I went to the opening reception for multi-media artist Sara Willadsen's exhibition "Partly Heard Song" at The Draw in Appleton on Friday night; the exhibition runs through September 25th.

Then on Saturday, I attended a workshop entitled "Deconstructed Collage" led by artist Mel Kolstad. I learned a few things four years ago when I took a collage class, and learned a few more things on Saturday morning. And I have some ideas!

I meant to take a few more photos to show how my piece came together, but a bunch of undocumented stuff happened between the photos above and below!

I sacrificed a ca. 1976 baby knitting booklet (blasphemy!) to the materials collection, along with what I'm guessing was a Chinese lesson book -- Rusty and I picked up a couple in San Francisco's Chinatown a few years ago.

That's a table heaped with treasure! Napkins, magazines, labels, stamps, sewing patterns, an Italian newspaper, an old will, old prescription labels, invoices, ledgers, handwritten letters... so much wonderful stuff!

Here's how mine ended up. It's 6" square. "Always use new and fresh yarn."

The work space at Standard Projects is to die for. Lots of space, beautiful light -- and so much more -- housed in the former Hortonville Police Station which was built in 1952.

This is Kate's piece; larger than mine, it's 8" square. So much to love. There's a part at top left, beneath the upside-down stag, that's a rubbing from the fire door between the work space and the garage at Standard Projects. Also BINGO!

Kristi also used some rubbings from the door... and got caught up in a story.

I really love the layering/weaving in Claire's piece.

These two pieces are Mel's. She made the top one with us in class, and the bottom one was one of the very many things she made during her week-long residency at Standard Projects.

After the workshop, Katie and I found a place for lunch and then stopped at one of the larger thrift stores in the area. I haven't been in the acquiring mood lately, but a thrift store is the perfect place to look for collage materials! I bought an old pattern for $.12, and a biology book for $1. And also:

A "Sunny Book" for Rusty... even though I was a little bit exasperated with him all weekend! This was too cute to pass up.