Cardboard Cat

Yesterday, Anna and I took a workshop at the museum. It was taught by an artist whose work we are currently showing in our sculpture court. Her name is Ann Weber and she does amazing sculptures made from cardboard. You can see some here. The pieces she shows outside are actually bronze that was cast from the cardboard pieces she created. They are really amazing. She coats the inside cardboard pieces with shellac and I think that makes them look like baskets. I really like the pieces, the forms she uses and the fact that it is a recycled material.

Anna and I arrived a few minutes before the time when the class was suppose to start (at least according to my watch) but we must have missed the brief introduction as we caught up with the everyone just as she was showing the group her sculpture (or maybe there wasn't any introduction?). Really she just pointed out some things about the structures and then we went right to work. She showed us some different ways to put cardboard together, but there was nothing specific about what to make. I think she wanted us to be creative.

It was a workshop for a child and parent but I think mostly we parents were there to help the kids cut the cardboard and help them put the construction together. (There was a separate adult class in the morning, but I thought it would be more fun for Anna and me to do it together. Ann also said our class did a better job than the morning class because the kids were more free in their ideas.)

Above is the cat that Anna and I made. The class was three hours long and it took us the entire time. I wish I had brought my camera because what the rest of the class came up with was really neat. One mother and daughter pair made a lounge chair for her daughter to sit in. The daughter laid down on the cardboard to draw the template and she could actually sit on it when they were done.

One father and son team did three different sculptures with one being a large fish that looked like the kind fishermen hang on their walls. Another father and son team did a very tall (about 8 feet) piece of diagonals and triangles from cardboard slotted together and then made a small round piece for the top.

Another mother and daughter team did a piece that kind of looked like a bongo drum, but they decided to use a lot of colored cardboard which made it very different and fun. They also made a round sphere for the top of theirs.

I got lots of ideas from this workshop and am thinking about trying to make a small side table with this technique. I would also like to try it with fabric.