Making Workshops at Kolaj Fest New Orleans

MAKING WORKSHOPS AT KOLAJ FEST NEW ORLEANS 2025

Making Workshops

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Kolaj Fest New Orleans is a multi-day festival and symposium about contemporary collage and its role in art, culture, and society, 25-29 June 2025. Visit the website to learn more, see an overview of the program, and register to attend.

Workshops at Kolaj Fest New Orleans offer participants the opportunity to engage with their process or materials in a new way; explore subjects or themes; or practice a new collage technique to make. Over a dozen workshops take place during the festival. Here is a selection:

WORKSHOP
Small Circles, Big Stories: A Tiny Collage Workshop
In this making-focused workshop at Kolaj Fest New Orleans, San Diego, California artist Robin Sanford Roberts will guide participants as they explore the art of storytelling through miniature collages. Using 2″ wooden circular discs as a base, attendees will create layered compositions with vintage and contemporary papers, and text. This small-scale format encourages a focus on composition, storytelling, and detail, making each piece a unique visual narrative. After a brief introduction and demonstration, participants will dive into the creative process, using matte medium, brushes, scissors or X-Acto knives to assemble their collages. Finished pieces can be transformed into wearable or functional art, such as necklaces, pins, or magnets. The session will conclude with an opportunity to share and discuss the works created. This workshop offers a unique opportunity for artists and creatives of all levels to experiment with collage on an intimate scale, fostering storytelling through visual composition.

ABOUT THE PRESENTER

Robin Sanford Roberts is an artist and theatrical scenic designer working in three dimensional sculpture, models and mixed media. She has designed scenery for multiple theatres including the Old Globe Theatre, Denver Center Theatre Company, Portland Center Stage and Broadway. She holds a degree in Architecture from Louisiana State University and a MFA in Scenic Design from the University of California, San Diego. She also studied at the Ecole Des Beaux Arts, Fontainebleau and at Sir John Cass School of Art, London Polytechnic. Roberts teaches and designs scenery for the Department of Theater at the University of San Diego and has a studio practice at Art on 30th in San Diego. She recently was awarded the Denis Diderot grant for an International Artists & Writers Residency at Chateau d’Orquevaux in France. Learn more at the Kolaj Magazine Artist Directory, www.robinsanfordrobertsart.com, and on Instagram @mizrobin.

WORKSHOP
Art of Resistance: Freedom Summer Collages
In this two-hour workshop, Saint Petersburg, Florida artist Glenyse Thompson will guide artists as they make artwork in response to 1964 Freedom Summer, an organized, season-long action designed to promote equality in the South. In this workshop, participants will work with archive materials found in the Wisconsin Historical Society as part of their Freedom Summer Digital Collection. Thompson will share the history and New Orleans’ role in the campaign. She will talk about how to find an emotional connection to archive material. Participants will explore collage techniques for working with this material as they create a postcard and a 12″x12″ collage.

ABOUT THE PRESENTER

Glenyse Thompson is a Florida-based artist. Among many publications, her work was featured in the April 2023 issue of Architectural Digest, “In Focus: Legacy of Black Women Makers”. Home décor firm Brewster Wallcoverings collaborated on a capsule collection, “A-Street Prints x Glenyse Thompson Wall Mural Collection”. Her work has also appeared in Southern Living, Town and Country Magazine, Elle Decoration UK, Metropolis Magazine, California Design and Home, Houzz, Hunker, Design Milk and Aspire Home and Design. Commissions include cover art for Designers Today magazine and Great Guns London. Her artwork is in the collection of Boston Children’s Hospital and private collections. Thompson’s collages, All That Glitters Isn’t Gold 1 and 2, were part of “Many Americas: Art Meets History”, curated by Ric Kasini Kadour, at the Southern Vermont Arts Center in 2022. Learn more at the Kolaj Magazine Artist Directory and www.glenyse.com.

WORKSHOP
Intuitive Collage: Surprises & Discoveries
How do we build trust in the process of discovery? “My work is an ongoing process of discovery,” wrote Englewood, Florida artist Beverly Gordon. “I am an inveterate collector of imagery, paper, fabric, and natural detritus—objects like bones, shells and pods—which are part of my engagement with the natural world. I allow the forms, textures and materials to call to me, and then combine them in intuitively generated compositions. When complete, the pieces reveal themselves, frequently offering a message about the mystical realm or spiritual journey. In her teaching at Venice Art Center, Gordon infuses her collage classes with cultural and historical context and encourages students to uncover their own inner wisdom and creative style. She emphasizes developing an exploratory attitude and appreciation for an interest in a wide range of materials.

Using only printed materials on paper, participants in this workshop will learn to intuitively select and position images to create interesting and meaningful collage compositions, and then discover what they wish to tell you. Gordon wrote, “You will allow images from magazines and other sources to call to you and position themselves together until they feel right. When the compositions are complete, you will ask them questions and receive the often amazing answers. Working this way invariably leads to surprises and potentially powerful messages.”

ABOUT THE PRESENTER

Beverly Gordon is an artist, writer, and educator. As professor of Design Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a specialty in textiles, she taught both studio and lecture classes for over 30 years. Her research focused a global lens on art identified as domestic and “women’s work”. Her many published books include Shaker Textile Arts; Feltmaking: Traditions, Techniques and Contemporary Explorations; The Saturated World: Aesthetic Meaning, Intimate Objects, Women’s Lives, 1890-1940; Bazaars and Fair Ladies; and Textiles: The Whole Story. Gordon began her artistic practice as a weaver and fiber artist, but especially in the last 15 years has focused almost exclusively on collage and assemblage. She has exhibited at venues such as the Design Gallery and the Overture Center for the Arts in Madison, Wisconsin; and the Venice Art Center and Sea Grape Gallery in Southwest Florida. She is a certified facilitator of SoulCollage®, a tool for personal exploration, and has also developed unique Intuitive Collage workshops, where she has led hundreds of people through experimental collage journeys. Currently, she teaches collage at the Venice Art Center, and both collage and writing at Suncoast Technical Collage in Sarasota, Florida. Learn more at www.beverlygordon.info.

Kolaj Fest New Orleans is a multi-day festival and symposium about contemporary collage and its role in art, culture, and society, 25-29 June 2025. Visit the website to learn more, see an overview of the program, and register to attend.