Come clip, snip, and cut your way through a hands-on workshop focused on paper cutting. Discover how to create your own delicate designs using two simple materials: paper and a blade! In this workshop, we will explore historic Mexican paper cutting traditions, used in celebrations for, Dia de Muertos, Day of the Dead. These “Papel Picado,” or punched papers often feature patterns of skull and are placed around altars.
Please join us in celebrating the Build It: Carboard Creations! exhibit at the Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking. Accessible, recyclable, and versatile, cardboard is a perfect material for building and exploring. Constructing with this simple material, allows designers to whittle down to the essentials to problem solve mechanisms and structures. Explore design thinking through material exploration of various prototypes in this hand-on exhibition. Free and open to the public.
Interested in letterpress printmaking? Join this workshop with guest artist Bryan Baker and make your own creative calling card as a gift for a friend, family member, or for yourself. Learn to set type by hand using different typefaces and then print an edition of calling cards with a clam shell press. Experience a historic tradition in contemporary times. Students are encouraged to bring a fun 2–4-word catch phrase or motto ready to be included on their calling card.
oin us for this fun workshop to explore an early type of camera-less photography. Use paper pre-coated with a mixture of chemicals, the power of the sun, and plants to create your own cyanotypes. Participants will also learn about the history of cyanotypes from the technique’s invention, its first photographic use, to paper artists who create beautiful pieces of artwork. All materials provided.
Mary Hark will discuss her practice as a studio artist, a production papermaker, and the ways she has shared her skills with a variety of communities. Describing projects that she has led in inner city St. Paul, Minnesota, her ongoing project in Ghana, West Africa, as well as her work as an educator in a variety of settings, Mary will share the ways that her papermaking practice has contributed to building community in the places she lives and works.
Join three artists, Lehuauakea, Dalani Tanahy, and Cora-Allan from the Bark Rhythms: Contemporary Innovations & Ancestral Traditions exhibition as they discuss their artwork and process. Lehuauakea and Dalani Tanahy will discuss Hawaiian Kapa barkcloth and Cora-Allan will discuss Hiapo bark cloth from Niue.
Transform traditional bark fiber into bark paper and delicate lace. Participants will make sheets from the cooked inner bark of Kozo plants and use a shaped stone as a beating implement to form sheets. Participants will also learn to create lace Kozo and use it to make 3-D forms. Explore the museum’s current exhibition Bark Rhythms, which focuses on bark paper and bark cloth traditions from Mexico, Hawaii, the Polynesian Islands, Indonesia, and Uganda.
Join speakers James Ojascastro and Cekouat Elim León Peralta while they speak about the Bark Rhythms: Contemporary Innovations & Ancestral Traditions exhibition. Ojascastro will discuss Bast fibers for bark paper & cloth, and León Peralta will discuss his artwork and process for his Papel Amate from Mexico.
Join artists Sheila Nakitende and Tedi Permadi from the Bark Rhythms: Contemporary Innovations & Ancestral Traditions exhibition as they discuss their artwork and process. Sheila Nakitende will speak about her Ugandan barkcloth and Tedi Permadi will speak about his Indonesian Daluang bark paper.
Inspired by the Jacob’s Ladder technique, this box is a double-hinged container made of book board wrapped in beautiful decorative paper. It's double hinge allows the two halves of the box to open and rotate all the way around each other. Click on the video link below to see how the box rotates as it opens. Join us for this workshop and learn the magic of box making. All materials provided and all skills welcome!