This July: Arts classes for adults, sponsored by The NOCCA Institute!

This summer, adults will have the opportunity to learn from NOCCA’s incredible faculty and visiting artists in a new summer arts camp format. The classes, which include Culinary Arts, Creative Writing, and Visual Arts, are available beginning July 8. Instructors include Chef Frank Brigtsen, authors Lara Naughton and Michael Lee, and visual artist Gary Oaks.

The full slate of classes offered will be:

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CREOLE CLASSICS
Taught by Chef Frank Brigtsen
Friday, July 8, 2016
6:00pm-10:00pm

In this four-hour, crash course on Creole cuisine, James Beard Award-winning Chef Frank Brigtsen covers seven of Louisiana’s most popular dishes, including:

• Gumbos and Jambalayas
• Seafood Okra Gumbo
• Filé Gumbo with Chicken and Andouille Sausage
• Gumbo z’Herbes
• Perfect Rice
• Jambalaya with Chicken and Andouille Sausage
• Seafood Jambalaya

This will be a hands-on course. Participants are encouraged to bring an apron and knives, if possible. The class will conclude with a family-style meal. Participants will leave with recipes for all dishes. As with other NOCCA Institute summer workshops, enrollment is limited to adults 18 and over.

Cost: $175
CLICK HERE TO RESERVE YOUR SPOT

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MOTHER SAUCES
Taught by Chef Frank Brigtsen
Saturday, July 9, 2016
1:00pm-5:00pm

Much of what we eat in America is based on five mother sauces that originated in France and were defined by master Chef Auguste Escoffier in the early 20th century. For New Orleans cooks, knowing these sauces is an absolute necessity, and acclaimed Chef Frank Brigtsen will walk you through each of them. He’ll also show you how to use them by demonstrating with a classic dish. The curriculum includes:

• Hollandaise and Bèarnaise (Eggs Benedict)
• Bechamel and Variations (Seafood au Gratin Sauce)
• Velouté and Variations (Lemon Crab Sauce for Broiled Fish)
• Marinara Sauce (Lasagna with Homemade Italian Sausage)
• Cold Sauces: Mayonnaise and Variations (Caesar Salad, Truffled Crab Salad)

This will be a hands-on course. Participants are encouraged to bring an apron and knives, if possible. The class will conclude with a family-style meal. Participants will leave with recipes for all sauces. As with other NOCCA Institute summer workshops, enrollment is limited to adults 18 and over.

Cost: $175
CLICK HERE TO RESERVE YOUR SPOT

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SELF-COMPASSION & PERSONAL NARRATIVE:
WRITE YOUR LIFE WITH GREATER COMPASSION
Taught by NOCCA faculty member Lara Naughton
Saturday, July 16, 2016
10:00am – 4:00pm

This one-day retreat combines writing facilitation with compassion cultivation training in order to help you explore more deeply the stories of your life. In a relaxed and supportive environment, you will participate in exercises designed to increase your capacity for mindfulness and compassion, and you will have ample time to generate new writing. The retreat is especially helpful for writers working on personal narrative/memoir, or for writers interested in creating more rounded, multidimensional characters.

Why compassion? Compassion can help reduce stress, anxiety and negative judgment, while increasing your strength to face the challenges in your life and in the lives of those around you. Applying compassion in the writing process can help you explore subject matter with courage and honesty.

Students will need to bring paper and pens, or a laptop if that’s how they prefer to write. There is no assigned text, but handouts will be distributed in class. Enrollment is limited to adults 18 and over.

Lara Naughton is Chair of Creative Writing at NOCCA. She has taught students K-12 as well as adults. As a writer and documentarian, she assists individuals who wish to tell their own stories, and has led writing workshops with people who have faced challenging circumstances including homelessness, HIV/AIDS, wrongful conviction, incarceration, and torture. Her writing has appeared in The Sun, Salon, and on stages across the country. Her one-man documentary stage play, Never Fight a Shark in Water, about the wrongful conviction of Gregory Bright, is currently being performed by Bright himself. Her memoir, The Jaguar Man, will be published by Central Recovery Press in July 2016. She has an MPW in playwriting from the University of Southern California and is a certified Compassion Cultivation Trainer through the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) at Stanford University School of Medicine.

Cost: $125, including lunch
CLICK HERE TO RESERVE YOUR SPOT

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FIGURE DRAWING WITH LIVE MODELS
Taught by Gary Oaks
Monday-Thursday, July 25-28, 2016
2:00pm-5:00pm daily

Whether you’re a beginner wanting to hone your skills at drawing the human form or a practicing artist hoping to enlarge your portrait portfolio, this class is for you. Over the course of four days, artist and Southern University visual arts faculty member Gary Oaks will teach you the ins and outs of figure drawing, including line, form, structure, and shadow. Please note that the model will be nude.

For this class, students will need to bring:

(1) pkg. of 12 pieces compressed charcoal
(1) box assorted soft vine charcoal
(1) pad of white drawing paper, 18″x24″, Strathmore 300 Series
(1) can Krylon 1306 spray fixative
(2) kneaded erasers

Mr. Oaks has made arrangements with Mo’s Art Supplies (1124 S. Carrollton Avenue), which has all the necessary supplies in stock. If students identify themselves as class participants, staff will readily assist them in gathering the materials. The store will also offer a 15% discount.

As with other NOCCA Institute summer workshops, enrollment is limited to adults 18 and over.

Gary Oaks was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, at mid-20th century. After military service, he earned a B.A. in Liberal Arts at the University of Tennessee, moved to new Orleans in 1982, and was awarded an M.F.A. from LSU in 1986, having specialized in studio glass and drawing. He has taught studio art in the New Orleans public schools, at Delgado Community College, and has been a member of the Fine Arts faculty at Southern University at New Orleans since 1990. He also conducts drawing workshops and exhibits his own work regularly. He lives in Mid-city with his wife, Mary Jane Parker, and five cats.

Cost: $250
CLICK HERE TO RESERVE YOUR SPOT

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WRITING SHORT FICTION
Taught by NOCCA faculty member Michael Lee
Monday-Friday, July 25-29, 2016
6:30-9:00pm daily

Led by NOCCA Creative Writing instructor Michael Lee, this intensive week-long workshop will be a crash course in literary fiction writing: the short story, the tale, the prose poem. Each evening we’ll read and discuss classic and contemporary works of literature–students will also be given plenty of time to write. The week will culminate in a workshop, in which student manuscripts are reviewed by their peers and the instructor, and a public reading. Readers and writers of all levels are welcome.

Students will need to bring paper and pens, or a laptop if that’s how they prefer to write. Enrollment is limited to adults 18 and over.

Michael Lee has a B.A. in English from UCLA and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Alabama. In addition to NOCCA, he also teaches at Tulane University. Lee’s first collection of stories, Something in My Eye, won the Mary McCarthy Prize in Fiction, and he recently received a Yale Educator Award in recognition of his teaching. His stories have appeared in Conjunctions, Denver Quarterly, and Indiana Review, among others, and new work is forthcoming in several anthologies.

Cost: $250
CLICK HERE TO RESERVE YOUR SPOT

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If you have additional questions about this exciting summer series, please contact Richard Read at rread@noccainstitute.com or call 504 940 2808.