Paper Sculpture with Matthew Shlian

This summer I went to Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine. It is a beautiful and wonderful place for creative work. This was my third time there in the capacity of a TA to Matthew Shlian for his Paper Sculpture class.

The forest surrounds the campus

The trees lead out onto the rocky beaches and the ocean

The unreal sunsets made each evening complete

Matthew was a wonderful and generous instructor. We spent the week folding, folding, folding! It was a real treat

We explored the possibilities of the fab lab that is available on the Haystack campus for use by 

the students in classes taking place at that time. For this particular demonstration, Matthew suggested we use the laser cutter 

to make score lines that make the paper much easier to fold, and give them a really interesting finish

The whole class, with some of their finished work!

Making cut scores originating from one point, makes the paper look like whipped cream!

One week was nowhere near enough time to get my feet wet. It took a week to get a hang of things, 

and start thinking of applications for all the techniques we learned.

The walk through on the final day showed that everyone had a really productive week! 

The tables were full of different experiments and amazing creations that people had managed to churn out in such a short time!

In fact, someone form the Fibers studio came in and got inspired to make a paper quilt!

 Ms. Patricia Johnson, AKA Eloise Twilight form Still Water Bindery, Vermont. 

She was one of the first people to teach me about Book binding many years ago.

When I got back to Iowa, and had some time on my hands before the semester really swallowed me whole,

 I managed to make this for one of my classes. A rotating ring, made from over beaten abaca I had made last semester. 

 Every alternate part of the ring has a little cut out of a plant form

Its also tiny!