Workingman Collective

Workingman Collective is a collaborative group of artists and other professionals whose membership, goals and missions change with each project. They are interested in process, invention, chance, and the public. Workingman Collective was formed in 2005 by Tom Ashcraft, Janis Goodman and Peter Winant and joined by other artists who have come in and out of the collective. Such as: Georgia Deal, Ben Ashworth,

Tom, Janis and Peter conduct significant individual studio practices that involve a broad range of traditional materials and fabrication techniques and they draw upon their diverse conceptual exploration and communication through form as an intrinsic foundation of their collaborative practice.  Peter and Tom have also been committed to the ethic of collaborative art practice for 30 years through their work with Jersey Devil Design/Build Architecture, Dog Dream Project, Art Attack and Floating Lab Collective.

Selected Commissions and Projects

2013 – 2014, Early Bird, Tysons Center Plaza, public artwork commission, 70+ bronze birds installed on plaza site, Tysons - Macerich Company, RTKL, McLean, Va

2013 – 2014, Story, Art in Embassies, U.S. Department of State, for the US Embassy, Monrovia, Liberia, four bronze sculptures on embassy grounds, permanent functional playground located in Wenneh Town, outside of Monrovia, and collaboration w/Liberian Women Quilters Guild

2012 – 2016, Finding a Line    Washington DC, artist Ben Ashworth wi/ Workingman Collective public art project taking the improvisational act at the core of skateboarding - finding a line through physical space - and applying it to the process of transforming a community                                                                          space.  Selected by curator Laura Roulet for the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities’ temporary public art project 5x5.   NOTE: Finding a Line was a TED City 2.0 award finalist

2011- 2012, Haiti People Project, Port Au Prince, Haiti, Workingman collaboration with Child-in-Hand and the International Center for Disaster Resilience, affiliated with Harvard Medical School, and Haitian artists, designers, and Port Au Prince community to infuse medical, psycho-social, physical and aesthetic practices to relieve trauma in orphaned children in Haiti.

2007-2008, MISSION; Site/Cite/Sight (DC/NC), North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC, Temporary installation, Site Projects DC, Washington Project for the Arts, Washington DC, Curated by Welmoed Laanstra June 15^th – July 28^th

2007, PINE, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA, Temporary social space project

2006, Five Mile Line, Silver Bow Arts Foundation Residency Project, Butte, Montana, socaily engaged public project and excellent BBQ social,

Selected Awards / Residencies / Presentation

2015, Aspen Institute, Aspen, CO, speaker, Cultural Diplomacy: Why art Matters

2015, Checago Bright Foundation, Monrovia Liberia, Achievement Award in Community Service

2013-14, Art in Embassies, Monrovia, Liberia, Story project commission, US Department of State

2012, Finalist, TED City 2.0 Prize, Washington DC, Finding a Line project

2006, Silver Bow Foundation, Butte, Montana, 5 Mile Line, artist residency project

References

1. Mark Jenkins (July 16, 2015) ‘Satellite,’ an artistic homage to a relic of a restless age" Washington Post
2. Anne Reeve (3 November 2011). Workingman Collective. Art in America. Archived 2 December 2020.
3. ^ Roberta Forsell Stauffer (15 May 2006). Visiting artists hit the streets of Butte. The Montana Standard. Archived 8 April 2016.
4. ^ [s.n.] (3 April 2008). Synchrony depicts the motion of life. Frederick News Post, page 54. Clipped December 2020.