Hands-on Workshop - Shaping the Plane: Explorations in Material & Form

This workshop will begin with a brief walkthrough of the Elana Herzog exhibition to consider how the Brooklyn-based artist (re)uses fabric and textiles in contemporary art.

Participants will then proceed to an art-making space for an immersive hands-on workshop, led by Toronto-based artist Rachel Miller. They will create flexible and sculptural forms using upcycled textiles and mixed media, while exploring traditional techniques like coiling, stitching, and twining.

This workshop encourages creative exploration, allowing participants to tap into their creative potential and personal expression, while blending skill-building with sustainable practices. Participants can choose to create either a small collection of structural samples or a single piece that they can continue developing after the workshop. While the workshop is open to all levels, having basic hand-stitching skills would be helpful.

This workshop is open to ages 12 and up. Participants under 18 must be accompanied by an adult.

Rachel Miller is an artist, educator, design consultant, and researcher from New York, now based in Toronto. Through sculpture, installation, performance, textiles, and garment, Miller’s interdisciplinary works reveal how the body and environment might overlap, conceal, and integrate – creating frameworks for growth, regeneration, and narratives of coexistence. Cycles of nature and ancient traditions have always been touchstones for her work, and her diverse investigations into historic rituals and texts, archaeology, architecture, and ecological principles have yielded work rooted in identity and place. Miller’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and can be found in private and public collections. She has taught at educational institutions in New York (Fashion Institute of Technology, Pratt Institute), Philadelphia (University of the Arts), and India (National Institute of Design, Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology). She is currently a Professor (and former Department Head) in the Textiles Department, Craft & Design Program, Sheridan College. Miller received her BFA from the University of the Arts and MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art.