Spring 2025 Papermaking Art Classes

with Jane Ingram Allen

Location of Classes: Jane Ingram Allen’s studio, 5017 Maiden Lane, Santa Rosa, CA 95409, phone 857-234-2432, email: info@janeingramallen.com

Registration:  To insure your place in a class, send a check made out to Jane Ingram Allen for the class fee by mail to the address above, or use PayPal (www.paypal.com) to “send money” to info@janeingramallen.com with a credit card.  Class size is limited to 5 people, and registration will be  confirmed after receipt of the class fee. For more information call or email.

Schedule of Classes

Celebrating Kozo – Exploring Japanese Papermaking 

Dates:  Saturday, March 22, 10 am to 4 pm

Class Fee:  $175 (includes materials and equipment)

Learn to make paper with Japanese Kozo (paper mulberry bark) and other plant fibers in the Japanese way to create unique handmade paper that can be super thin but still very strong and used for everything from clothing to sculpture.  This class will use some of the Kozo fiber I order from Mino City, Japan, where I was an artist in residence for 3 months in 1999 and returned in 2009.  Also, other locally-available Mulberry tree fibers and various plant fibers will be used in the Japanese way to create unique handmade paper.  We will use an authentic sugeta (wooden frame and bamboo woven screen) as well as Western molds & deckles (wooden frame and nylon screening) and formation aid from powdered polyethylene oxide and from okra juice. The class will cover preparing fiber, preparing the vat, adding formation aid, various ways of sheet forming and drying handmade papers as well as creative and unique ways to use the long fibers of the paper mulberry and other plants. Information about getting kozo fibers and a Japanese-style sugeta as well as growing your own fibers for Japanese papermaking will be shared in this workshop.  No experience required, but some papermaking experience will be helpful. 

EXTREME Papermaking

Date:  Saturday, April 26, 10 am to 4 pm

Class Fee:  $175 (includes materials and equipment)

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This class will stretch your imagination about the possibilities for handmade paper art.  It will cover many unique and non-traditional EXTREME papermaking techniques including making really BIG paper, shaped handmade paper, pouring pulp, modeling pulp, burning handmade paper, tearing it and making holes and other techniques Jane has invented and discovered in places around the world.  This class will include making paper thread, making sounds with paper, kinetic paper, living paper art installations and other extreme techniques to enliven your art. Enrich your handmade paper art and expand its possibilities.  This class is for beginners and experienced papermakers.  

Going Wild with Color in Hand Papermaking

Date:  Saturday, May 17, 10 am to 4 pm 

Class Feet:  $175 (includes materials and equipment) 

This class will focus on using color in 2 and 3-dimensional hand papermaking art.  Learn to use non-toxic fiber reactive dyes and natural dyes from local plants and purchased sources to color paper pulps such as abaca, Kozo, cotton and local plant fibers.  Learn about the advantages of using dye for paper pulp as well as using pigments.  Also, use papermaking fibers from local plants that have their own beautiful natural colors.  Go wild with color and explore using pulp painting, stenciling and other unique ways to introduce more color into your handmade paper art.  No experience necessary, though experienced papermakers will also learn many new and original coloring methods and techniques.  If you are a painter, printmaker, sculptor or fiber artist and like color in your work, this is the workshop for you. 

Sculptural Papermaking – Creating 3-Dimensional handmade paper art

Date:  Saturday, June 21, 10 am to 4 pm

Class Fee:  $175 (includes materials and equipment)

This class will expand your papermaking into three dimensions by introducing various ways to make handmade paper sculptural forms, including use of molds, drying on 3-D surfaces, construction techniques, modeling with pulp and using armatures. We will use abaca, cotton, Kozo and other plant fiber pulps to get different sculptural effects.  Participants will create new sculptural handmade paper works that are free-standing, suspended and wall reliefs and come away with many ideas for handmade paper sculpture and installation art.  This workshop is for beginning and experienced papermakers and will expand your skills into the 3rd dimension and beyond.

Private Sessions – Design Your Own Private Papermaking Session

Dates:  To be arranged between 9 am to 5 pm each day, Weekdays and weekends are possible, and the cost can be split for two people who work well together.

Private Session Fee:  $90 per hour (4-hour minimum) includes use of my studio and equipment and my teaching/consulting services). Materials can be prepared and provided, and a materials fee will be worked out for each participant. 

Contact me to design and schedule your own unique session to work in my studio on your next project.  Participants must have taken at least one class with me before in order to know how to use the studio and the equipment.  This will be a private papermaking session in my studio using the equipment and supplies and pulps that you want to use from my stock, such as abaca, Kozo, cotton blue jean pulp, specific local plant pulps, or others that I can prepare plus any other materials I have or that you want to bring.  I will offer advice, encouragement, give suggestions and teach you ways of doing what you want for specific projects that you have in mind.  This will be ideal for those who know what they want to achieve but don’t have a studio space or the equipment or the knowledge of specific techniques at this time to work entirely on their own. 

About the Instructor:

Jane Ingram Allen is a multi-media artist who does art projects around the world using hand papermaking with natural materials and collaborative processes to raise public awareness about environmental and social issues.  Jane has received numerous awards for artist-in-residencies and community public art projects in the USA, the Philippines, Japan, Nepal, Brazil, China, Tanzania, Taiwan, Turkey, Thailand, Indonesia, Switzerland, England and Costa Rica.  She was a Fulbright Scholar artist-in-residence in Taiwan in 2004 and 2005 and a Fulbright Specialist in Turkey in 2015.  She received Puffin Foundation Grants in 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2022 to support her art installations in New York and MA. She has also received grants from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Ruth & Harold Chenven Foundation, NYFA, NEA, City of Sacramento, City of Santa Rosa, Creative Sonoma and other organizations around the world to support her work.  Jane begins her artwork by making handmade paper from local plant waste and using materials and techniques that contribute to sustainable living and improve the environment.  Jane is a former college art instructor and writes about art for SCULPTURE, Fiber Art Now and other art magazines as well as doing independent curating.  She is the founder of the Black Sheep Handweavers Guild and active in WEAD, NCWCA, IAPMA and other organizations.  She also teaches workshops in papermaking and other arts and has taught classes at Women’s Studio Workshop, Sitka Center for Art & Ecology, Peter’s Valley School of Craft, Brookfield Craft Center, and Morgan Paper Conservatory as well as at colleges and universities, museums and art centers in the US and other countries. Since 2012 she has been based in Santa Rosa, CA, and continues her work in the US and internationally.

Contact Info:  

Jane Ingram Allen

5017 Maiden Lane, Santa Rosa CA 95409

Email: info@janeingramallen.com

Phone or Text:  857-234-2432 https://janeingramallen.wordpress.com