A 2015 Bricolage Workshop

This year I will again be teaching a day-long workshop on Bricolage: Making Fine Art with Unconventional Materials in conjunction with the Ninth Annual Encaustic Conference, founded and directed by Joanne Mattera. My workshop on Wednesday, June 10th, is part of the post-conference schedule at Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill in Truro, Mass.

Last year's Mystery Bags containing items for students to use in the workshop

The object of this class is to encourage students to transform materials into a component of an artwork. The objects do not retain their original identity or function but become part of the whole. This is unlike assemblage where objects are brought together and retain their identities. Finished bricolage artworks have a sense of discovery about them as viewers may glimpse and identify original forms when they look more closely at the work.

Here are some images of student works from last year's class. (Please excuse my casual photography and note that images will expand if you click on them.)

A work by Pamela Winegard using pencil marks on paper, black elastics, sticks,
hair scrunchies, part of a wooden placemat, copper wire, and encaustic paint

A work by Abear al Mogren using book pages, shredded paper, copper wire, tissue paper
from a sewing pattern, ping pong balls, copper wire, thread, pigment sticks, encaustic paint
and probably more that I can't identify from the virtual image

A work by Edith Rae Brown using hair scrunchies, black elastics, sticks from
a wooden placemat, thumbtacks or other round objects, wire, pigment sticks, encaustic paint

A work by Monica Kaczyk using ping pong balls, tissue from sewing pattern,
looks like string or wire and more paper, encaustic paint

This is one of my favorite pieces and I can't find the name of the artist. She used
brown paper, sticks from a placemat, wire, black elastics, plastic soldiers and animals,
felt, metal clips, encaustic paint, and probably more. (If anyone knows the name of
this artist, please let me know!)

The reason that these pieces work so well is that the miscellaneous objects and materials that students used in their pieces were not allowed to retain their original identities but became part of the greater whole. This required the artists to have a concept for their work that would subordinate the materials and allow them to be used for new purposes, such as adding texture, dimension, or line.

There are still a couple of places left in the workshop on June 10th. See the full descriptions of workshops here and you can register by calling Castle Hill at 508-349-7511.