Wednesday
April 13, 2011, 7:30PM
Shoreline Unitarian Church
14724 1st Avenue NE
Shoreline, WA 98155-6806
In the Chrysalis Bldg
Exploring Alternative Natural Materials
This presentation by Jan Hopkins is based on over 20 years of exploring and developing ways to process and make baskets and sculptural art from materials that are not thought of as either usable or as basketry materials. Jan found her niche working with alternative natural materials such as citrus peels, melon peels and sturgeon skin. Finding it was increasingly difficult to collect traditional materials, she started looking materials that could be collected in abundance. Starting with orange peels, she worked diligently for many years to make the material stable for the long term and continued the quest using alternative materials, eventually finding ways to work with grapefruit and melon peels. For over 20 years Jan has experimented and incorporated other materials like lunaria (silver dollar seed pod centers), sturgeon skin, lotus pod tops, various leaves, a variety of seeds and petals.
Jan states, “Each material has its own distinct qualities and I have developed many variations of processing and combining materials. Some materials work better together than others. I continue to use traditional natural materials in my work, but have found that I have more options when I have an unlimited unrestricted resource.”
2 comments:
Wish I could sit in on this!!!!
Oh, thanks Kari, I would have loved you to be there and add a your knowledge!
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