Pleating, Tessellating Workshop

Pleated Forms hanging out together, getting ready for zoom teaching at the Morgan Conservatory

Perhaps the best things about teaching a pleated structure with tessellating folds is that I get to walk in on these structures in all sorts of lighting. The way lighting defines them changes with placement, time of day, and the angle I’ve viewing them from. Each time I see them, I have to run to find my camera to take another photo.

The occasion for getting my fingers nimble with pleating is a short introductory workshop that The Morgan Conservatory is hosting on zoom on Tuesday July 16, 2024, called Tessellating Herringbone Fold.

I think this is true for everyone who teaches: no matter how many times I’ve taught something, no matter how comfortable I am with a form, I have to practice, in granular detail, my work flow for whatever it is I’m planning to teach.

A great advantage of working to get myself back up to speed is that something new often pops out at me. For instance, I’ve been holding on to a beautiful 2004 calendar page (below) from Pearl River for, well I guess twenty years. It finally occurred to me to slap in on to my copy machine bed, which accepts 11″ x 17″ paper, and see what happens when I pleat the copy.

The little vase it made is stunning.

I think about the gorgeous papers people have made -cyanotype, gel prints, marbling, paste papers- or paper people have collected and can imagine all sorts of beautiful structures that they can be turned into.

Pleated form from copy of an old calendar page

Here’s something else that I think must be true for everyone that teaches: if we create a packet for you, it’s like writing a love letter. Well, at least that’s what it’s like for me. I am careful never to require people purchase a kit for a class. When I offer the packet option my intention is for people to have the best possible experience in the class without stressing over how to collect just the right materials. I always hope that people love what I put together with them in mind.

After the Morgan accepted the proposal for this class I needed to figure out many details. This is kind of crazy, as it’s just a two hour introductory workshop, but I spent three days working out details of exactly what to teach, how to teach it, and what materials made the most sense.

Yeah, crazy, but along the way I get to play with the pleated forms in all of their various stages.

These folds will become vase-like, but before that happens, I want to see what else they can do.

I also have the opportunity to make “mistakes” I never made before, which, OMG, is so helpful, as it can be guaranteed that someone else will make the same stumble, but now I am in a position to spot it. This is something that exactly happened a couple of days ago… I got a result that completely perplexed me at first, and was so grateful to have discovered the wayward step on my own, and not have a student find it for me, which in the case of this specific mistake, took me so long to decipher that I am glad not to have first encountered over during a zoom.

Which reminds me! Here’s something I want to say about working on something and then finding out it went astray. Being ready to toss a failed project is a gift. The deviant form gives you something to relax with, to ask new questions to. If I’m just going to toss a piece anyway, why not play with it in all sorts of ways, such as through adding colors, doing aberrant folding, and cutting in all the wrong places. A failed piece is a playground all its own.

This pleating class happens in July 16. If you are interested go to the link at the top of the post to sign up. If you want to consider the packet, visit https://bookzoompa.etsy.com/listing/1736192128/supplies-for-workshop-tessellating but be sure to decide by July 9 since I will be out of town taking a workshop at Chena River Marblers for a few days just prior to the Morgan workshop.

Last photo, which seems just right for the end of this post.