Please join us on Wednesday, April 9th for MassArt’s 4th annual Climate & Justice Teach-In
This year’s theme: Material Mapping focuses on resources across campus and in our practice, use and reuse, and cradle to cradle explorations. Through collaboration and conversation, we can make our way from waste to wonder! This one-day convergence of making, sharing, and learning includes:
Hands-on workshops / demos / skillshares featuring traditional and alternative materials-based research and discussion around sourcing, techniques, and processes.
Sustainability snapshot presentations by students, staff, and faculty share a broad range of powerful and innovative artwork.
Waste trade! Bring your byproducts and other debris that could be reused by others – swap tangibles and ideas!
MassArt materials map – Learn about this new resource, and help us add to it by identifying / highlighting reusable materials in your area.
Events are free and open to all. No registration required. All activities are between the hours of 11am – 4pm in the DMC Atrium, unless another location is specified. Please see below for details and specific workshop times.
11:00am - 4:00pm
Campus Materials Map
It’s the official launch of the Materials Map! Come learn all about this amazing new resource, and help us add to it by identifying reusable materials in your area.
At 1pm and 3pm there will be a short presentation by creators Luanne Witkowski and Anvesha Srivastava. (DMC Lecture Hall)
11:00am - 4:00pm
Waste Trade!
What materials do you have that someone else could use? Think beyond common scrap and what might go to the Restore.
Consider the byproducts of your process: debris, offcuts, dust, fragments, residue…
Put that material in someone else’s hands, instead of in the dumpster.
11:00am - 3:00pm
Bittersweet Journey
Carolyn Lewenberg
Learn to weave with bittersweet vines! Stop by and add to collaborative sculptures while learning about basket weaving with natural materials such as bittersweet, lily stems, wicker, glossy buckthorn, and plantains, as well as recycled yarn.
11:00am - 4:00pm
Fibers Display Table
FA3D Fibers
Stop by and learn more about Fibers and sustainability! We’ll have material samples of natural dyes, felting, papermaking, and basketry along with demos happening in spinning and needle felting.
11:00am - 4:00pm
Bisque Purge
Miguel Lastra
The ceramics department will bring down all the abandoned bisqueware that has accumulated and bring them down to the atrium. The community will have the opportunity to take select a bisque piece, glaze it, and come back to the department to collect it once it has been fired.
11:00am - 4:00pm
Clothing Swap
Colomba Klenner
Clean out your closet! Bring the clothes at the bottom of your drawer and give them a new life – get something in exchange. Be sustainable with your fashion!
11:00am - 1:00pm
Mending Workshop
Jenine Shereos and the Fibers students
Have a garment with a rip or tear that needs to be repaired? Fiber students will be available to consult with you and demonstrate simple mending techniques!
11:00am - 1:00pm
Repair + Rewear
Heather White, Emily Cobb, and the Jewelry & Metals students
Find out what we are able to repair up in the Jewelry and Metals studio with our new laser welder and existing tools / machines / equipment. We’ll have info and examples, plus an intake form if you want us to repair a piece of jewelry.
11:00am - 1:00pm
Beauty in the Broken: Visible Ceramic Mending
Jody Burr
Kintsugi is a Japanese term for the practice of mending broken ceramics by highlighting the repaired cracks with gold. As a philosophy, kintsugi celebrates breakage and repair as adding to the history and meaning of an object, rather than as something to disguise or discard. In this workshop you will learn some methods of visible mending inspired by kintsugi, using materials such as mica powder, gold leaf and colored silicone. Stop by and bring an object to repair in community with others – we’ll guide you through the steps.
11:00am - 1:00pm
Walnut & Friends Resilient Ink
Ric Allendorf and Luanne Witkowski
An introduction to resilient inks made from assorted, locally-foraged materials such as walnut, acorn, lichen, etc.
11:00am - 1:00pm
Cranes Currency Paper
* Sustainability Studio (D110)
Amber Tourlentes
Using a donated batch of flax linen paper from Cranes Currency Museum, Dalton MA.
We will use walnut ink; walnut husks were foraged with permission from Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum last fall.
11:00am - 1:00pm
Intro to Collagraph and Ink Making
* D209
Meg Swan and Mitzi El Awad
Learn how to assemble collagraphs using found / upcycled materials, as well as how to create inks using expired pressed pigments / eye shadows. Participants are encouraged to bring any pigments or eyeshadows, as well as chipboard / thin textured materials.
11:00am - 1:00pm
Shell Book Binding
Gabrielle Reed
Discover the art of crafting shell books by blending creativity with nature’s beauty. Transform shells into captivating literary treasures with coastal charm.
12:30pm - 1:30pm
Watercolor Waste Workshop
* Sustainability Studio (D110)
Jane Marsching and Sophie Pinciaro (with coal, rust, and other dust provided by the Iron Corps)
Learn to make watercolors from coal and rust foundry waste.
12:00pm - 1:30pm
Papermaking: Recycled Pulp Demonstration
Deb Klotz
Welcome to the world of handmade paper! Stop by for demonstrations on pulling sheets with recycled pulp and casting with recycled molds. A number of handmade paper samples and fibers will also be on display.
12:00pm - 3:00pm
Fix Yer Bike!
Bicycle tune-up clinic led by totally amateur bike mechanic Prof. Joshua Hart.
Bring your bike and any spare parts you know you’ll need. We have tools for most minor / moderate repairs.
1:30pm - 3:00pm
Snapshot Presentations
* DMC Lecture Hall / join via zoom
Snapshot presentations give us a glimpse into the variety of sustainability focused practices, artwork, and research happening across campus.
Students, 1:30 – 2:15
Faculty / Staff, 2:15 – 3:00
3:00pm - 4:00pm
Material Spellings
Judith Leemann & JR/SR Sculpture Seminar
We’ll work with seven bottles of ink made by Thomas Little/A Rural Inkworks out of dissolved AR-15 rifles. What does this particular ink want to be used to spell, and to dispel? This workshop is an invitation to copy words together, to re-member what we fight for and what we fight against. We’ll have ink, paper, and brushes.
