• Introduction-Intermediate
  • Mixed Media

Many contemporary artists reference ideas and organizing strategies from museums and science collections. Some artists mimic the museum experience, others are invited to work with museum collections and do interventions as curations on-site. These works subvert and ask questions about the very nature of collecting and collections.

In this workshop, we will take inspiration from the history of museums and collecting; from the wunderkammer, or cabinet of curiosities. This museum will be a personal dreamscape, like walking in the unconscious.

We will create a miniature museum of the self, using a wide range of intriguing and eccentric assemblage and collage materials. Imagery will be drawn from a wide range of sources; from our own personal histories to poetic arrangements and surrealist junk store juxtapositions.

We will transform materials such as photo imagery and text, fabric, beads, natural objects and other oddities and build them into miniature museums using miniature bottles, test tubes, small boxes, sets of photographs and cards. Collage and assemblage processes such as cutting, folding, recombination and arrangement will be explored as well as painting, drawing and mixed media techniques.


Base Tuition: $290 + Materials Fee: $30 = Total: $320

Notes: Some prior collage experience is suggested
* This course is not currently open for registration

What you will learn

  • Strategies for creating miniature assemblage works
  • Creating collage in a 3d format
  • Exposure to a wide range of of assemblage materials and processes
  • Collage in combination with drawing and painting
  • Thinking about concept and content; making choices of imagery and materials
  • Exposure to both historical and contemporary artists working in collage and assemblage

Materials to Bring

  • Matte medium (medium size)
  • Glue stick
  • Scissors (fine point such as Fiskars)
  • Straight edge knife with extra blades (for fine cutting)
  • Basic set of acrylics
  • A range of inexpensive brushes
  • Cutting grid (optional)
  • 1 sheet watercolour paper 22x30” 140 lb 
  • Small bottles, vials or test tubes
  • Small to medium boxes, trays with compartments
  • Various miniature found objects  
  • Small deck of cards (optional)
  • Hand written letters, ephemera, fabric and anything else of interest