Watershed Art Project - Drop-In Cyanotype Session

Join Pasadena artist Kate Lain on September 13 to help create a large community artwork called Watershed as part of a post-wildfire art project grounded in the idea that creating art in community with one another and with the environment can be healing.
Through a series of free outdoor art-making events, Kate is inviting community members to be part of the collaborative creation of a 50-foot textile stream that will be hosted at Arlington Garden in Spring 2027. At this drop-in art-making session, you’ll use the cyanotype process to create designs and images on pieces of fabric that will later be sewn together into the final artwork. We especially welcome community members impacted by the Eaton Fire in anyway to participate.

Cyanotype is an analog photographic process that uses sunlight and water and typically results in blue-and-white images. Participants are encouraged to bring a small meaningful object to use in the cyanotype process, which creates a shadow print using the sun. Cyanotypes made at the event will be added to the large community artwork.

Objects that you bring might include something that has brought you comfort since the fire or something that survived the fire. Or it might be something else. It’s entirely up to you. (Note that you won’t be leaving your object behind; you’ll be taking it home with you once you use it to make your cyanotype!)

No experience necessary! All ages welcome, though small children need to be accompanied by an adult. Registration is not required, but it is encouraged so we can do our best to have ample cyanotype supplies.

This is not a structured workshop, so you are welcome to drop in anytime between 12:30 and 3:30pm. The event will be held in the central Meadow area of the garden, adjacent to the Pomegranate Amphitheater.

Workshop date and time subject to change due to weather.

About the Watershed Art Project

Watershed is a post-wildfire community art project grounded in the idea that creating art in community with one another and with the environment can be healing. About the project name: A watershed is an area of land that channels water to a common outlet. The term also refers to a turning point, a significant moment or dividing point. The 2025 Eaton Fire was in many ways a watershed moment, a massive turning point that upended many lives. This project draws on both of these meanings.

Stay tuned for additional Watershed workshops. There will be announcements on Watershed’s Instagram and Facebook, and via Arlington Garden's Eventbrite. Fall activities will focus on cyanotype-making, and winter workshops will focus on assembling, embellishing, and hand-sewing the individual fabric components to create the stream.

Watershed is hosted by Arlington Garden and made possible in part by the Pasadena Arts & Culture Commission and the City of Pasadena Cultural Affairs Division.

About Kate Lain

Kate Lain is a Northeast Pasadena–based artist and educator born and raised in Pasadena, with a generations-long connection to the area, and specifically to Eaton Canyon, where she grew up hiking with her family and later spent years working and volunteering. In her art practice, she works across media and disciplines that include experimental film and video, social practice, and cyanotype. She creates works that seek to foster connection—among people and between people and the ecologies we are part of.

About Arlington Garden in Pasadena

Located in a residential neighborhood, Arlington Garden is a public habitat garden and 2.5 acre host to climate-appropriate plants, trees, fungi, root systems, animals, birds, bees, bugs, and people. The Garden is not a public or municipal park, and is a community-founded non-profit 501c3 organization that is largely supported by donations and grants. We are open, with general attendance free of charge, during daylight hours 365 days a year.