Programming

The official opening salvo of IX 2025 – kick off the festivities in fine style with art, friends, and drinks!

“Taming a Chimera” challenges the romance of “finding your style” with a stricter, testable claim: style isn’t a treasure to discover or a costume to wear; it’s the emergent fingerprint of your repeated decisions—the way your chosen elements cohere (or collide) across a single creative effort or a body of work. We’ll separate style from its colloquial look-alikes (technique, genre, movement, branding, stylization), expose how mixed element sets can generate cue conflicts—the stylistic “chimera”—and map strategies to deliberately shape a style that’s both engaging and coherent.

Join GoggleWorks artist Adry Eberhard for a life drawing session.

Join Donato Giancola as he provides insights to a broad range of entrepreneurial choices to manage a freelance career (into its fourth decade for Donato), and stay financially dynamic and nimble through persistently changing and ongoing market shifts and turmoil.

Join Kaysha for an outing to Antietam Lake Park for a plein air painting session – you can stay for all or just a part of the session. The park is approximately a 12 minute drive from the Goggleworks, so you will need your own transportation. Meet at Kaysha’s 1st floor table at 1 pm and bring your painting/drawing supplies!

Join Magic: The Gathering artists and collectors as they chronicle their journey with artist proofs, the extremely limited, white-backed versions of the game cards, now turned into traditional artworks and miniature masterpieces. You’ll learn what an artist proof is, where to find them, and how each artist approaches them in their unique style. Stay to the end for several AP giveaways, and an exciting announcement of things to come!

Hosted by Donny Caltrider.

Halloran Parry recaps the previous twelve months of her art career with ten hard-won discoveries about the industry, her process, and the realities of making art and running a business. The sequel to last year’s “The First Six Months”, this is the second in an ongoing series of talks documenting the process of building an art career from the ground up. 

Join Mark Zug and his band, The Weathercocks, for an evening of music and merriment as only IX can provide as a wide range of artists and attendees sit in with the band for jams galore!

Ready to feel grounded and more creative? Join Tricia Messinger, M.S., LMT, RYT500, for this two-hour interactive workshop and learn through breath, movement, and simple self-massage hacks, how to re-balance your nervous system and undo the hidden bracing from long hours at the easel or desk. Then we’ll explore how to quiet your mind monkeys and open new doors to your imagination. With a background in visual art, manual therapy, and yoga,  Tricia uses a wide range of movement and bodywork practices to help her clients reduce stress and restore balance between their work and creative lives.

In 2023 I spoke about the circuitous path of my art and the influence of cultivating my photography skills on both my personal and genre paintings.  In this presentation I’d like to show you photographs that resonate with me personally and talk about why I think they do.  My focus will be the emotional impact of the images, and how that informs my growth.  I’ll leave space to talk shop, gear or process, or not, as attendees choose.  The photos shown will be uncensored and unapologetic, so inherently NSFW (not safe for work).  If you feel that that could be inappropriate, I’d ask that you do not attend.

Join falconer Alessandra Pisano as she introduces you to her owls, Deja and Niya, flies them, and offers opportunities for Q&A, reference photos, and even a chance to hold an owl (subject to the bird’s comfort level). The main session is in Boscov theater, but it will likely move outside as well for part of the time. Deja is a Barn Owl and Niya is a Siberian Eagle Owl.

Join Dobe for a figure drawing workshop where we take a live model and explore different ways to manipulate what we observe into an imaginative figure, This workshop will cover how to use observational drawing and real-life objects to create fantasy characters and creatures.

The Hobbit graphic novel came to fruition in 1990, from the brush of David Thorn Wenzel, the artist for the project. Last year Wenzel returned to the project which resulted in over 40 pages of additional art and a new expanded hardcover edition. In this talk Wenzel will recount the origins of the original publication and explain the newest additions and his process for interpreting Tolkien’s text and then creating the illustrations.

Join IX co-founder and art historian Patrick Wilshire for an in-depth look at the genre of imaginative realism, including what it is, what it ISN’T, where it comes from, and what makes it a distinctive artistic school.

Pick up some great tips and tricks for communicating with just about anyone in “one on one” interactions, with a focus on buying and/or selling art (or anything else!)  I’m talking about skills that can help get what you want in every personal selling situation  – whether your goal is to sell it for more or buy it for less – or just to interact in a positive way with collectors or artists as they come along!  Part lecture, part workshop – so come prepared to jump in and practice what I preach!  Buying and selling art at IX is a human-centric process that revolves around talking – so let’s have some fun learning about the art of “jibber jabber” (both verbal and non-verbal!) and putting those skills to work! 

GoggleWorks artist Adry Eberhard will direct a life drawing session, working with nude models.

We don’t like to think about it, but someday you’re not going to be around to answer the big questions like “Is this signature real? Where’s the provenance file?” And what do your three kids do with this stack of art in the closet? This talk is about facing that reality head on, with a bit of humor and a practical to do list. We’ll cover estate planning basics (don’t worry, you don’t need a law degree), how royalties actually work after you’re gone, why provenance matters, and how grading companies and art appraisers can save your art from future confusion. Attendees will leave with a checklist of 10 concrete actions to safeguard their art, ensure future royalties, and create clarity for heirs, collectors, and institutions.

Join the filmmakers for a screening of their new Magic: the Gathering documentary, followed by a Q&A session with the crew after the film.

Join artist Drew Baker for a hands-on exploration of a range of plein air easels – check them out and find the one that works the best for your needs!

Have you ever wondered how to approach imaginative realism design when using a non-traditional medium like fabric? In this lecture, award-winning fine art quilter Kestrel Michaud shares the unique challenges and creative solutions of her medium, along with insights into building a thriving career as a full-time fabric artist.

Join a veritable who’s who of Magic: the Gathering artists for a massive artist proof sketching event! Watch them draw, ask them questions, and buy the proofs – a perfect trifecta!

GoggleWorks artist Adry Eberhard will direct a life drawing session, working with nude models.

Bob will discuss in an honest but hopeful and sometimes funny way how we as creatives deal with anxiety, depression, ADHD, and such as we all experience. Bob will deal with personal experience, linear thinking vs abstract thinking. There is hope, and in our current climate of the world we all need that. You are not alone!