Let Yourself Be an Artist is an interactive Zoom workshop (with optional Q&A following) about self-permission and moving out of artist’s block. Most adults have artist wounds–ways they were told they cannot be an artist. Learning to move through shame around art making helps us return to our baseline state as humans: artistic beings! This class, led by Aleah Black (also known on Instagram as gendersauce), is taught through lecture, activities, and writing. It is appropriate for adults of all ages, artistic disciplines, and experiences (including people who have not seen themselves as artists before).
Aleah Black is an interdisciplinary artist and educator. They create poetry and puppets, songs and stories, and a general ruckus. Aleah released a book of poetry and art in 2024 entitled It Is Always a Circle. Aleah’s most recent play, Thicket, premiered in New York City, April 2023. Thicket is a large-scale puppet play that includes tabletop puppetry, mask work, paper mache giants, and a full band. Aleah’s past playwriting/directing efforts include multiple full length plays (including How to Eat the Thing That Eats You at Dixon Place) as well as multiple puppet pageant scripts that are now used by school communities around the country. Aleah organizes large scale community actions; they host open to the public song circles and chant spaces in New York City. They run the online account “Gendersauce” for an audience of over a quarter of a million followers; Gendersauce is a meme page that fuses poetry, education, and tomfoolery. Aleah’s is a Social & Emotional Learning teacher for children and adults alike. They have created liberatory curriculum for several Waldorf Schools in the USA and have a consulting practice for schools that are working to create arts, theater, music, or SEL curriculum. Aleah was a puppet apprentice to Amy Trompetter of Redwing Blackbird Theater. They currently live and teach in Lenapehoking/Brooklyn, NY.
This program is part of MECollab, a collaborative programming partnership between libraries throughout the state of Maine.