Agnes & Jen Make Memories
Finding fruitful collaborators isn’t easy – unless you’re hanging at Kwartzlab makerspace (opens in new window), Kitchener’s bulging, ever-evolving clubhouse for technologists, tinkerers, fringe hobbyists and ambitious folks in need of tools or a workshop.
Agnes Niewiadomski and Jennifer van Overbeeke met at a Kwartzlab event and have since joined creative forces many times to develop craft-fueled community building experiences. Their most immersive co-creation was a forest canopy made of cardboard and paper leaves, branches, flowers, vines, chandeliers and other faux flora for Steel Rails 2015 (opens in new window), where partying train passengers could assemble their own woodland creature masks for masquerading in the aisles. Beyond other festival collaborations (opens in new window), they’ve worked together many times to help would-be artists do it themselves, whether making sweet, simple designs out of paper or creepy phantom limbs with clear tape (and patience).
Jennifer started making whimsical paper products under the moniker In Paper Dreams because she was unmoved by most of the greeting cards available in stores. Her lovely retort – a range of colourful, handmade messages and paper-cut creatures, including a near-irresistible DIY Dear Head Trophy (opens in new window) – are now sold in a handful of stores in the area (including downtown standouts Living Fresh (opens in new window) and Legacy Greens (opens in new window)).
Agnes appears to never stop learning to make new things, or showing others how. Her latest endeavour is a summer camp called Mindful Makers, featuring week-long spurts of multidisciplinary activity geared at ages seven to 14, including CNC paper cutting, screen printing, book binding and soldering. Her oversized games, notably a Big Light Bright (opens in new window) (made with Bernie Rohde, a Kwartzlab connection) and a 5-foot Kerplunk (opens in new window), pop up at local festivals and City of Kitchener events. And her wide interests in experimenting with many materials – felt, butter, UV reactive dyes, whatever – offer tons of opportunity to learn from her peers, such as in January 2016 when she helped build a five-story, 40,000-balloon sculpture of the Genesee River for Airigami Balloon Adventure (opens in new window) in Rochester, New York.
Tell us about one of your favourite tools.
JEN: Probably my craft knife, an ergonomic Fiskars brand exacto knife. It’s very comfortable to use, and it’s the same tool I started using when I started paper cutting about three or four years ago. It has a lifetime warranty too, which is nice – I’ve had two other brands break on me. It’s not that old yet, but it has potential.
AGNES: This is a tough question, so I’m going to have to default to my computer since it is what I use most often. You need to plan a project before you can dive in, and so even just looking for inspiration or details about how other people have done something, my computer is in a way the best and most used tool that I have. There are so many other tools that I use – everything from box cutters to CNC routers.
I also like a good pen or sharpie, because I like to doodle.
What was the last thing you made?
JEN: I’ve really been inspired by an artist duo I recently discovered on Instagram, Hari Panicker and Deepti Nair. They do some amazing layered papercut artwork, so I thought I’d do one that plays off of some reoccurring designs in my work – flying whales and castles in the clouds.
I've just done a rough mock-up so far. Generally when I’m working on a new design, I start by drawing and cutting by hand using cardstock, tracing paper and a light box. Then I move to my computer and tweak the design until I’m happy with it. Then I’ll cut it out on my Silhouette Cameo, which is like a printer that cuts with a blade.
AGNES: A needle felted sculpture. I’ve been teaching classes in this art form for a while, most recently through Shall We Knit? in Waterloo. It’s a highly addictive handicraft that I learned in University. I picked it back because I was looking for things to teach at a series of Christmas workshops I ran at Kwartzlab. I taught my sister how to needle felt at the workshop and she hasn’t stopped since – she’s the one who actually keeps me inspired to carry on with it, when I see all the adorable things she makes.
I tend to do something once just to try it and attain a certain level of mastery over it, enough to feel satisfied. Then I’ll go out and buy all the materials – because I’m also a hoarder – and I like knowing that I can start a project at a moment’s notice just by pulling a box off my shelf, even at 2 am. So my answer to this question probably changes daily…
What was the first piece you made that you were happy with?
AGNES: The first serious thing that I made after art school was a set of prop fish for Theatre Ancaster (opens in new window), where I did volunteer work. They were putting on a production of Beauty & the Beast and they told me they needed some fish for the market scene, for an actor to carry around as the fishmonger character. So I took everything I knew about mold-making and sculpting, and I spent weeks on this thing and updated them with photos every once and a while, and one day the director was like, ‘You know, it’s not called Beauty & the Fish, they’re for a five-minute scene.’ So because of the level of detail I put into these fish, they’ve now become my legacy to the theatre. They try to use them in every single show, even if it’s just somebody walking around in the background. So that was pretty amazing, and it’s kind of become this thing I’m known for in that community.
JEN: I’m really proud of the paper forest that Agnes and I built for Steel Rails 2015. I think that was the coolest large-scale project I’ve worked on. It looked way better than I’d imagined and we got an amazing response to it. People really felt immersed – it felt like a forest, and yet it was made out of cardboard. And it looked like cardboard too, it’s not like we painted it different colours or spent all this time making it look like real trees. It still felt like its own environment. I think it struck a chord with people because it was a playful throwback to the landscapes we made and imagined as children.
What makes you make the things that you make?
AGNES: When I have an idea, I get so excited that I just have to see it through, because I won’t stop thinking about it until it's done. Just to get it out of my brain, otherwise it’ll never stop.
JEN: I started paper cutting after watching a TED Talk by Beatrice Coron, an artist who cuts stories from paper. Paper cutting is this really beautiful, simple and accessible art form. When I first started, all I had was a craft knife and paper, and I cut everything on a piece of cardboard – I didn’t even have a self-healing cutting mat. And I found paper cutting really meditative, my brain kind of shuts off when I do it, which is super important sometimes. I started just making little things to give to other people for fun. And then I started making greeting cards because I’m in that phase of my life where I’m always going to weddings, and cards that come from the grocery store or Hallmark are really religious or really tacky. I wanted something simple, and that was the first greeting card that I started making.
What attracts you to the material(s) you work with?
JEN: Accessibility and affordability are important to me, along with environmental sustainability, which is probably where my love of reclaimed materials comes from. I really enjoy using old maps, wallpaper and wrapping paper in my greeting cards and artwork, or cardboard boxes and books in my sculptures.
AGNES: Mostly I work with materials that are low-cost and easily accessible. As an artist, money is always an issue. This is also why I like to build in cardboard and paper, which seem like mundane materials. But with a bit of imagination, a dash of know-how and the right tools, you can create something delightful and reveal potential in these everyday materials.
I love strolling aisles of dollar stores and thrift shops to find wonderful materials and objects. Most of the time, I like to think they find me. I’m also no stranger to nocturnal sidewalk surfing – so many treasurers can be found curbside on garbage night!
I also believe it’s important to understand the difference between a cheap material and a quality material, and when to use brand name products or not. Knowing a material’s strengths and limitations is kind of a language of being a maker.
What essential resources or collaborators have you found in Kitchener?
AGNES: I grew up in Hamilton, went to university in Toronto, moved back home, and then I met my partner, James, and started hanging around K-W and Kwartzlab in particular, and I started to find a place here. So for me it was a really natural move from one city to another because I had a place to go to. I think it’s hard to meet people as a newcomer to a city unless you work with them or something – and I’m a freelancer, so I’d be sitting in my basement probably not really talking to anyone in that scenario. Immediately, so many doors opened up because it’s such a wonderful open place where you just show up, meet people, talk to them, and you go from there. It’s been great for me and I feel really lucky to have a place like this to go; I couldn’t imagine my life without it, in a way. Kwartzlab helped me realize what a great city Kitchener really is. I wouldn’t have known that from my basement.
JEN: The first market that I was a vendor at was Maker Faire in 2013, that’s where we met, and honestly, through Kwartzlab or people that I’ve met here, this whole community has had such a huge influence on my making career. Even my day job, I got indirectly through being a part of Kwartzlab and MakerExpo. It’s been a great resource.
Who made you into a maker?
JEN: My grandma taught me how to sew, knit and make cards, and to do all sorts of crafty things. My oma taught me how to do paper tole, which involves cutting detailed designs out of paper with tiny scissors. I learned my fine, delicate, motor-skill type stuff from them. I don’t really sew or knit anymore, and I didn’t learn to go very far with either of those, but being exposed to those at a young age was great.
My dad is also a maker. He builds everything, fixes everything – he’s all self-taught too, so he’ll read a manual and figure out how to do something, and then do it really well. I think I get my perfectionist element from him, which is sometimes very annoying for people. And I come from a very artistic family. My mom and sisters are all very talented.
AGNES: I guess my parents, because they made me! My dad was always making things, I remember distinctly him remodelling every room in our house, I even helped re-shingle the roof with him – he made everything from home videos to science fair projects with us. I don’t think I realized how much of an influence he had on me until I was in university, but that realization definitely informed a lot of my undergrad work.
My mom made stuff too, but it was more my dad that I took after. She did most of the cooking – in fact, I think my dad only knew how to make hot dog bun sandwiches with butter and honey, scrambled eggs with kielbasa and meat on the BBQ. My mom had a sewing machine, but she wasn’t the one who taught me how to sew, I took a course in high school. She did make some pretty great Halloween and Christmas pageant costumes though. My parents had five kids, so you gotta be resourceful.
I’m impressed with what our parents were able to provide for us, especially after fleeing communist Poland to build a better life for their family in Canada. And I’m happy I can keep my dad’s memory alive through what I continue to do. I like to think he’d be quite proud.