Sat. 10am-1pm, April 20 at DRAW Studio

Workshop:

Paper Possibilities Palooza will teach participants how to make hand-made paper from recycled materials using household objects. This workshop will include learning to make paper pulp, pulling sheets of paper and embellishing sheets with natural materials and textures. Participants will leave with a broad understanding of the possibilities of handmade paper. Our workshop will include a thorough presentation about selecting, collecting and processing fibers for paper. We will demonstrate how to make a mold and deckle from up-cycled or thrifted picture frames, mesh, and tape. Participants can pull sheets of paper, or dabble with the casting abilities of pulp. In an era of “going paperless,” most of us find ourselves still flooded with junk mail, coupons, and print-outs. Our workshop explores a creative reuse discussion on the artistic benefit of handmade paper.

Teaching Artist: Erin Dougherty, @erin.doug & Rachel Gee, @rmgee.art

Erin Dougherty is a Kingston-based sculptor and fiber artist exploring compassion and resilience. She is the Studio Arts shop manager at Bard College at Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. She was a founding student member of the Department of Regional Art Workers (DRAW) Kingston, an alumna of SUNY New Paltz Sculpture, and recipient of the Samuel Dorsky Museum “Next Generation award.”

Rachel Gee is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in the Hudson Valley. She recently graduated from SUNY New Paltz with a BFA in Sculpture. Her current body of work explores handmade cast paper to make biologically inspired sculptures that honor non-human intelligence through exploring decay and new life.

Sun. 10am-1pm, April 21, at Neighborhood Print Studio

Workshop:

In the Weaving with Waste workshop, participants will learn how to use textile waste materials in new ways, while focusing on learning basic weaving properties and construction.

The workshop will create a stimulating environment as we learn how to weave, while finding out more about reducing textile waste and the implications of the overconsumption of clothing and textiles on intricate ecosystems. Participants will leave the workshop with one or two woven textile samples.

Teaching Artist: Sariah Park, www.sariahpark.com

As a mixed-race interdisciplinary artist of Indigenous and European heritage, Sariah Park's work challenges the status quo of making and asks important questions regarding consumerism, post colonialism and societal waste. With over nineteen years of experience in fiber, print, and fashion design, she has a unique perspective as an artist, entrepreneur, and educator. Her work has been featured in Hyperallergic, the Wall Street Journal, Women’s Wear Daily, Vogue, Elle, and Harper’s Bazaar. She received a Pollock-Krasner Fellowship in 2019, as well as artist grants from Creative Capital, Foundation for the Arts, and the CERF+. She is an enrolled citizen of the Chiricahua Apache Nation and her current research is focused on Indigenous Studies, de-centering whiteness within fashion and the development of sustainable and Land-based practices for textile, fine art and fashion production. Her most recent body of work features the up-cycling and repurposing of dead stock and damaged printed textiles into new forms, and printing with waste to create large-scale works on paper.

Mon. 6-9pm, April 22, at DRAW Studio

Workshop:

Plant Cycles - The Infinite Energy is a lecture highlighting plant cycles from seed to fruit, the importance of understanding the life of plants, and how we can best use plants in all their stages. We will learn to care for our plants. We will then take this information about caring for nature and learn to use this same practice in caring for ourselves. We will plant seeds and decorate pots, then we will end with a movement and drumming workshop to lift the spirits up and have fun.

Teaching Artist: Farmer Nick/ PK Organics, @Pershing_King

Nick Jackson is a Poughkeepsie Native who helped start Pershing Ave Farm and Gardens alongside Scenic Hudson and other partners/stake holders in the city of Poughkeepsie. The Farm provided fresh free produce to the residents in the northside of PK along with after school programing, gardening workshops, and harvest festivals. Nick started farming after cooking for 12 years because he saw a need of supplying healthy options to his people. His has started PK organics as an agriculture educator, distributor, and food justice advocate. When Nick is not farming his is dancing with his crew Nabless Machina and PsiFire flow and has Rhythm of water media focusing on dance, and media arts.

Today Nick has a non-profit called PK Organics, where he teaches and trains youth and adults on urban/rural agriculture. Herb and Flower cultivation, art creation with natural resources. Self-Sustaining Practices like foraging, bush-craft, and survival skills. As well as marketing and distribution of aftermarket products like Jams and Sauces.

Wed. 6-9pm, April 24, at DRAW Studio

Workshop:

Mushrooms are an excellent alternative source for papermaking. The workshop will start with an introduction to how fungi can provide artists with various mediums. We will learn about the history of mushroom papermaking, and how it differs from cellulose-based paper. During the hands-on part of the workshop, we will dive into different papermaking techniques and assemblages. Mushroom teas will be served throughout the workshop. All materials included.

Teaching Artist: Roberta Trentin, @bluesprucewanderings, www.robertatrentin.com

Roberta Trentin is a multidisciplinary artist who works in collaboration with the materials and the unknown outcomes. Her work explores overlooked stories of fungi and plants in the more-than-human world. Roberta has been experimenting with mushroom paper for the past two years. With her practice she hopes to provide artists with an alternative and regenerative material that protects the forests from extractive processes. Roberta splits her time between the forests of the Hudson Valley and Brooklyn.

Sat. 10am-1pm, April 27, at DRAW Studio

Workshop:

We will use flowers, leaves, roots, tree shavings, and even food waste to create a vibrant rainbow of color on fabric. We will make fabric samples with different textiles and you will dye your own silk scarf to take home and wear. You will learn how to prepare fabric for dyeing, which textiles work best, how to create a dye vat, and different tie-dye techniques to achieve various designs.

Natural dyes are a beautiful lens through which to explore our relationship to the clothing we wear every day and our relationship to the natural world. As we relax and create vibrant vats of color from local flowers and leaves, we can simultaneously peer more deeply into the conventional fashion system we purchase from without question. There will be a brief discussion about chemical dyes and the global fashion system.

Teaching Artist: Susanna Taylor, @flower.dye, www.flowerdye.blue

Susanna is a mother, designer, artist, gardener, herbalist and lover of the earth residing in Kingston, NY. At the root of every endeavor is her desire to connect humanity, and herself, back to the earth. Her company Flower Dye is the culmination of many years of working in fashion and learning about natural dyes, including learning from local basket weavers in the Amazon jungle how colors are made with native plants, studying natural color in Oaxaca, Mexico with Zapotec rug weavers, studying fashion design in Paris, working in the design world in NYC and SF.

She is currently a full time mom of a toddler and running Flower Dye on the side, teaching local workshops, growing medicine and plant dyes in her garden and apprenticing in programs for plant medicine and earth magic.

Sun. 10am-1pm, April 28, at Neighborhood Print Studio

Workshop:

Join us for a playful, interactive soil and compost workshop! Briana Gary (environmental educator, YMCA Kingston) and Emilie Houssart (artist, The DIRT Project) collaborate to bring you a creative and hands-on exploration about the language, psychology and physicality of earth. Participants will explore their own relationships with the ground as we examine what it means to be part of an ecosystem; then learn all about composting, including how to make compost in your home or backyard. Be ready to open your mind and get your hands dirty.

Teaching Artist: Briana Gary, @yfarmkingston & Emilie Houssart, www.emiliehoussart.com, @emiliehoussart, @_thedirtproject_

Briana Gary is the Conservation Pathways Coordinator at the Kingston YMCA Farm Project. Briana first joined the farm in 2017 as a youth crew member and has since worked with the farm throughout the years. Through the farm she discovered her passion for environmental conservation and sustainability. She attended Suny New Paltz and holds a bachelors in Geography. In 2021 she served with Americorps in Central Idaho where she worked on a nature preserve further deepening her love for the natural world. Briana’s main role at the farm is to create pathways for youth to discover the environmental conservation field.

Emilie Houssart is a Dutch American artist and curator based in the Hudson Valley who explores inherited systems of food and land. With a practice based in absurdist performance and living sculptural installations, she creates spaces to collaboratively reimagine success. Through The DIRT Project, she holds interactive workshops and art-based experiences for all ages that invite play with earth, linguistics and identity, nurturing our relationships with invisible life forms inside the body and underfoot. Houssart teaches at SUNY New Paltz and is Artistic Director at Unison Arts.