Shibagau Creek Forest Farmstead
A place to learn, create, recharge and connect with nature.
Upcoming workshops are listed below, followed by examples of past workshops. You can also review them by selecting a category from the drop down menu.
The boxmaking weekend was a great success with beautiful results by each participant. We enjoyed ourselves, worked diligently and went through the steps of constructing, covering and assembling double-tray clamshell boxes covered in colourful Japanese papers.
Join us for the opening event on July 5!
Two workshops are planned that will cover boxmaking and experimental folded artist’s books, including a potential for collage and alternative printing techniques to create contents for binding.
Boxmaking – July 5-6
Over the weekend we will address the construction of box formats leading to a hinged, clamshell-style box. Covering technique will be explained and practiced.
Experimental Artist’s Books – July 25-27
Various options for making folded artist’s books will be presented and the group may decide to focus on particular techniques. Participants are encouraged to bring visual materials to work with or collect them onsite. A photocopier may be used to create pages or acetates for blueprinting. Sewing and gluing will be simple and appropriate for those without binding experience, while more complex approaches can be selected by those looking to develop more advanced skills.
We will begin with a Friday evening introductory session depending on when participants are able to arrive.
If you are interested in attending a workshop, please register online or contact us at workshops@scff.ca.Participants may arrive on Friday to stay the weekend at SCFF or arrive for each day’s session. Accommodation arrangements include all meals.
A deposit of $60. will hold your place with the balance due two weeks prior to the workshop.
Similar to last year’s land-based photo workshop, we invite photographers and non-photographers alike, to engage with the land in constructing site-specific assemblages using natural materials and then to photograph them. The image remains as a record of what will inevitably change and fade in the landscape. Over the weekend we will use alternative printing methods to turn digital images into tangible prints.
Participants will work with digital cameras, but are free to shoot film for later processing as well. Exercises and photography will take place around the farm property. Digital results will be reviewed onsite and historical cyanotype printing (blueprinting) will be experimented with. All materials will be provided and a basic camera or phone for making exposures is all that is required.
If you are interested in attending a workshop, please register online or contact us at workshops@scff.ca. Participants will stay the weekend at SCFF or arrive for each day’s session.
Practicalities
Participants will arrive in Tamworth on Friday afternoon or evening and may stay an extra night on Sunday to make a long weekend should they desire.
Cost: $575 includes tuition, accommodation and meals;
$390 for those who do not require accommodation and breakfasts.
A deposit of $60 will hold your place with full payment due 2 weeks prior to the workshop. A non-refundable fee of $60 will apply if you cancel less than 2 weeks prior.
Ride sharing can be coordinated where possible. Pick-up and drop-off in Napanee is also possible should one wish to take the bus or train from Toronto area or Montreal.
Two photography workshops are planned for 2025, along with book-related ones that may be of interest to photographers. Registration information will be posted soon.
the original Zone System Manual, and then taught black and white photography at OCAD University for over 40 years.
Natural Inventions – Staging in the landscape – Sept. 5-7
Similar to last year’s land-based workshop, we invite photographers and non-photographers alike, to engage with the land in constructing site-specific assemblages using natural materials and then photograph them. The image remains as a record of what will inevitably change and fade in the landscape. Over the weekend we will use alternative printing methods to turn digital images into tangible prints.
If you are interested in attending a workshop, please contact us at workshops@scff.ca. Participants may arrive on Friday to stay the weekend at SCFF or arrive for each day’s session. Registration and accommodation arrangements will be posted in the near future.
Seeing Black and White: The Zone System – postponed
This workshop will cover practical aspects of black and white photography, based on the Zone System methods of understanding light and exposure. Addressing both digital and film photography, this approach allows for previsualization of the grey values of the image, resulting in improved negatives and digital files that are closer to what one sees in the mind. Participants may work with digital and/or film processes. Exercises and photography will take place around the farm and digital results will be reviewed onsite. Film work will be processed later on your own time, but may be evaluated through online sharing.
Peter Sramek learned the Zone System when studying at MIT from Minor White, author of
At a one-day workshop in January, with 5 of us at the Sydenham Library, we went through the process of folding, gluing and trimming the binding which has no sewing, which opens up flat and can use a variety of materials for the spine and the board covers. The binding is attributed to American master binder Tim Ely. Peter learned boxmaking and gold leafing from Tim in workshops and boxmaking is high on the wishlist for this summer’s binding adventures.
Working with Walter Bergmoser and Peter Sramek, the workshop participants explored image-making with collaged natural materials exposed in the bright sunlight onto cyanotype paper and regular silver photo paper.
An introduction to the concept of art and interventions in nature supported by watching the documentary film of Andy Goldsworthy’s site-specific works, led to participants creating works in the forest and the creek bed. Enlarged acetate negatives were used to print images as cyanotypes and also for experiments in exposing directly onto large tree leaves of various kinds.
This summer series of workshops introduced making books by hand, covering basic techniques of folding and sewing books without glue and moving on to historical sewing formats appropriate for a wide range of art and bookmaking projects. They were held in Kingston at the Tett Centre and at the Sydenham Library and Heron Point on Eel Lake.
August 9-11
Handbound Artists’ Books: Introduction to Non-adhesive Binding Structures
$300. plus accommodation if required ($175)
This workshop intensive introduced a range of basic sewn structures and each person made a range of samples over the weekend.
Sydenham Library, Ontario and Heron Point on Eel Lake – August 2024
Future sessions will be organized in different locations and take a similar approach with the possibility of diverse content and emphasis. To express your interest and help with planning these offerings, please fill out this form and subscribe to our mailing list to be informed.
Tett Centre Gallery, Kingston, ON – July 2024
Introduction to Basic Hand Bookbinding
Learn how to easily create small, decorative blank books and later assemble your own contents into book form. This workshop will cover basic folding and sewing of small sample bindings, covering a range appropriate for newcomers to book making: single section pamphlets and stab sewings, albums and multi-section formats with paper covers.
Only basic hand tools are required and all materials will be provided. Bring your lunch.
Linkstitch and Album Binding Structures
This workshop will cover two (or more if we have time) formats adapted from historical bindings which allow for the creation of multi-section books. Decorative spine sewings, as well as a format appropriate for use as albums with inserted contents will be constructed. Once again, we will make a number of blank books with paper covers. This workshop will follow well from the skills covered in the Introduction day. Only basic hand tools are required and all materials will be provided. Bring your lunch.
There are only a few more days to register, so read on…
August 23-25, 2024
Poetic Whispers: Installations in Nature
$350. plus accommodation if required ($175)
The remote farm setting at Shibagau Creek Forest offers a unique backdrop for exploring nature through art and photography. The structure of this workshop will encourage participants to engage deeply with nature and their own artistic processes, reflecting on the transient beauty of natural art and how it can be captured and conveyed through photography.
Work with Walter Bergmoser and Peter Sramek, photographic artists and educators to expand your creative approaches and share insights together.
An introduction to the concept of art and interventions in nature will lead to discussion of how interventions can be made in nature responsibly and meaningfully, emphasizing the impermanence of some artists’ works and how to document these changes through photography.
Field Exploration around the farm will identify sites and gather natural materials that can be used in an art installation. Discussions will develop how these materials can be used to interact with the landscape, while simple experiments will be made with photographic materials utilizing alternative printing such as luminogram and cyanotype processes.
Participants will sketch their ideas and plan their installations, receiving feedback from peers and instructors. They will then select sites and construct their installations and/or natural art objects to then be documented in place with photography. Works made with natural materials will mostly be ephemeral and go back-to-nature, but then live on in the photographs which participants make.
Complex photographic experience, technique and equipment are not required for this workshop. Those interested in developing their relationship with the natural environment are invited to arrive with a cellphone (and appropriate outdoor wear).
Walter Bergmoser is an art photographer, designer and professor at the University of Europe for Applied Sciences in Berlin. As a partner in the International Art Collaborations Network, he has also been an exchange professor at OCAD University in Toronto. This will be his second year at SCFF collaborating in a photography workshop with Peter Sramek.
Peter Sramek is a photographic artist and professor emeritus at OCAD University in Toronto now living in South Frontenac. His recent exhbition at the Tett Centre in Kingston was titled The Abstraction is Not the Reality.
Participants will arrive on Friday afternoon or evening and may stay an extra night on Sunday to make a long weekend should they desire.
Cost: $525 includes tuition, accommodation and meals;
$350 for those who do not require accommodation and breakfasts.
A deposit of $60 will hold your place with full payment due 2 weeks prior to the workshop. A non-refundable fee of $60 will apply if you cancel less than 2 weeks prior.
Ride sharing can be coordinated where possible. Pick-up and drop-off in Napanee is also possible should one wish to take the bus or the train.