COLLAGE WORKSHOPS

Starting with the 24-hour zine challenge at SUNY New Paltz, I began hosting workshops for people to create with paper together. It wasn't until a few years after I had graduated college that I started teaching collage workshops for the broader community. The very first ones I organized, back in 2019 were at a coffee shop named Cafeteria in downtown New Paltz, NY and were accompanied by open mics nights. Once that staple of the community changed ownership & eventually closed with the outbreak of COVID19, I took a break from group creating until 2022 when I started hosting them at the local library for friends.

I quickly emersed myself in the active collage community upon moving to the Denver Metro area of Colorado in 2023. Soon after, I resumed hosting workshops at the coffee shop I worked at in addition to attending others. Recently, a local grassroots art organization called Artists.in.sync contacted me to become their regular collage workshop teacher! While marketing a a wide variety of artistic events throughout the city, the collage nights just so happen to be their biggest events each month.

Starting out, my collage events were fairly simple as I would bring all of the necessary supplies & let people loose to create what their hearts desired. After a few big events, I discovered that it would be easier for people creating to use materials that were pre-cut & organized by categories as opposed to wasting time flipping through magazines for half of the time they had paid for. Plus, there was less trash to clean up at the end of the night. Once this new method received great feedback, I realized that I could curate my events more. It wasn't until I did a collaborative workshop with the organizer of a collage club in Mexico City that I developed inspiration for specific themed-events. 

Raquel brought what are called "monografias" which are pictorial sheets for elementary school kids to learn with that are frequently used as collage material as they are discontinued as educational material. For a warm up, she had everyone participate in a group activity making collage-style "exquisite corpses". Having a direction or central theme to point people towards was helpful to those who have never collaged before and provided a sense of comradery that inspired me to curate at my future events.

Since then, I have come up with a few directions for my classes  & implemented some with great success. For my first themed activity, I curated kits to pick from & called it a "choose your own adventure" theme. This was by far my most successful event yet with over 40 people in attendance! The next one, dedicated to my time as a zinester, providing everyone with blank zine formats to create on - encouraging them to reproduce & self publish their final pieces. Future ideas include assemblage over thrifted Knick-knacks or discarded artworks and making hexaflexagons. I am open to suggestions & would love to hear your feedback if you have been in attendance!