Welcome to #Siena!
We are so happy that our fall semester students have arrived, and we are looking forward to exploring #Tuscany with you this autumn!
Sept 2020: Fall semester begins!
We are looking forward to the start of our Fall 2020 semester at the Siena Art Institute. The students of the Fall 2020 semester are working on their artistic projects in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has required teachers and students alike to re-think their approach to art-making and the notion of travel and cultural exchange. We are navigating the challenges and complexities of daily life in these tumultuous times, and re-examining societal structures in this new context.
The fall 2020 Art & Society course will dove-tail with the elective coursework taking place during this unique semester in Digital Multimedia, Creative Writing, and Photography.
The students of the Fall 2020 semester include:
- Fivos Chalkiopoulos, Greece
- Tana LaKale, Spain
- Nicolas Dominick, USA
- Vasilina Papadimitropoulou, Greece
SPRING SHOW 2020
⬇Click the sections below to explore the projects created within our various courses ⬇
Join us online as we celebrate together the artworks created by the tenacious young artists of the Siena Art Institute and Siena School for Liberal Arts during the very unusual circumstances of the Spring 2020 semester. Despite the limitations of having to work from home amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, our students have been tenaciously and creatively continuing with their artistic projects, including work from our courses in ceramics, photography, silversmithing, music, art history, museum studies, and the interdisciplinary Art & Society course.
The slideshow below offers a glimpse into our recent meetings with teachers & students working remotely since Italy’s Covid-19 “lock-down” went into effect on March 9:
A glimpse back at the start of our Spring 2020 semester between students’ arrival on January 24 and the national “lock-down” of March 9:
To kick off the inauguration of our end-of-semester exhibition, we are holding a live broadcast on Facebook between two continents! At 5:30pm on Saturday May 9th (11:30 am NYC) our students will be our “correspondents” for a live broadcast through the Facebook page of the Siena Art Institute (www.facebook.com/sienaart ), allowing our young artists to speak about their work and answer questions from the public.
The participants in our Spring 2020 semester come from a variety of institutions (the Athens School of Art and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece), Amherst College and Mount Holyoke College and the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts (USA), and Oberlin College in Ohio (USA). Our Greek students were selected to participate in the Siena Art Institute’s Spring 2020 semester program thanks to a special scholarship offered in collaboration with the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.
Looking forward to the Spring 2020 Show Launch Saturday May 9
Looking forward to our Spring Show 2020, launching online Saturday May 9, here is a message from our photography instructor, Jacqueline Tune, reflecting on the challenging circumstances during this spring semester and how our students from the Siena Art Institute & Siena School for Liberal Arts have been able to create remarkable work in the face of numerous obstacles.
Join us for our students’ live online broadcast on the Siena Art Institute‘s Facebook page, Saturday May 9at 5:30pm Italy/ 11:30am NYC/ 08:30 L.A. showcasing the many projects they have completed during the past few months, and our digital exhibition will go live at the same time here on our blog. We hope to see you then! 
Preparations for our Spring 2020 Show Launching online May 9!
Preparations are underway looking ahead to our Spring 2020 Show, launching online in 1 week!
Here is a glimpse “behind the scenes” with musician Alípio Carvalho Neto, working with student Ike Fenner in his musical compositions. Join us Saturday May 9 at 5:30pm (Italy time) for a live broadcast on our Facebook page plus our digital exhibition at sienaart.blog highlighting the fantastic work created by our students of the Siena Art Institute & Siena School for Liberal Arts during this challenging semester, including music Ike has created under Alípio‘s mentorship!
show announcement illustration credit: student Fernando Torralba
StARTers Live! online broadcast series
What does it mean to be an artist during this quarantine period? This spring we are discussing with writers, architects, and visual artists from all over the world for STARTERS LIVE, our new web series live every Tuesday and Friday on the Facebook page of the Siena Art Institute.
Follow the live broadcast at Facebook.com/SienaArt
The broadcasts are viewable to the public, even if you don’t have a Facebook account, and will last appx 20 minutes beginning at 17:30 Siena (11:30am NYC, or use this time zone converter to know what time it will be where you are: https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html)
The presenters in our broadcasts are artists from around the world well-known in Siena, who demonstrate their affection for our Tuscan city through their participation: Madyha J. Leghari, Laura Marsh, Carlos Estévez, Susan Barbour, Gabriel Feld, Nicoletta di Gaetano, Lisa Corinne Davis, Alexandros Georgiou, Magdalena Maslerz, Neil Goldberg, Julie Wyman, & Mikayel Ohanjanyan. Find more information about this ongoing series on our StARTers page, and on our Facebook event.
For more info, email office@sienaart.org
Calender for StARTers Live: Spring 2020
April 21 – Madyha J. Leghari, artist and writer (talk in English)
April 24 – Laura Marsh, visual artist (talk in English)
April 28 – Carlos Estévez, visual artist (talk in English)
May 5 – Susan Barbour, poet, scholar, artist, perfumer (talk in English)
May 8 – Gabriel Feld, visual artist and architect (talk in English)
May 12 – Nicoletta di Gaetano, textile artist (talk in Italian)
May 15 – Lisa Corinne Davis, visual artist (talk in English)
May 19 – Alexandros Georgiou, visual artist (talk in English)
May 22 – Magdalena Maslerz, goldsmith and designer (talk in English)
May 26 – Neil Goldberg, visual artist and performer (talk in English)
May 29 – Julie Wyman, film-maker and performer (talk in English)
June 5 – Mikayel Ohanjanyan, visual artist (talk in Italian)
Students working remotely, Digital Spring Exhibit May 9
Despite the limitations of having to work from home, our students are tenaciously and creatively continuing with their artistic projects, and making use of the digital platform of our blog to be able to share their work with each other and with the broader public.
Don’t miss our Digital End-of-Semester exhibition launching on Saturday May 9 through our blog and social media channels! Starting at 5:30pm (Siena time) the young artists and students from the USA and Greece of the Siena Art Institute and the Siena School for Liberal Arts will be the protagonists of our first DIGITAL EXHIBITION live broadcast on Facebook between two continents, celebrating the projects they have created during this spring semester!
See the pages for our Silversmithing, Ceramics, Music, and Photography classes above with work-in-progress, and check out the projects from the Spring 2020 Art & Society course at the top of each participant’s individual blog page:
StARTers Live: Digital Artist Talks Beginning April 21
What does it mean to be an artist during this quarantine period? Beginning tomorrow, Tuesday April 21st, we will launch a series of online talks with writers, architects, and visual artists from all over the world: STARTERS LIVE, our new web series live every Tuesday and Friday at 5:30pm Siena (11:30 am NYC). Join us at FACEBOOK.COM/SIENAART!
The visual artist Madyha J. Leghari will open the season of STARTERS LIVE Tuesday April 21st connecting with us direct from Lahore, Pakistan (presentation in English). Leghari was artist-in-residence in the early months of 2020 at the Siena Art Institute. The protagonists in the upcoming appointments for our broadcasts will be other artists well-known in Siena, who want to demonstrate their affection for our Tuscan city through their participation: Laura Marsh, Gabriel Feld, Alexandros Georgiou, Magdalena Maslerz and many more!
Happy Easter
Our photography teacher, Jacqueline Tune, proposed a fun project for each student to create a self-portrait photograph wearing an “Easter Bonnet” they have designed themselves. Needless to say, materials are somewhat limited under the current “lockdown” but the results are truly fabulous! Happy Easter everybody!
For more info on the photography class’s current activities, visit: https://sienaart.blog/spring-2020-photography/
Art & Society mid-term projects
The five participants in our Art & Society course have just completed their mid-term projects, all using their creativity while working remotely to address the unexpected situations in which we currently find ourselves! Check out the projects at the top of each participant’s individual blog page:
3.I Masetto becomes a deaf-mute in order to be engaged as gardener in a nunnery. How the sisters encourage him to be a zealous husbandman.
