“Dream House” workshop at Boys and Girls Club of Chicago

Location:
Boys and Girls Club of Chicago
Lathrop Homes, Chicago, IL
Date: Thursday, July 13, 2026
Facilitator: Scott Mossman

“Taking a que from my graduate school advisor Martin Puryear, I chose to take the student to an "abstract" place or point of view, via a very indirect route. Eager to extract as much from our Puryear resource, before he took his sabbatical in Japan, a fellow MFA candidate and I decided to take an undergrad class with him, to fulfill one of our electives. There were just a handful of students in that class, and we were given an assignment; create a machine or something you would get into or put on your body. Very acquainted with his work, particularly Self, a piece (the first purchased by a museum) that my hometown museum always had on display, I immediately recognized, how much the second directive, related to his own work. So my goal, was to very gently, herd the students into creating a piece, that while "house-like", could also be taken as a purely abstract form. Going back to my own experience as an artist, I brought along a freestanding piece of my own, that could easily be interpreted as an architectural model.

     When I arrived at the Boys and Girls Club of Chicago, I was led to the art room, a large group of kids sat down and ate their lunch. Chatting with them, I soon learned that all seventeen had signed up for the class. Recalling the meagre numbers, if any, that had signed up for those Pia-sponsored classes years ago, I was over the moon. Once they finished their lunch, and the handful of monitors took their places, I passed out stapled bundles of printouts of modern and contemporary house designs, by various architects from the last one hundred years or so, beginning with Corbusier's Villa Savoye and ending with some contemporary Dutch architects. I then passed around books on Louise Nevelson and Puryear, and let them know that the latter, just installed a monumental piece, Bending the Arc at the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.  Following that, I gave them each a small piece of Arches paper and asked them to sketch what they had in mind for their "Dream House", so I could give them suggestions on how to tackle it. They were very enthusiastic and some of their drawings were quite good. That done, I instructed them to take what they wanted from the stack of cardboard boxes, fabric scraps bubble wrap, clear acetate sheets, and misc food containers and all was cleared in seconds. 

      I was extremely impressed, at how determined they were, and it was fun to hear some of them talk about "their vision". My vision, thinking about the class beforehand, was that it might involve many of them staring at their phones, but happily, they were all collected and laced in a closet door shoe organizer before the class began. I spend several nights a week, volunteer ushering at live theatres around town, and it felt like I was watching a play. It was really interesting to see how some worked alone or alongside another quiet creator, while others turned the activity into a collaborative group effort, with one child naturally stepping into a leadership role. At the end, when each student brought their piece to the front for discussion, it was interesting to see how many truly worked outside of the box, while a few interpreted the iconic square facade complete with triangle roof and chimney. One student, surprised us all, with a helmet like house, complete with clear acetate picture window, for him to see out of.”

– Scott Mossman, Workshop facilitator