I facilitated this week-long workshop as a Professional Guest Artist with Art City in Winnipeg in summer 2020. The primary focus was to use recycled and repurposed materials to create jewellery. The intent was to generate greater respect for the environment and ourselves by revaluing discarded objects.
The most successful component of the workshop was creating pieces from plastics. This included making beads from rolled plastic and flower pieces from the bottom of pop bottles and heating them in the toaster oven which caused them to shrink/hold them form. These pieces were then turned into wearable art.
There are many different techniques to create jewellery from up-cycled/recycled materials.
My goal in these workshops are to stimulate discussion on subjects such as beauty and gender constructs, creating the opportunity for all to engage, express and adorn themselves.
For this project I partnered with a women's shelter in Argentina to facilitate a collaborative mosaic mural. I created a design for the mural which included individual fragments which came together in the design to reconstruct a collective of women.
The design was approved by the director, and I facilitated a workshop where we used collaged paper, drawing materials as well as mosaic pieces taped to paper to create fragments which represented a part of their healing process. The women's children were very engaged in the process.
The director and I chose these materials -- as they are easy to work with and wouldn't cause any of the participants additional stress or negative emotions.
I took their designs and prepared them for their installation. The women, children and I installed the pieces to complete the mural.
Lost wax casting is the process of carving designs into wax to be cast in metal. This workshop is better for older participants but I think all ages would be able to participate.
I will be facilitating a lost wax casting workshop with the Manitoba Craft Council in June 2023 but have years of experience with the technique. The process is very exciting and could be done in two session or many depending upon your interest.
To create a piece, I would encourage participants to sketch out their ideas and build 3D models before teaching them how the carve the wax. Then, the wax pieces would be cast in metal in Winnipeg by a local jewellery store. We could then turn these pieces into polished jewellery pieces or create a collaborative sculpture. The options are endless and fun!
