Rick Hunt will conduct a pen & ink workshop at the Abbe, Feb.7

BAR HARBOR (Jan 30, 09): The Abbe Museum is offering a free art workshop for students ages 5 and up, with Abenaki artist Rick Hunt, Saturday, Feb. 7. The workshop entitled Dancing with Pen will be held in the Community Gallery from 10 a.m. - noon.

The focus for this workshop is on having fun and exploring spontaneous creativity. Hunt will work with each student teaching them the art of pen and ink drawing, and how drawing relates to storytelling. After each student has had the opportunity to draw by him or herself, the participants will draw a mural together, working from a common story. Art supplies will be provided.

Rick Hunt's pen and ink artwork is featured in the current exhibition Twisted Path: Contemporary Native American Artists Walking in Two Worlds on view at the Abbe Museum through 2009. His contour drawings are fluid with a playful, lyrical quality. Hunt studied art under Kenneth Westhaver as a teen, and again later at Massachusetts College of Art in Boston where he majored in Illustration.

"My drawing serves as a visual diary of what is going on in my life externally and internally as well. It simply reflects what it is I experience in daily life and in 'dream time.'”

Reservations are required and space is limited. Children must be accompanied by an adult.

The Abbe Museum Downtown is open in the winter Thursday-Saturday 10-4 p.m. Call 288-3519 for more information and to reserve a spot in Rick Hunt's Dancing with Pen Workshop.