For our September gathering, Moss Webster showed us how to make paper lanterns out of the coast itself. The idea is simple and a little bit magic. You press leaves, fern fronds, flower petals, and seed heads into the paper while it is still wet, let it dry, and put a light behind it. What you get is a lantern that glows with the silhouette of real leaves you could walk out and find.
We met at the South Beach Community Center on the evening of September 10 and gave ourselves three hours instead of the usual two, because paper and paste do not like to be rushed. You could make a single lantern to sit on a table with an LED tea light inside, or string a few together to hang. Moss is partial to Japanese maple and sword fern, though the whole point, as he kept reminding us, is that there is no wrong answer here.
This one struck a chord. More people registered than for any monthly gathering we have held, and by the time sign-ups closed there were ten more on the waitlist.
This is what our monthly gatherings are for. A few hours in a warm room with neighbors, hands busy, making something you carry back out into the world. It is small, and it matters. The art and the community are not a break from the work of protecting this place. They are part of how we do it.
I believe that we have long been defining natural resources incorrectly. It’s not simply products – fish or timber or minerals. I think community is actually the most important natural resource, and each community is responsible for taking care of all its members – the human beings and all the components of the environment.
AJ Mallozzi, OCCC
Our next gathering is already on the calendar! On Thursday, October 8, Liz Fox leads a Mixed Media Montage workshop, small assembled keepsakes made from old photographs, found objects, and bits of ephemera that mean something to you. Same place, the South Beach Community Center in Newport, from 5 to 8 pm, and free as always. You can reserve a seat on our events page, and if this month is any sign, do not wait too long.
Photos From the Evening (more to come)
