There has been a lot of activity here at Mountmaking Focus Studio over the past few months. Since March, we’ve hosted three mountmaking workshops here at the studio, as well as doing two on-site workshops, one at the Washington State History Museum for pros from the Tacoma museums, and one at the UW Henry Art Gallery. Each workshop brings interesting challenges and viewpoints from the variety of participants and makes the teaching so exciting. I find myself reaching back into my 27 years of mountmaking for the wisdom and craftsmanship of the great folks I got to work with and learn from. I feel so lucky to have been able to participate in the building of the original Downtown Seattle Art Museum and other large mount projects that equipped me for all the amazing stuff that’s come to my  bench.

Mask Mount in process

With that said, it’s time to keep the calendar moving with another group of workshops. There will be four-day workshops August 7th-10th and September 11th-14th. You can read up on them and register through the Events page of the website. The last workshop was really special as it coincided with the amazing PACCIN Rigging Workshop held at Pratt Institute of Fine Arts here in Seattle. The participants who were able to attend both got a real education in handling heavy objects and working out ways of securing them. We even talked about a mount design for a 48000 pound submersible at the Naval Undersea Museum in Keyport. Wow!

Workshop well underway.

In late September and October, I’ll be in London presenting a paper at the 6th International Mountmaking Forum on a recent conservation mountmaking project with conservator Linda Roundhill. While in England for the Forum, I’ll be also teaching a Conservation Mountmaking Workshop at West Dean College in Chichester. It’s really exciting to be taking this show on the road!

There are more workshops planned and the best way to keep up is to subscribe to the Blog. More soon!