Under Your Radar

By Sarah Katz

For my Under the Radar article this month I want to introduce you to the Women’s Studio Workshop in Rosendale NY. One of my godchildren is an art student at RISD, and we’ve been making art together since she was a babe. I thought it would be fun to take a class with her before she went back to school this fall, so we signed up for a class in making sketchbooks. We had a wonderful time. First, we made the books, and then we filled them. This is the name of the artist whose class we took.

Workshop: Process to Project: Sketchbook as Laboratory
Instructor: Rejin Leys

We chose this workshop because we both keep sketchbooks and it fit in with our schedules. It was far above our expectations. Rejin is warm and generous with her ideas and techniques. I include one of her works from her website here:

And here is her website if you want to see more of her work:
https://rejinleys.com

Neither Sarah nor I had done any bookmaking, but she had been to Japan to learn papermaking. She is mostly a 2D artist and I am mostly 3D. The first thing we did was make books. The first ones were a sheet of paper cut to fold into a book. Then we made a more formal book, using “signatures” we bound together with thread.

At the end of the week, the last thing we did was to cover the books.

In between was a world of creative energy. We were inspired by unfamiliar techniques and ideas and each other. All around us, in other classes, as well as ours there was enlivening work going on. There was a class in paper making for sculpture and print classes and papermaking in general.

The Women’s Studio Workshop has residencies available for mature artists, internships for young artists and ongoing classes during the year. The class we took was part of the Summer Art Institute, a schedule of weeklong workshops by visiting artists. They are especially well equipped for printmaking and also have ceramics.

Here is a link to their summer programs: https://wsworkshop.org/summer-art-institute/
And one to their public art projects: https://wsworkshop.org/public-art/

Our class was taught in the silkscreen studio. There is lots of light and air and an outside porch.

Have a look at the other studios here: https://wsworkshop.org/studios/

Rosendale is in the Hudson Valley, about fifteen miles north of New Paltz and eight miles south of Kingston. I have a home nearby, but there are lots of places to stay in the area, and for some you don’t need a car. The town of Rosendale is Vegetarian friendly.

For Sarah and me, this was a great way to spend some time together. We enjoyed everything about it, the other artists we met, the charming, spacious studios, the creative atmosphere. We both felt we did some work we wouldn’t have otherwise and accessed some creative avenues we can bring into our own studio practice.

I’m including a few more pictures of what’s inside our books: