Hoffman Center for the Arts is a non-profit gallery and community arts center on Oregon’s beautiful North Coast.
We offer workshops, exhibitions, events, and creative experiences so all ages can explore, create, and connect.
Come make something with us!
Come make something with us!
Featured events
Friday, August 28, 2026
1:00 to 4:00 p.m.
Hoffman Center for the Arts and Manzanita Beach
Slow down, look closely, and spend an afternoon sketching the coast with artist, educator, and naturalist Dorota Haber-Lehigh. In this workshop, participants will walk together from the Hoffman Center to Manzanita Beach, where Dorota will guide the group through close observation of the shoreline. You will practice outdoor sketching techniques while paying attention to movement, weather, light, water, and the changing shapes of the coastal landscape.
After sketching outdoors, the group will return to the Hoffman Center to develop field sketches into finished or substantially developed artworks using watercolor and sepia ink. Dorota will offer instruction and support throughout the process, with an emphasis on curiosity, observation, and expressive mark-making. No experience is necessary. This workshop is a good fit for beginners, returning artists, nature lovers, and anyone who wants to practice ways of seeing!
All materials are provided. If you have your own sketching or watercolor supplies, you're welcome to bring those.
Please dress for changing coastal weather. A weatherproof jacket or windbreaker, comfortable walking shoes, sun protection, and a water bottle are recommended. You may also want to bring snacks or lunch.
A small folding stool, beach towel, or portable seat is optional, especially if you prefer not to sit or kneel on the sand.
This workshop includes a walk of several blocks between the Hoffman Center and Manzanita Beach, plus time working on sand or near the beach entrance.
If weather makes the beach walk less feasible, Dorota will lead an indoor version of the workshop.
Teens aged 15 to 19 attend free with coupon code YOUTH.
About the artist
Dorota Haber-Lehigh is an artist, educator, and naturalist with a passion for the native plants of the Pacific Northwest. Born in Poland, she often depicts regional flora, drawing attention to its sculptural beauty and to the fragility of nature and human life.
She holds degrees in art and international studies with a focus on Indigenous cultures, a master’s degree in teaching, and a graduate bilingual certificate in teaching English as a second language. She taught art and English as a second language for 27 years. In 2019, Dorota earned a Diploma in Botanical Illustration from the Society of Botanical Artists in London. She is a member of Oregon Botanical Artists, Pacific Northwest Botanical Artists, and the American Society of Botanical Artists.
Hoffman Center classes and events are often photographed or filmed, and we love sharing those moments on our social media, website, and newsletter so people can get a feel for what it's like to create and connect here. By registering, you agree to be included in images of the event you have registered for. If you would prefer not to appear in images, please tell a staff member when you arrive.
Somatic art exploration
Scholarships are available for this workshop.
August 22 | 1-5pm
Join creative facilitator Jenny Siegel for an afternoon of intuitive art-making. Participants will gather together in a relaxed, supportive space. We’ll begin with a short series of simple, beginning somatic awareness/movement practices to land in our bodies and cultivate a felt-sense of spaciousness. These accessible practices are done seated and standing, and can be adapted to your needs and are gentle in nature.
Then we’ll explore intuitive art-making, using color, mark-making, watercolor and other mixed media, carrying a creative thread from the somatic movement practice. We will explore the practice of allowing; following what feels pleasurable, curious, or alive for us in the moment. A creative flow can emerge that is playful, unexpected, and freeing.
All art materials, guidance, space to play, and snacks/tea are provided. No experience necessary—just bring curiosity and wear comfortable clothes that you can move and create in. Bring your water bottle, and a pillow or folded blanket for your chair (optional).
About Jenny
Jenny Siegel is a mixed media artist and facilitator based in Portland, Oregon, and is a part time resident of Neahkahnie Beach. Her creative practice is inspired by forms found in nature, allowing curiosity and spaciousness to inform her process. Jenny’s background in art/design and healing work drew her to creative and somatic practices. Somatic Art rose out of her own experiences in the studio. Jenny then began sharing intuitive art-making + somatic practice with groups.
Upcoming visual art classes and events
Upcoming writing classes and events
Saturday, August 29
1 to 5 PM
Come spend an afternoon getting hands-on with glaze!
In this four-hour workshop, potter Mary Roberts will walk you through a variety of the resist methods she uses in her own studio practice for creating surface interest. You will learn easy techniques for creating patterns and designs using sample tiles and resist materials we provide.
Whether you're newer to ceramics or looking to expand your surface vocabulary, you'll leave with new approaches you can bring to your own work.
Scholarships are available
Price includes all materials.
Mary Roberts is a ceramic artist living near Neahkahnie beach on the north Oregon coast. Her work is primarily thrown on the potter’s wheel.
She uses near-to-porcelain stoneware and rustic tawny clay to create elegant and contemporary forms with a fresh feeling. After shaping to a refined surface, she carves, etches, and applies wax-resist patterns, slips or glazes. Roberts is most inspired by contemporary British and Scandinavian ceramics and modern Japanese textile design and ceramics. All her work is intended to be functional. Roberts retired as a consumer brand business executive at age 60. As a lifetime collector of hand-made ceramics, she then had the time to dedicate herself to creating this art form. She studied ceramics at the Oregon College of Art and Craft and the Multnomah Art Center, Portland, Oregon where she was an open studio participant.
She is a member of the Oregon Potters Association and is represented by the Riversea Gallery in Astoria, Oregon.
Mary is also a former Hoffman Center board member and leader, and we're glad to welcome her back to the clay studio, this time as an instructor.
Hoffman Center classes and events are often photographed or filmed, and we love sharing those moments on our social media, website, and newsletter so people can get a feel for what it's like to create and connect here. By registering, you agree to be included in images of the event you have registered for. If you would prefer not to appear in images, please tell a staff member when you arrive.