• 2026
  • DEC
  • 7 & 8
  • 12-4PM
Workshop Title and Teacher Name Workshop Title and Teacher Name Workshop Title and Teacher Name

Historic Interiors: Whitehall Museum House

Amy Bartlett Wright

Discover and explore unique interior spaces through drawing and painting.  A lighted room interior is a landscape all its own. Its contents provide foreground and background structures that respond to changing light.  Working from life, we feel that distance between back and front and can observe real light and shadow.  Light will play an important part in our exploration of hallways, corners, doorways, stairwells, long corridors and rooms leading into other rooms, including chairs, beds and drapes.

Historic Interiors II:  Whitehall Museum House, Middletown.  Whitehall was built around 1729 or earlier.  It is known as the home of Bishop Berkeley, the philosopher, called the Father of Higher Education in America.  Whitehall differs from Great Friends’ Meeting House in architecture and scale.   It was a residence with a central chimney, a fireplace in every room, low ceilings and smaller rooms.  Clearly it was a warmer building in the winter and gives off a very different feeling than the Great Quaker Meetinghouse.  Whitehall is a portrait of intimacy and closeness, immediacy, function and it portrays what it might have been like to live there in daily movement throughout the house.

The class begins with a day of drawing, then a day of painting on site.  First one, then the other. No painting on the first day. All media allowed BUT students cannot sit on any of the furniture or put their gear on any historical surface. Drop cloths will be provided and artists will have their gear on the protective covering while they work. Instruction includes directives and demonstration as well as constructive critique at class end each day.  Welcome the inspiration of the history of this building.

Materials

  • LOCATION: Whitehall Museum House, Middletown
  • MEMBER TUITON: $155
  • NON-MEMBER: $185
Amy Bartlett Wright

Amy Bartlett Wright

Amy Bartlett Wright is a painter, sculptor and muralist. Many of her murals combine landscapes and wildlife. Painting subjects from life and painting the landscape in plein air have been key to developing works in larger scale. Her career spans 45 years as a scientific illustrator and animal artist. Her work is found in nature centers, museums and homes around the country. On Aquidneck Island, you can see her murals at Save The Bay’s Hamilton Family Aquarium, Norman Bird Sanctuary, Sachuest Point Visitor’s Center, Aquidneck Chiropractic Center and Specs Eyecare. Her painted animal sculptures can be discovered on the trails at Kettle Pond Visitors Center in Charlestown, RI.

For many years, she taught painting and drawing at RISD Continuing Education and is currently teaching as a Guest Professor at Brown University. She is active on Instagram @amybartlettwright View her website and visit her on Instagram.

Registration

This workshop runs on MON & TUE, December 7 and 8, from 12pm to 4:00pm.  

PAG Members use discount code PAGMEM to receive the $30 member discount. Enter the code at the top left hand side of the 2nd screen under “Discount Voucher”. Remember to click the APPLY button on the right.

Please note: we don’t accept checks as payment for workshops and classes.
Questions? Contact workshops@portsmoutharts.org.