Wrapping Wild
Visiting Artist-Textiles | Available
During this workshop, students will be encouraged to look more closely at the animals that live around them. Through, drawing, making wire skeletons and preparing textile materials they will learn to make these animals. We will begin with making mammals and proceed to birds. Beginning to advance. Come to experiment and be surprised.
All skill levels are welcome.- A Material fee of $25 will be added to your total at checkout.
- Registration will close one month prior to the start of the workshop.
- Enrollment is open to Students 18+
This workshop is part of Sawtooth Luminaries, a long weekend of immersive and intensive workshops that will take place from October 3 - 5, 2025, in Winston-Salem, NC. This exciting event welcomes nationally acclaimed artists to provide learning experiences for creative students of all skill levels. It expands Sawtooth's depth and scope as a community art school and aligns with our vision to be a creative hub for Winston-Salem and the entire region.
The weekend's programming will balance structured studio time in Sawtooth's landmark downtown facilities with communal lunch offerings and evening events that explore Winston's reputation as the City of Arts and Innovation.
Tuition includes three days of instruction and dedicated studio time, catered lunches, opportunities to socialize with other artists in attendance, and exclusive access to some of the city’s most beloved art institutions. Special rates at The Historic Brookstown Inn, Sawtooth’s preferred lodging partner, are available for enrolled students and guests. (Discount code is provided after registration.)
Learn more about this dynamic weekend and see the full list of workshops at sawtooth.org/luminaries
Please bring printed or drawn images of the animals you are interested in making!
A variety of materials will be available, but students may also wish to bring:
- LOTS of plastic bags
- Fabric scraps (hopefully some big enough to cut into long strips)
- Yarn, thread, string
- Buttons, beads, feathers, sticks, rocks, other treasures
- Wire: any gauge you already have
- Safety glasses!!
Bryant Holsenbeck
I make art with “stuff” we no longer need, transforming it. My hope is that people will begin to think more about what we throw away, where it goes and finally be inspired to use less of it. This is a hope. In the middle of this, I decided to not only use some of this “stuff” to tell stories about the world around me, but to begin to actively use less of it.
For me being an artist means expressing what I see in the world around me. Looking at what I am curious about, like what birds might be in my yard at any given moment, and asking larger questions of the world, like how climate change is affecting these same birds.
I began my artist career as a basket maker using techniques passed down from ancient times to weave materials I found in the natural world to make baskets. The sociologist in me knew that baskets had been replaced in our current culture with shopping carts and grocery bags. At the same time that I was studying what the indigenous peoples of the world used to make baskets in order to carry and store things, I looked at what we were using for these same purposes today. This propelled me to use human-made societal cast-offs to make baskets, and then sculpture and finally installation art about the large quantity of “stuff” produced and then thrown “away”. Currently I am using plastic bags and textile scraps to make the animals I see around me. And with the help of local communities, I am using plastic debris from our watersheds and oceans to make large-scale environmental installations.