Let’s embellish old photos with colorful thread! Learn the basics of sewing on paper to transform photographs, postcards, or design your own image from scratch.

Using a PDF provided by the instructor, we will start with the basics of embroidering on paper while thinking about drawing, linework and simple fills. We will use these stitches to build patterns on the page. Stitches will be demonstrated with time allowed for practice.

For the last hour, we will bring our new skills to vintage photos and postcards, while considering planning a design and how to mail your creation.

All SFCB online workshops are recorded. Video links will be available for eight weeks after class.

Prerequisite:
None

Materials/Tools to bring:
- 1-2 embroidery needles
- 3 colors of embroidery thread
- needle tool or awl
- at least 1-2 postcards or photos (on photo paper, not copies)
- scissors
- ruler
- pencil
- cardstock for printing out PDF (and access to a printer!)
- Optional: tracing paper

About the Instructor:
Hope Amico (they/them) is a visual artist, writer and educator who believes we could all use a creative practice. Through classes, collage meetups and the Keep Writing postcard project, they are excited to share ways we can work together and support each other creatively. Co-founder of the New Orleans Collage Collective and previously known as gutwrench press, they relocated to Portland, OR in 2020. They teach online and in-person through the MCBA, SFCB and privately through their own studio.

This is a two-session online workshop. All times are Pacific.

Does glue stress you out? Does thread tangle at your touch? Then these no-glue/no-thread structures are for you!

This exploration of non-adhesive assembly and binding features three structures: a multi-spread pop-up book, a blank accordion book with a slipcase, and a formal codex bound and cased with tabs alone. All of these structures will be assembled and bound using a kit of pre-cut pieces and a set of simple hand tools.

This workshop is great for all levels; the omission of glue reduces stress for beginners, while the technical features surrounding non-adhesive joins appeal especially to more experienced book artists.

This workshop uses a mailed kit of pre-cut pieces. Students will be required to provide a USPS-friendly mailing address for their kit. No international students, please, due to high kit shipping costs and transit times.

All SFCB online workshops are recorded. Video links will be available for eight weeks after class.

Tools/Materials to Bring:

- mailed kit of pieces provided by instructor

AND

- bone folder
- microspatula
- tweezers
- self-healing mat
- x-acto knife

About the Instructor:
Shawn Sheehy has been teaching book arts courses and workshops since 2001. His broadsides and artist book editions have been collected by such institutions as Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, University of Chicago, Library of Congress, UCLA, and Harvard. Sheehy’s trade pop-up books Welcome to the Neighborwood and Beyond the Sixth Extinction (both mass-market versions of previous artist books) were published by Candlewick and have won numerous awards. Sheehy served as director of The Movable Book Society from 2018 to 2023. He holds an MFA in Book Arts from Columbia College Chicago.

This is a two-session online workshop. All times are Pacific.

The 20th-century Czech paper engineer Vojtěch Kubašta is known for many things: he was spectacularly prolific; he served as writer, illustrator and engineer for his books; and relevant to what follows, he favored a single approach to paper engineering—the cut-in structure. Cut-in pop-ups, a.k.a. kirigami, are generally formed by cutting and folding a single sheet of paper, yielding elegant and efficient structures.

Participants will build 12 no-glue/no-thread structures using a kit of pieces pre-cut from simple white cardstock. The focus is pure mechanism, but with some light application to suggest possibilities for use. Ultimately, the structures are gluelessly bound and tucked into a sturdy box.

This four-hour workshop is divided over two sessions, with time in-between for independent work.

This workshop uses a mailed kit of pre-cut pieces. Students will be required to provide a USPS-friendly mailing address for their kit. No international students, please, due to high kit shipping costs and transit times.

All SFCB online workshops are recorded. Video links will be available for eight weeks after class.

Tools/Materials to Bring:

- mailed kit of pieces provided by instructor

AND

- bone folder
- microspatula
- tweezers
- self-healing mat
- x-acto knife
- pencil
- ruler

About the Instructor:

Shawn Sheehy has been teaching book arts courses and workshops since 2001. His broadsides and artist book editions have been collected by such institutions as Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, University of Chicago, Library of Congress, UCLA, and Harvard. Sheehy’s trade pop-up books Welcome to the Neighborwood and Beyond the Sixth Extinction (both mass-market versions of previous artist books) were published by Candlewick and have won numerous awards. Sheehy served as director of The Movable Book Society from 2018 to 2023. He holds an MFA in Book Arts from Columbia College Chicago.