Scraps Have Stories: A Folk Art Assemblage Workshop

Folk art often begins with what is already nearby: worn fabric, leftover wood, house paint, buttons, thread, wire, paper fragments, broken objects, and materials someone believed might still be useful.

In Scraps Have Stories, participants will explore how ordinary materials carry histories of labor, home, family, place, survival, and resourcefulness.

Using reclaimed wood, fabric scraps, paper remnants, thread, wire, buttons, packaging, and found objects, each person will create a small folk-art assemblage or wall object guided by memory and intuition rather than technical perfection.

Possible forms may include protective symbols, household shrines, personal emblems, imagined tools, memory objects, small creatures, talismans, or abstract constructions.

Participants are welcome to bring a small personal scrap or found object, although this is not required.

• Folk-art traditions of resourcefulness
• Assemblage and intuitive construction
• Material memory and domestic histories
• Personal symbols and everyday objects
• Imperfection as a source of character and meaning

• One small folk-art assemblage or wall object
• A deeper understanding of material histories
• A practice for noticing the value within overlooked objects

No previous art experience is required. Primary materials are included.

Nothing saved is ever only a scrap.