The Gift of Art
Sculpture Ventures
for Young Artists

“The visual artist’s gift is the ability to see the tree within the seed, the spine within the blade of grass, and the whisper in the willow.”

The book

The Gift of Art is a how-to book explaining in detail the content of workshops that give students the time and space to exercise creativity by learning sculpting processes.

Margot McMahon has given workshops for 15 years including at: Hepzibah Children's Association, second grade and middle school students through the Oak Park Education Foundation, and high school students at Lake Forest High School and DePaul Prep. Margot taught at Yale University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

The book begins with an overview describing a way of making a creative atmosphere in a classroom for individual or collaborative sculpting. Detailed steps help readers hold workshops with students making sculptural objects with additive, subtractive, and constructive processes.

Some worshops feature a collaborative performance, students interacting together with their sculptures, which introduces students to the time arts.

In this Gift of Art video, students are shown Alexander Calder's "The Circus." They quickly get the idea and drift away to make their own circus, including beasts, a carousel, and even a sword swallower.

I am hopeful that the The Gift of Art will inspire young artists to forge their own paths in making art.

Your lovely book The Gift of Art is, I hope, going to be a great success and a huge help to many people. It is so accessible and practical. Well done, congratulations!

—Garth Evans

The Yale Center for British Art has supported the publishing of The Gift of Art.