Book as Verb: Creating Your Soul's Kitchen

Workshop Number

Leader(s)

Zan

Lombardo

Audience

Who may register:

Intergenerational (a target of 30%-50% HS)

full-time attenders only

Time breakdown

Experiential Activities:

60%

Lecture:

10%

Discussion:

10%

Description

Short Description:

Be prepared to immerse yourself, body and soul, and create an original blank book from scratch. Stick your fingers in paint, choose colors and textures you love, and learn to sew, draw and write with awareness. These books will become our souls' kitchens and we will practice living into them.

Long Description:

OBJECTIVE: All participants will create a handmade blank book with paste paper covers, multiple signatures and a coptic binding. Inside this blank book, we will begin to work and play with colors and images, poetry and prose, to bring our books to life and establish some new practices that will help us be more aware and in touch with spirit and the more-than-human world.

AREAS COVERED: Paste paper (a sophisticated version of finger painting resulting in decorative papers), fundamentals of bookmaking (measuring, folding, trimming, gluing, poking holes), coptic binding (involves approximately 2 hours of hand sewing). Drawing, doodling, lettering, copying poems, journaling.

ROUGH DESCRIPTION OF FORMAT:
Art/Craft activities: 2 hours daily for first, second and third day
Writing/Drawing: 2 hours daily for fourth and fifth day
Worshipful silence: 20 minutes every day
Worship sharing: 20 minutes every day
Lecture/Interactive activities/Discussion: 20 minutes every day

ITEMS TO BRING TO GATHERING: Favorite pens, pencils, paints, markers or rubber stamps, as well as, any art supply that you might want when it comes time to work and play into your handmade book. Please bring clothes that you do not mind getting dirty or stained for the first day's activity of paste paper. Even an apron doesn't guarantee that you won't get some paint on your clothes.

Leader Experience:

EXPERIENCE: I have been teaching art in public schools for more than 25 years. My career choice came from a spiritual leading I followed when I was 16. I call my job "The Happy Little Planet" because it is pure pleasure. Teaching First Day School for 15 years has deepened my spiritual experience. I joyfully serve as the adult co-clerk for Philadelphia Yearly Meeting's Young Friends program and try to never miss a gathering. I am a member of Fellowship of Quakers in the Arts and was the featured speaker at the May 2009 FQA dinner in Philadelphia.