Julie Chen
July 12-16, Monday-Friday
Tuition: $725   Materials: $55
Enrollment limited to twelve.

True to Life by Julie Chen is about the subtle yet powerful influence that memory has on daily life. Personal history, while seemingly rooted in fact, may contain more meaning as narrative than it does as documentation of truth. In the form of a tablet with sliding pages, True to Life offers an innovative physical structure which corresponds to the shifting nature of memory, allowing the reader to create different combinations of text and image and thus alter the content of the piece, deliberately or by chance, with each reading. True to Life is the inspiration for Julie creating this workshop, and this is the structure you will make.

art book, part optical paper toy, this structure presents the opportunity to create mesmerizing illusions!

This structure presents 12 pages that are cut into horizontal strips and assembled so that each page appears to dissolve into the next when the handles on either side of the mechanism are manipulated. This allows for multiple readings of each page as it slides in ever-changing combinations with both the previous and the following pages.

Using easily accessible mark-making techniques, students will create 12 pages for their tablet. Then, after careful preparation of the pages and all the tablet’s various visible and invisible parts, the secrets of the mechanism’s inner workings will be revealed.

Students will leave the workshop with a completed tablet and a basic understanding of the principles of paper engineering that are specific to this structure.

Though Julie always gracefully accommodates a wide range of experience levels among her students, some basic bookmaking experience is required to take this workshop since this marvelous structure is somewhat complex. You should be comfortable with precise measuring and cutting, and you should have some experience using an X-acto or other knife, straight edge, bone folder, and gluing using PVA. Some box-making experience or experience covering boards is a plus.

This workshop will be an enjoyable blend of creative expression and the learning and execution of a precise structure.

About one month before the workshop, registrants will receive a tool list, directions to the studio, and any other pertinent logistical information via email. Workshop hours are usually from 9:30 until about 5:00. Please do not buy an airplane ticket or make any other non-refundable payment before checking with us to be sure the workshop for which you have registered has sufficient enrollment.

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