Adventures in Paper Weaving
With Molly Elkind
Paper weaving is a quick and fun way to play with color, image, and pattern—without a loom!
Even if you’ve never seen a weaving draft and don’t know warp from weft, you’ll be weaving by the end of the workshop. We will begin by viewing the diverse work of several artists working in this medium today. I will demonstrate how to choose papers for weaving, how to decorate them yourself if you choose to do that, how to cut strips, choose a weave structure, read a weaving draft, and how to do the actual weaving.
We will emphasize choosing papers and weave structures that create maximum visual interest and interaction between image and weave. Finally, we will look at how to finish and mount your completed weaving. I will share several handouts and resources.
- Skill level All
- Age appropriate 16+ (minors must have a parent on site)
- Materials $10 materials fee to instructor
- Students should bring Papers: either printed photographs or decorated papers (painted or found papers). A weight of 90-140 lb is ideal—something heavier than 20-lb printer paper is easier to weave with, if possible. If you choose to decorate or paint your own papers during the workshop, you will need the necessary paints, brushes, etc. Blue painter's tape or (preferred) white artist’s tape. Try to avoid scotch tape or masking tape. Scissors for cuttng paper. Work surface: piece of cardboard, foam core or matboard at least 2” larger on all sides than the papers you are weaving with. Optional: Means to cut paper into 1/4” strips: EITHER a rotary paper trimmer OR a ruler, cuttng mat and x-acto or utility knife. You can bring a paper shredder or a pasta machine to cut solid-colored papers. I will bring paper cutters as well.
Instructor
Molly ElkindAfter focusing on tapestry weaving for fourteen years, Molly Elkind’s recent work explores weaving with paper and mixed media that include painted and found images, threads and natural elements. Since 2018, Molly has been inspired by New Mexico’s high desert landscape, which is rugged, fragile, beautiful–and vulnerable to wildfire and drought. The structure of weave offers a language with endless expressive possibilities. Woven structures are an apt metaphor for what we know about the functioning of earth’s ecosystems, and the mutual disruption of image and pattern in Molly’s woven collages evokes this. Molly earned an M.A. in Studio Art from the Allen R. Hite Art Institute at the University of Louisville in 2002. Exhibition highlights include two solo exhibits in Atlanta and numerous juried and invitational shows nationwide since 1996. Molly has been published in a number of fiber art-related publications, and her work is in several private collections. Her blog Molly Elkind: Talking Textiles has been published for 10 years. Besides making art, Molly is passionate about teaching it, with a particular focus on design principles, processes, and methods of critique. She is based in Santa Fe, New Mexico and teaches both online and in person for fiber guilds and conferences. When not in her studio Molly can be found out hiking the trails near her home.
