Workshop Facilitation

Dr. Derek Newman-Stille (they/them) is an instructor at Trent University in the Gender & Social Justice department. Derek is a Teaching Artist — an artist who goes out into the community to offer workshops on art and community connections. Derek is an author, artist, editor, poet, and scholar. They are a Queer, nonbinary, Disabled Fat Femme.

What is a Teaching Artist?

According to Eric Booth¹, a Teaching Artist is “dedicated to activating people’s artistry for a range of purposes. These professionals know how to awaken artistry. They know how to develop it. They know how to guide it toward positive results, results that matter… They work in community centres, in schools, and in art places like museums and performance halls; you’ll find some in hospitals, businesses, government agencies, and prisons” (2023: 13). Teaching Artists work in community spaces to access people’s creativity and find ways to bring people together and have the resilience to face obstacles. Not only do we teach art, we use artistic techniques to help people to creatively imagine new possibilities for community togetherness. Eric Booth suggests that “When teaching artists activate the artistry of young people, positive outcomes arise” (2023: 19), but our work isn’t just limited to young people — everyone needs artistry. Everyone needs to express themselves. We find the ways to help people to do that expressing

Workshops

Derek has given workshops throughout the Peterborough area, Ottawa, Clarington, and in Halliburton. They primarily offer workshops to Queer groups, but have also given workshops open to students of all ages and backgrounds. Derek’s workshop audiences include schools, educators, organizations, and community groups. Below are some examples of workshops Derek has given, but they are happy to work together to develop a workshop that meets the needs or your students or organization. Contact Derek at hello@dereknewmanstille.ca to learn more!

Zines

Derek is an active zinester who has written over 20 zines on social justice issues. Derek offers workshops on zines as a way to activate student social justice knowledge and mobilization by giving them access to this creative and political outlet. Derek takes participants through the process of creating zines, helps to draw out student voices and empower students to realize that their stories matter.

Poetry

Poetry is a little intimidating for a lot of people. We associate it with indecipherability and inaccessibility. Derek offers workshops to break down some of our fears about poetry and find accessible ways to express what matters most to us.

Derek is a multiply published poet who has given workshops on poetry at ArtSpace Peterborough.

Short Stories

Many people want to be writers and find it challenging to get started. Derek offers workshops on the fundamentals of short story writing, taking participants from literary fiction to memoir to genre fiction. Derek is both a published short story writer and fiction collection editor and has worked in genres like creative nonfiction, literary fiction, essays, science fiction, horror, and fairy tales.

Derek taught a science fiction writing course as part of Trent’s Continuing Education programme and has given writing workshops at camps, in high schools, in elementary schools, at ArtSpace Peterborough, and at the literary conference Can-Con in Ottawa.

Collage

Sometimes you just need to get messy. Derek offers workshops on collaging using multiple techniques that allow people to reuse and recycle imagery to create new remixes. People often say they “can’t do art,” but everyone can do art and collage is a great space to start. Collage offers a space for creating your own unique worlds from a place of safety that doesn’t feel too “arty”

Derek has given collage workshops for camps and at high schools.

Watercolour

Watercolour is a fabulous medium because you need to work with the water rather than make the water do what you want. Derek’s watercolour workshops are about collaborating with the water and adapting the painting to fit your strengths. This is a safe space to explore colour and how it interacts with water, paper, and your message.

Derek has given watercolour workshops at spaces like ArtSpace Peterborough and Sadleir House and for organizations like The Centre for Gender and Social Justice.

Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA)

Commonly called Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), Derek adds Accessibility to the mix in order to make space for disability, which traditionally doesn’t get the space it needs. As a Disabled, Queer, Nonbinary, Fat Femme, Derek embodies multiple intersections of identity. They have given workshops for workplaces on IDEA, and have given specific workshops on specific areas of need such as dealing with homophobia amongst teachers in schools or sanism among social workers. Derek creates a safe space for exploring needs of the whole community in work spaces.