Buffalo Artist Sky Vance Aims to Inspire through DIY Workshop Series at Timeless Babez

Sky Vance (Photo Benjamin Joe)

Buffalo artist Sky Vance has built an impressive portfolio in recent years.

She’s won awards for her work, and her art has been shown in galleries and exhibitions throughout Buffalo and Western New York, as well as on Staten Island and in Hermosa Beach, Calif. She’s also been accepted into the Hunt Artist Residency Program designed to provide emerging artists over a six-month span with mentorship, exhibition opportunities, and studio space.

Sky’s work, as she notes on her website, is “informed by current events and internet culture,” adding that “common images like the ones seen on the daily news or advertising are inescapable, yet tantalizing.” 

Though an accomplished oil painter and portrait artist, Sky’s talents cover a wide range, including block printing, gradient lino work and even juice-carton intaglio. And through a series of DIY workshops Sky will be hosting at Timeless Babez on Allen Street in Buffalo beginning Tuesday April 8, she’ll be sharing her talents and know-how with others.

“When I talked to people as I was creating the courses, I got a little bit of feedback from artists and others who took workshops regularly, and I asked what they felt lacked,” Sky said. “And it was always that people felt they got left behind pretty quickly, or they wanted to go into the workshop with a little more prerequisite knowledge. They said they couldn’t keep up.”

Thus, knowing that for some, the very notion of an art workshop can be an intimidating, Sky said she aims to keep things simple and fun starting with a session on DIY screen printing.

There’s no need, she said, to buy expensive kits, chemicals, lights or special equipment, and neither prior printing nor drawing experience is necessary. In fact, she said, you’ll not only learn from scratch, you’ll leave the workshop with the knowledge of how to print from home.

“Sometimes, you need specialized equipment or you need a studio to do a lot of these things. So, you leave a workshop maybe having learned a lot but it’s nothing you can put into practice,” Sky said. “All of the workshops I’m doing, everything is something that you will be able to go home and do.

“If you’ve got a pasta maker, you’ve got a printing press,” she said, illustrating the DIY nature of what she’ll be teaching. “There’s a way to turn a tortilla press into a printing press, too. There’s a lot of experimenting that I do at home beforehand to make sure it’s easy and accessible and all the steps are clear.”

Sky’s art, as she explains on her website, often focuses on “depicting human connections to ecology in the face of climate change and our relationship to technology.” But that same human connection that drives her work is integral as well to how she conducts and runs her workshops.

“The main thing is interacting with people, making sure that everybody is able to catch up, step by step,” she said. “Everybody does stuff together.”

Below is a list of workshops Sky will be hosting. You can purchase tickets for the workshops and learn more HERE.

• DIY Screen print: 6-8 p.m. Tuesday, April 8.

• Two Gradient Lino: 6-8 p.m. Tuesday, May 6.

• Juice Carton Intaglio: 6-8 p.m. Tuesday, May 20.