MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – The Middletown Art Center, or MAC, the “Painting Resilience” class will feature “Drawing the Inside Out” with center Director Lisa Kaplan.

MAC is in now in its fourth month of the Resilience project, which consists of low-cost, high-quality art classes in photography, creative writing, painting and printmaking.

It is funded by a grant from the California Arts Council with support from Adventist Health and other local organizations.

The purpose of the grant is to increase access to the arts in underserved rural communities like Lake County.

Resilience classes provide a safe space for community members to learn and hone skills that give form to their creativity.

In these classes, students are able to reframe the fire and other experiences into artistic expression or simply have a great time making art.

Adults of all ages and teens ages 12 up, whether new to artmaking or professionals, are invited to attend one or many classes for just $5 per class.

Kaplan developed the approach for this weekend’s class some eight years ago and has offered the workshop more than 60 times in her studio, which burned in the Valley fire, and at MAC.

She last offered the class as part of MAC’s Community Works in July 2016, as she has been focused on MAC’s growth and her family’s rebuild project. She is excited to teach class again as part of Resilience and former participants are looking forward to the class.

“I love ‘Drawing the Inside Out,’” said Sage Abella, longtime Drawing the Inside Out participant and instructor-colleague at MAC. “Using full body tracing, our imagination, emotions, bright colorful paint and big brushes, Lisa leads us into expressing surprising, beautiful, wild, deep, playful parts of ourselves on oversized paper. Every time I go to this workshop I learn something new and intriguing about myself and about artmaking. It’s a great way to dance with your personal voice and creativity!”

Kaplan has been teaching art now for more than 30 years. She and her family left Oakland and her teaching job at the Art Institute of California in San Francisco for Middletown in 2001.

She incorporates short exercises that focus on the principles of art and design, including color, contrast and harmony, into Drawing the Inside Out to inform the longer duration large painting that is the centerpiece of the class. She has worked with adults, youth, and families using this approach.

“Part of the impetus for Drawing the Inside Out originally came from the notion that we hold memories, patterns and emotions in our body, and these can actually result in physical manifestations including posture, pain or illness,” said Kaplan, who has been editing educational videos for an acupuncturist for 23 years and is very much attuned to mind/body connections to wellness.

“As an artist who works in a visceral, expressive manner, I saw the power of using the body’s gestures as a container for brush strokes, shape and color to identify and visualize emotional events that we hold inside, and draw them out,” Kaplan said.

“Physical movement is an important part of the process, as the format we use to paint is life-sized,” she said. “Students engage in self-expression that is both healing and pleasurable. Participants also practice making visual statements that are communicative or effective and gain vocabulary to express appreciation for their own work as well as for the work of others. This approach to artmaking has also greatly supported me since the fire.”

Join Kaplan at MAC for Drawing the Inside Out this Saturday from noon to 5 p.m.

RSVP with an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit http://www.middletownartcenter.org/resilience.html to preregister or learn more about the Resilience Project. Space is limited.