiseol Kenworthy
\ December 6th & 7th, 2025

This workshop explored memory in material form, examining how it can be held, transformed, and shared through tactile, ephemeral, joy-filled materials. 

It was led by our 2025 artist-in-residence, Adele 이슬 Kenworthy, a 1.5 generation Korean American artist-organizer whose participatory work centers AANHPI femme experiences, transforming gestures of care into living monuments of resilience through performance, sculpture, and archives.

Guest Speaker: Jarvis S. DuBois
Independent curator and arts consultant

Speculative Bodies in Linocut

\ Led by Madyha J. Leghari
\ January 10th & 11th, 2026

In this workshop, teens imagined the body as unstable, adaptable and open to invention. Looking at anatomical diagrams, sci-fi and contemporary art, they brainstormed new organs that could help humans survive, communicate, or care in new ways. Teens carved their drawings into linoleum and made a linocut print. 

This workshop was led by our 2026 Local Artist Studio Resident, Madyha J. Leghari, a visual artist, writer, and educator whose practice explores the instability of language, the body, and ideas of the natural in gestation and birth.

Guest Speaker: Lily Siegel
Executive Director at Hamiltonian Artists

Close Study Focus Francis Bacon: Two Studies for Self-Portrait Diptych

\ Led by Beverly Price and Shaunté Gates
\ February 11th & 12th, 2023

In this workshop, students explored a dichotomy of fear and love through the use of various artistic photography and mixed media to create self-portrait diptychs, reflecting the interactions of these two emotions.

Beverly Price and Shaunté Gates were The Nicholson Project’s Winter 2023 Artists-in-Residence. Price is a photographer whose work documents the rapid progression of gentrification in Washington, DC, evolving into powerful visual storytelling that explores adolescence and the Black boy experience. Gates creates mixed-media landscapes using found materials, channeling the energy and cultural resonance of their original sites; he refers to these layered works as “Land of Myth,” examining psychogeography—where psychology and geography intersect.

Guest Speaker: Nehemiah Dixon
Senior Director for Programs and Community Engagement at The Phillips Collection.

“Levitate” Poetry and Creative Writing

\ Led by L. Renée
\ March 4th & 5th, 2023

Merriam-Webster defines “levitate” as “to rise or float in or as if in the air, especially in seeming defiance of gravitation.” In this workshop, participants delved into what it meant for young, gifted, and Black people to rise above any barriers that sought to limit their freedom of choice or movement. We accomplished this by exploring multiple modes of learning and creation via music and archival film and video. Participants left this workshop with at least three new pieces of writing, a packet of curated poems and prompts, a notebook, and more.

This workshop was led by Teaching Artist L. Renée, a poet and nonfiction writer whose award-winning work has appeared in numerous literary journals. She is Assistant Director of the Furious Flower Poetry Center and an Assistant Professor of English at James Madison University, with an MFA in Creative Writing from Indiana University and an MS in Journalism from Columbia University.

Guest Speaker: Carolina Meurkens
Multicultural Marketing Manager at Penguin Random House

Description: Exploring Intersections of Built and Natural Environments

\ Led by Nekisha Durrett

\ April 1st & 2nd, 2023

Participants explored the Fairlawn neighborhood where The Nicholson Project is based, delving into the intersection of the built and natural environment. They collected and arranged natural materials, transforming them into illustrative compositions.

This workshop was led by Teaching Artist Nekisha Durrett’s, an interdisciplinary artist whose research-driven practice uses unexpected materials to illuminate overlooked histories embedded in place, memory, and landscape. Her work is held in major collections including the National Museum of African American History and Culture and The Phillips Collection, and she holds a BFA from The Cooper Union and an MFA from the University of Michigan.

Guest Speaker: Jaynelle Clarke Hazard
Executive Director & Curator at Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art