A Fun Morning! Valentine Paper Cut Workshop @ Knack

Last Saturday I had a wonderful morning at Knack teaching paper cut techniques to ten lovely women. I had a full house show up for the workshop and we all gathered around the table and got to work. I talked a bit about Wycinanki, Polish paper cuts. I especially focused on the Kurpie style Polish paper cut which uses a single fold, symmetrical design technique. Some students used the templates I brought to class for their design and other students created their own unique designs. Every paper cut made in this workshop was created by using recycled / up-cycled materials that Knack has gathered or that have been donated to the store. All the women seemed inspired by the class and especially by the design examples I shared from books I bought while studying in Poland and Hungary. A couple Polish/American students came to the class because they wanted to learn a little about their creative, Polish heritage. It feels good to pass on the beauty and heritage of traditions I've found particularly rich and inspiring. I plan to be back to Knack sometime this spring to teach another paper cut class. This time we will create floral paper cut designs. Stay posted for the date which I will announce here and on Facebook once I book the day and time. Thank you to Macey and Amber at Knack for having me teach this class and for taking these pictures which capture the feel of a fun, creative morning at your store.

Making Valentine's Cards: Up-cycled, Paper Cut Workshop February 1st

Last month I created the above example and template of a hand made, paper cut, Valentine using paper remnants I found in my scrap paper folder for an upcoming work shop I'm teaching at KNACK: The Art of Clever Re-Use, in Easthampton, MA. The workshop takes place in a couple weeks, on Saturday morning, February 1st, from 10am until 12pm. Spots are still open if you want to join me!

I'm really looking forward to teaching an art class again as it has been a number of years since I've been in a teaching role, encouraging other's creative energy and talents. Yes, in a past life, before I moved to western MA, I was an art teacher to middle school and high school students.

I took two embroidery classes at KNACK this fall and had a ball! It was wonderful to get out of the house on a Saturday morning. I walked into KNACK with the smell of a fresh pot of coffee brewing, greeting my senses and one of the friendly owners there to welcome us. All the workshop attendees soon gathered around the table and got to work with a wonderful and talented teacher. We all learned something new that morning and it was inspiring to be in KNACK's studio space.

I just got confirmation today that the workshop is a GO since I have enough people enrolled in the class to allow it to happen. And there are still some spots available if you want to join us at KNACK's fabulous creative re-use lounge. I included the following information taken from KNACK's website which shares all the info and links you need to find out more info and enroll in the workshop.

Class Description

Valentine’s day is just around the corner!  Make unique cards to give to loved ones (or keep for yourself!). Paper Cutting is an art form that is practiced by different cultures all around the world.

You will learn about the Polish form of paper cutting called “Wycinanki”; the Kurpie style of cutting from Poland is the inspiration for the projects in this workshop. This style cut out is made from one piece of paper that is folded in half, down the middle. You'll create beautiful cards to take home, and  learn the skills to make many more on your own.

Details 

 Saturday, February 1st
10am-12pm
Taught by Kim Wachtel
Cost: $30

Pre-registration required
Class size limited to 10

Sign up

Stop by during regular business hours to register for this class, or you may sign up online.

Register for Workshop!

Our cancellation policy can be found at the bottom of the Workshop listings page.

Questions

 Contact us! We can be reached at 413-529-0126 or info@knack.org.

Spruce Corner

For the last two weekends some of my cards and embroidery pieces were at the Spruce Corner Schoolhouse Holiday Sale. Above are some pictures of this magical little place. I traveled "over the river and through the woods" to get here and also seemed to travel back in time.

This little schoolhouse harkens back to another time when we educated our children in our small communities in one room buildings. Kids of all ages would gather to learn together. As I set up my things for the holiday sale my mind wandered. Part of me longs to send my child to this place with other kids of all ages, with a dedicated teacher who believes in creativity and story as well as math and science. Today schools often look like office buildings or even worse, prisons. They are often big impersonal spaces filled with people and tied to the clock like a factory. Although a place like this may be filled with good teachers and love, it is just hard for me to think about how big classrooms and schools have become in their physical size and numbers of students. The system is less personal. So when I come to this space for the holiday sale, as an artist and a holiday shopper, I start to day dream about "what if?". What if our small communities in the hills of MA could open some schoolhouses like this with a dedicated teacher and smaller groups of our children? Is it possible? What would it look like?

When I walk through the wooden door the first thing that I am aware of is the quiet. There is only the sound of the crackling fire and the hushed voices of other holiday shoppers. I also quickly become aware of the lack of electricity.  The light is all natural. On a cloudy day or at twilight the space has a muted, serene quality and on a sunny day the sun casts shadows, playing with the window panes and lovely arts and crafts objects that are for sale. A fire in the big wood stove heats the space. A top the stove a pot of spiced, hot apple cider infuses it's fragrance throughout the room. The building is truly how it would have been in the 18th and 19th centuries. There is no loud holiday pop music, no glaring flourescent lights and no crowds. It's a place where I can think and where I can enjoy what I'm looking at.

If you live in the area or find yourself in western MA during the first two weekends in December perhaps you would like to shop here too? The Spruce Corner Schoolhouse is on Rt. 116 between Ashfield and Plainfield, MA. This was my third time participating in this sale and I look forward to it every year.

Here are a few things that I purchased this year. I knitted knome for Kazi, a felted Christmas tree ornament and some felting materials to try my hand at felt painting.

It's a  beautiful frigid snow day here at my home and I'm keeping the wood stove pumping as I write this.  If you look closely at the picture with the knitted knome, out the window my sentient sunflower is still standing guard over our house and garden. Her head is bowed and she wears a cap of snow. I hope you are enjoying the warmth of the season where ever you are!

My new love... Embroidery!

I discovered something new about myself this week. I love to do embroidery. I had a hunch that I would really like to do this and I was right. I've enjoyed admiring and looking closely at embroidery for a long time. Now it feels so good to be doing it!

Last Saturday I took a two hour workshop on embroidery at a new, truly awesome, re-use center/store called KNACK in Easthampton at the Eastworks building. Knack is a DIY palace. The store takes used things, sometimes on the way to being discarded, and brings new life to these things as potential and transformed arts and crafts items. I love the idea behind creating a store like this. Upcycling and reusing materials is a great way to transform items and the workshop space encourages community to learn to do things for themselves.  Here is Knack's mission statement...

Knack: The Art of Clever Reuse is a creative reuse center where you can:

• Find all sorts of reusable materials for your creative projects
• Take a workshop or drop in during our open studio time
• Have a party (birthday, craft night, creative gathering, etc.)
• Shop for upcycled gifts/art handmade by local artists

A woman named Bonnie Sennott taught the workshop. I was really impressed with her embroidered art pieces. She creates abstract images with embroidery stitches which I found beautiful and inspiring. She has a blog, Blue Peninsula Knits, which is full of her projects and examples of her many creative talents. She is a talented knitter as well as a knit pattern creator.

The photo above is of my completed project from the workshop. Bonnie gave us a template to work with and all of the materials to create a sachet. We got to try out 6 different embroidery stitches while creating this pretty, fragrant sachet, stuffed with lavender, camomile and flax seeds.

I find that doing needle work is really very relaxing to me...like weeding a garden or knitting a scarf. Repetitive, task oriented work makes me happy and puts me in a mentally and physically relaxed state. This activity is becoming a nice way to end a busy day full of child care and play, work, household chores, gardening and cooking. Plus I feel like I'm making progress with my creative practice since the sewing links up with the creative work I am now doing. It's a win/win situation!

At home, before taking this workshop, I've been playing around with simple watercolor patterns and incorporating hand stitched elements into them. I've been really attracted to the sun symbol motifs carved into wood of decorative Zakopane architectural elements and furniture in Poland. I'm making little images with gouache, paper, and thread using simple folk art motifs. Here's a work in progress at my work table.

I'll be happily embroidering as well as making new paper cuts and little paintings to prepare for the full season of craft fairs and holiday events in the coming months. I'll post more news on these events in a future blog post.

Quest To Poland and Hungary

Krakow, Poland (photo from google images)

What a winter it has been.  Actually, what a year it has been!  Last year, as I began taking my personal development and artistic development a lot more seriously, a message came to me loud and clear...

"This is your life, create it, live it."

I've been aiming and reaching to embrace this kind of outlook for awhile now. However, this year I am taking it up a notch. At some point I realized how I was living a little too passively by taking jobs I didn't fully love for the money, jumping on other peoples creative projects and not fully developing my own vision while deep inside I knew I wanted to step out and define myself more on my own terms. I am the co-captain of my ship along with the mysterious force that is with me every step of the way. I've had to be patient, I've had to trust and just put one foot in front of the other. Ultimately, I'm learning how to trust myself. The work is paying off and the path is becoming clearer. I feel aligned with it and on it now and feel excited, actively co-creating with what the universe gives me. I'm learning that hard work and patience are two keys to self development. Something I think I understood intellectually but am just starting to really understand in practice. 

I'm excited to announce my plans that I believe will have an impact on me for a lifetime. I am going on a creative and educational quest to Poland and Hungary. I've been working this past winter and spring by clarifying my creative, educational and travel dreams. I enrolled in an art class, I created an independent study project, I got in touch with friends and family in Central Europe, I bought a plane ticket, I arranged for places to stay and I created a fundraising page on IndieGoGo, that I will launch shortly, to help me meet the study and travel costs of this quest. I will be posting regularly regarding this quest and the fundraising. I especially can't wait to continue blogging from over in Poland and Hungary in July and August. In the following text you'll find a more in depth description of my plans. I'm so looking forward to sharing this quest with you!

Study & Travel Plan

I arrive in Krakow, Poland on July 3rd to attend a four week long study program at Jagiellonian University which is the second university to be founded in Central Europe way back in 1364.  The course, which is organized through The Kosciuszko Foundation in NYC, is called "The Art of Poland: Past and Present" and covers the art history of Poland, folk arts, poster art and contemporary art.

While in Krakow I plan to forge a connection with the Ethnographic Museum to do independent study on the folk arts of Poland. I will be taking photographs, sketching ideas and researching images, stories and music that will be influential to my future creations. I’m also looking forward to meeting and visiting with my family who reside in and around Krakow, as well as sight seeing to get a glimpse of the culture of my ancestors.

In August I will spend time in Hungary with friends and split my time between Budapest and the countryside. I plan to explore various Hungarian folk/peasant art traditions by visiting museums and attending festivals held on weekends during the summer months. My musician friend wants to share traditional Hungarian music and songs with me as well as put me in touch with traditional dancers who live in his countryside village. I will visit Harskut, Hungary, the village my grandfather's family is from. More photographs, sketches, memories, music and paintings will be made during this time.

The Impact

I believe that there are parallels between the working class people of today and the peasants of yesterday. Instead of toiling for land owning lords we toil for the elite/corporate class. I believe one's connection to meaningful creativity creates spiritual, mental and physical health ultimately fostering a sense connection within oneself and with the outer world by positively impacting community and relationships.

Culturally, I see a shift of interest from a consumeristic mentality to an interest in the cultivation of local economies through the production and consumption of handmade, homegrown products, goods, food and arts. I am interested in traditional cultures and how they created meaning and beauty in their lives before big box stores, factory assembly lines and mass consumption. How were the personal, the spiritual and the beautiful created and shared?

I believe that we find a deeper meaning in life through the creation and appreciation of beauty. I imagine that my ancestors, the peasants of Poland and Hungary, created many things of beauty and meaning despite leading lives full of back breaking work for the benefit of the upper class. Wood working, paper cuts, embroidery, paintings, gardening, music making and story telling gave the peasantry an outlet to create and share stories, folk lore, traditions and beauty. I am looking to re-cultivate this mentality for myself, not only to connect with my personal history but to create homemade things of beauty and meaning, and build new bridges within my community both socially and economically.

I will create new work to show in community and commercial gallery’s based on my experience. I will share these ideas and what I learn with others through my work and presentations. And I plan to start my own handmade business using my designs.