Step inside the Camera Obscura Art Lab and you’ll find a welcoming space with fantastic views of Santa Monica Bay and the Pier. The Camera is located in a midcentury time capsule in Palisades Park between Broadway and Santa Monica Blvd on what was once the site of the Pacific Electric Railway’s North Beach Station. Designed by noted architect Weldon J. Fulton (who’s work can be found around town including the classic Camera Obscura sign and font, the Montana and Fairview branch libraries, and the former Zucky’s building on Wilshire Blvd), the building’s exterior features walls clad in chunky Palos Verdes stone, glass walls, sloping roofs, and projecting canopies and rafter beams. It was donated to the City of Santa Monica by Marcellus Joslyn in 1955.”

The huge studio windows look out on palms, walkways and a huge assortment of passers by, strollers, park wanderers and beach combers. The Studio is a magical place to work.

My twelfth workshop, March 24 2018: Double Flower Fold Book had participants folding forms and attaching them into a chain that folded up into a book that could nestle in your hand. But..when it opened…well, you can see what another name for this structure is “Exploding Book”!

The all-important process of choosing materials!

Folding repeating forms,

and slipping one into the next to create a chain.

Then come the covers…

and their content.

A line-up of family, working together, but on their own things.

Opening up to color.

Her own thing; a little “suit coat’ charmer that opens up into something deeper.

Cool colors, taking her cue form the sea and sky outside?

Development and embellishment and

delight…

It is the journey. I am so glad to have taken it with them, and You.