2027 CINDY PARKER

COURSE OVERVIEW

Objects, images, and materials carry memory. Through the act of making we can decipher their messages with the alchemy of our personal energy.

In this five-day workshop, we’ll forage the environs of Studio Preniac and delve into our own memories and experiences for images, words, textures, and objects, transforming what we find into foraged book structures.

We’ll learn folded and unconventional book forms and experiment with stitching, collage, frottage, mark-making,  automatic and asemic writing, and other ways of altering paper, textiles and found materials.

We will use our materials and new techniques to experiment with scale, disrupt structure, combine materials, obscure language, take things apart and put them back together in unexpected ways.

We’ll embrace imprecision and the unexpected, following a fragment, texture, mark, or memory wherever it takes us. Through making, altering and re-making, we’ll explore how personal and cultural memories can become layered, tactile forms.

Your finished work might be a field guide, archive, map, diary, collection of evidence, or a new way of recording of a journey. This is not traditional bookbinding. It is an invitation to take risks, question the rules of the book, and allow the act of making to become a journey of discovery. 

No previous bookmaking experience is necessary; bring curiosity and a willingness to explore the unexpected. 

www.tumbleweedjoy.com
Instagram @tumbleweed411

Cindy Parker

I grew up in Paris, where I was granted two gifts: freedom to explore and the magic of noticing the world. Living in different countries and cultures taught me to follow my curiosity and embrace the unfamiliar. These habits continue to shape my art, my teaching, and, most importantly, my way of being in the world.

I'm a Boulder, Colorado-based artist working with textile sculpture, assemblage, and what I call Foraged Books. I'm drawn to things that have been overlooked or discarded: antique textiles, fragments of writing, bones, rusty objects, and other materials carrying traces of earlier lives. I collect them, investigate them, take them apart, and bring them into new relationships.

Sometimes this means climbing around local mine sites in search of rusty relics. Other times, I'm wandering flea markets in France for hours, looking for objects and textiles that call my name. A city wall or a patch of weeds can yield source material. An abandoned chair can be a muse.

For more than a decade, I've co-owned Bohemia, a community art studio, where I've taught expressive art and encouraged people to experience the healing power of art-making. I've also led many art workshops and retreats in the United States and abroad.

In my workshops, I encourage play, experimentation, risk-taking, and working both with and against our personal inclinations. When we let go of deciding what something will be, we can immerse ourselves in an alchemical, visceral process. Curiosity becomes our guide, leading us off familiar paths and into unexpected discoveries!

PRICING

Prices per person for 2027 are as follows:

The cost of our creativity holidays is inclusive of the following:

• Course fees and basic materials
  (except for any course specific materials that the tutor requests you bring with you)
• Airport collection and drop-off
  (allotted airports and times only)
• Accommodation
  (price varies by type of accommodation selected - we assume single occupancy by default unless you specifically request to share with a friend/partner)
• Breakfast, lunch, and dinner
  (one meal taken at a local restaurant - to be paid by guests at the time)
• Tea and coffee throughout your stay 
• Aperitif and wine/beer with evening meal
• Transport to and from any excursions
• Bed linen and towels
• Access to all amenities throughout your stay
• Local tourist taxes

PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR THE BOOKING FORM