Woodworking Workshop (BWAC)

Working with Repurposed Wood

This workshop, taught by Ryan Frank, will be a hands-on introduction to woodworking taught using repurposed wood found on the streets and waterfront of Brooklyn. Attendees will learn practical woodworking skills using hand tools, working with wood pieces found in nature (i.e. driftwood) and repurposed after human use (i.e. discarded furniture). Each participant will be able to choose pieces of wood that speak to them and that will be used as a raw material to work with during the class.

Workshop participants will be taught about wood removal (cutting and chiseling), wood marking (carving and engraving) and wood stabilization (sanding, glueing and finishing techniques) and will be tasked with creating a small wood object using these processes. They will also learn about the material makeup of wood and how its lifecycle from nature to man made objects relates to environmental science and climate change. During the course of the workshop participants will create a unique wood sculpture that they’ll be able to take with them at the end of the class.

Ryan Frank is a visual artist and woodworker based in Brooklyn, NY. He’s had solo exhibitions at the Invisible Dog Art Center, the Mattatuck Museum, the Children’s Museum of the Arts, the Lilac Preservation Project, Tremaine Gallery and Icehouse Project Space. Ryan has attended residencies at La Napoule Art Foundation, Jentel Foundation, Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts, Brooklyn Studios for Dance, SIM Iceland and the Wassaic Project. In addition to his art and woodworking practice Ryan is an ardent runner and practitioner of Tai Chi. 

There is limited capacity. Registration is required.

This is an off-site program, located at BWAC in Red Hook.