Artists and engineers have long created amazing automata that imitate living things, perform complicated movements, and tell stories. In this workshop participants will make their own animal automation and learn how mechanical elements like crankshafts and cams transform a crank’s spinning motion, to an up-and down movement. Participants will also explore Build It: Carboard Creations exhibition to gain inspiration for their design. A cat automation template will be provided, but participants may make their own creature design.

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.

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. 

Bark Rhythms: Contemporary Innovations & Ancestral Traditions exhibition showcases historic examples of hand-beaten bark papers, barkcloths, and traditional beaters, paired with the work of contemporary artists from global communities who use bark fiber materials and techniques in innovative and unexpected ways. Please join us to celebrate this beautiful exhibit.

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!

Kozo is a Japanese fiber that when cooked and beaten can be made into beautiful sheets of handmade paper. The cooked fiber also can be pulled apart to create a lace-like effect. The “lace” Kozo can then be wrapped around objects to create delicate sculptures and containers. Participants are encouraged to bring small objects to use as a base for your own one-of-a-kind sculpture. 

Suminagashi means “Ink floating on water,” and is the Japanese form of paper marbling. In this evening workshop you will learn the basics of this techniques, and make your own beautiful marbled creations. All supplies will be provided and are included in the cost of the workshop. Join us for some marvelous marbling!