Automata: Making your art move with Aaron Kramer

Deposit: $280 (includes $25 registration)
Balance: $595 (due 60 days ahead of workshop)
Total cost of Workshop: $875

Have you ever wanted to make your artwork move? Aaron Kramer has been creating automata for 30 years. He blends a creative engineering mindset with a sustainable approach to artmaking. His mechanisms are simple and straightforward while the effects are often sublime.

This course will combine several of his favorite things; creating work from found and manipulated objects, storytelling with machines and inspiring students to experiment with newly acquired techniques and methods. This 5-day course will start with cardboard prototyping mechanisms, progress into collecting found objects (dumpster diving, thrift shops and foraging), then move into bringing it all together to develop rich, intricate kinetic tableaux of materials and mechanisms.

Instructor Bio: Aaron Kramer’s extensive body of work has a common thread – he uses recycled material to create finely crafted objects. At the core of his sensibility is the belief that “trash is the failure of imagination”. Mundane objects are repurposed and elevated to a higher status in his work. Much of his work incorporates movement and the human form as he blurs the line between engineering and art. Kramer is a woodworker, metalsmith, painter, tinkerer and educator.

Skill Level: Basic skill and curiosity is required. Small tools will be taught. Drilling holes and manipulating wire. I will provide drills, saws, small hand tools and materials.

Supply List: If you have a small wooden box (cigar box scale) that you like, bring it along in your luggage. Favorite pair of pliers or a bag of found objects you would like to animate or incorporate into a project?