**NOTE: This program offered at Mass Audubon’s Joppa Flats Education Center in Newburyport, MA.

Join us on Tuesday, August 18 (11:00 – 2:00 pm) & Thursday, August 20 (11:00 – 2:00 pm) for a natural paper making workshop led by Great Marsh Artist Fellow, Michele Brody! For this two-day, three-hour workshop, Michele will demonstrate the stages involved in gathering local plants for regeneration into handmade paper. She will focus on introducing participants to her practice as an environmental artist, making paper from locally gathered invasive plant species such as mugwort, paper mulberry, and phragmites, which she transforms into visual interpretations of the native species and habitats they disturb. Workshop participants will have the opportunity to take part in a range of activities, including learning to identify local species for paper making and how to gather them sustainably to prepare the stalks and reeds for pounding and beating into pulp. All will have the chance to get their hands wet while learning how to pull a sheet of their own handmade paper, which can be embellished with found leaves and flowers, or collaged with any personal items you would like to bring, such as photographs, locally dried plants of your own, or found images from printed materials.

Participants will also have the chance to listen to a slide presentation of Brody’s artwork while drinking mugwort tea, and discussing the relationship of native and non-native/invasive plants in a world greatly affected by our changing climate and migrating communities.

This series is offered in partnership with Artists for the Great Marsh and Mass Audubon. To learn more about the Great Marsh Artists Program, visit this webpage.

Register for the workshop by clicking HERE.