Pre-tax total cost of workshop: $875 (includes $25 registration fee), 30% deposit: $262.50
Dates: Friday, October 2 – Monday, October 5, 2026 (9am – 4pm)
Location: Art School, 15 NW Birch St, Coupeville
Materials: see below
Level: All levels welcome

Automata: Animating your art through mechanical means

Have you ever wanted to make your artwork move but didn’t have the skills to make it functional? Aaron Kramer has been creating automata for 35 years. He blends a creative engineering mindset with a sustainable approach to art-making. His mechanisms are simple and straightforward and seeing the mechanisms makes the work more engaging.

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 skills, techniques and methods. This 4-day course will start with the prototyping of cardboard mechanisms, then foraging for materials (dumpster diving, thrift shops, and walks), then move into bringing it all together to develop a rich, intricate kinetic tableaux of materials and mechanisms. Foundation boxes and laser cut components will help in the construction but students are welcome to bring base elements to feed their imaginative creations.

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

Basic skill level and curiosity is a requirement. Small tools will be taught. Drilling holes and manipulating wood. Wire bending skills will be taught. Kramer will provide drills, saws, small hand tools, fasteners and materials that are ripe for the imagination. So if you are a collage assemblage artist who wants to take it to the next level or a maker who wants to expand their skill set beyond hot glue, this is the class for you.

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.