Arts

Jane Newman: Upcoming Creative Craft and Decoration Workshops at the Museum

Jane Newman will be leading a series of creative workshops at the Cortes Island Museum this season.  

“The museum was in contact with me about running some programming this fall,” she explained. “After thinking about it I was like, ‘yeah,  I’m really interested, but I only want to run creative programming. I want to do things that are hands-on.  It’s my thing, I love doing it, I love sharing it with people. I love hanging out with people when they’re making things. The things that come out of it are so precious!’ So I designed three programs. One of them is collage card making, another  is making some garlands and ornaments at ‘Vintage Christmas’ at the Museum and the third one is making homemade snow globes.”

Jane Newman’s Studio

“The first one is this Sunday and it’s card making.  We’ll be using collage and all materials are provided. You can bring things if there’s anything that you really, really want to include.  It’s just an opportunity for people to create something that they find joy in making, and that they find joy in sending, and that I believe any recipient of will be pretty joyful. So, maybe a lot of joy.” 

Cortes Currents: Do you have any personal stories about card making? 

Jane Newman: “When all the materials are in front of you,  you’ve got text,  all sorts of different collage papers, ribbon, thread or maybe even some cedar boughs or whatever little bits and pieces of things that can all be glued onto paper.” 

“I’m making this card for somebody. So you think of that person and you let the colours speak to you about that person. Maybe there’s a certain bauble in the collection that you’re like, ‘Oh yeah, she loves that colour of turquoise, I’m going to include that on the card.’  Then maybe I’m going to add some text that specifically speaks to something that she’s passionate about, or doesn’t like.  You can make them really funny. You can make them silly. You can make them beautiful and you can make them just a normal greeting card. That’s what’s special about them.” 

“I make all the cards from scratch. I’ve gone to print shops over the years and  if I’ve got a relationship with a print shop, they save the cut off ends. Oftentimes the cut off ends are an absolutely perfect size to cut down using a paper cutter to fit into an average sized envelope.  I do all of the cutting and folding and everything to have these cards available. They’re not just a package that’s already prepurchased. I even have an envelope template for making envelopes out of the papers that I bring.”

“There’s something about reusing and reducing the amount of materials that are going to go to a landfill that’s always been really important to my practise.”  

Cortes Currents: Tell me about your next workshop.  

Jane Newman: “The next one is part of the museum’s wonderful event, ‘Vintage Christmas’ at the Museum, which ran last year. It runs at the same time as the Manson’s Craft Fair, 11 to 3 on December 1st.  As part of Vintage at the Museum, I’m going to run a craft table. There’ll be a number of different things that people could make, like garlands out of popcorn and cranberries, but also paper garlands that are the linked paper pieces out of interesting papers.”

Cortes Currents: What is a garland? 

Jane Newman: A garland is like linking a whole bunch of  paper cutouts together, one  after another. It’s like something that drapes over a window.”  

“I also have a few ornament designs that can be made really easily. It’s really quite straightforward, but that’s what we’ll do at that event. The craft part of it will be a little shorter, that’ll run from about noon till 2:30, whereas Vintage at the Museum is 11 till 3.”

Cortes Currents: What do you mean by ornaments?

Jane Newman: “Most of them are paper, like a Christmas ball that you could hang on a bow, a branch in a window and made out of paper with a little bit of wire and a bead. There’s a number of different ways that we can make those. I’ve got a few different template ideas, but the Christmas balls are made out of paper.”

“It’s seasonal papers or other papers  that are plain, but we can add some embellishments to them as well. Some people have a collection of Christmas balls that they put on a bow or a solstice garland that they put up in the window every year. You could just embellish it with any of these ornaments that we would make.” 

2023 Vintage Christmas photo courtesy Melanie Boyle

Cortes Currents: Let’s go to the last workshop.  

Jane Newman: “The last one’s an experiment and I believe it’s going to work really well, but it is something that I’ve never made before. I’m experimenting ahead of time to make sure that these work out well. They’re called snow globes and these are handmade, not using prefab globes.”

“If anybody doesn’t know what a snow globe is, basically, they’re those little things that sit around on a shelf, or maybe in the Christmas box that’s stored all year and pulled out and winter comes and it sits on a table.  Basically, it’s  this little globe and it’s got a scene inside it. You pick up  the globe,  shake it and all of the little glitters of snow sink back down to the bottom.  Pick it up again and you shake it and all of that flies around in there like a snowstorm. It’s interactive because you have to shake it for the snow to fall.”

“It’ll be fun. You put in tiny little ornaments. I’ll have a variety of different materials available. People can bring something from home that’s made of hard plastic or metal that’s been painted. I’ll have a variety of different materials available. You can’t use organic materials, they’ll just decompose in there.” 

Home made snow globes by Amy Gizienski via Fickr (CC BY 2.0.

Cortes Currents: What do you make the snow out of? 

Jane Newman: “The snow is made out of sparkle flakes  and sparkles are plastic which is an unfortunate element. I’ve researched it to see if there’s anything else I could use and there just isn’t another material available.”

“Historically, snow globes used a water resistant soap flake.  Now, I don’t know why there would be a water resistant soap flake. That seems like an oxymoron. Soap and water: there’s a purpose for that, but that’s what they often did use. Or  I think sometimes, little bits of styrofoam which is also plastic.”

Cortes Currents: Do you have any last thoughts on any of the workshops you’ve been talking about?  

Jane Newman: “The only one that I have more attention on right now is just this Sunday. It’s coming up fast and it’s a great way to spend an afternoon. I think you have to register at the museum. There’s room for 10 people. I think there’s already a few registrants.”

“All of these are by donation. There may be a small materials fee that is already posted on Tideline and or in Facebook, but other than that they’re free events.” 

“I would love to have ten people come and make cards and envelopes this Sunday.”

Links of Interest: 

All undesignated photos by Roy L Hales

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