Papercutting Workshops at Temple Beth Hillel

This has been a busy season for me – workshops up and down the coast, with kids and adults, cutting paper like there's no tomorrow!

Right now I'm in the middle of a series of workshops for adults at Temple Beth Hillel in Valley Village, California, and I love to share photos of the fun places I go and teach... so here we go!

During our first session the students made mizrach plaques – which designate a wall as "east," the traditional direction in which we pray. Most of the students were able to complete that project by early in the second session, when we moved on to "paper midrash" — telling stories about our stories, in paper. I love sharing midrash with workshop participants; I brought a number of books with me, including Chaim Nachman Bialik's Sefer haAggadah, which is a collection of stories and legends from the Jewish tradition.

This Sunday (March 22) is the last of the Temple Beth Hillel sessions; maybe the next ones will be at your synaogogue!

Workshop participants cutting paper under the watchful gaze of some beautiful Mordechai Rosenstein prints

"Look, I made a tree... where there never was a tree..." (Name that musical!)

Some of the students worked on adding a lot of detail to their designs

Building a wall out of paper

Our first project was making "mizrach" plaques.

I explained to my students that I usually work standing up... some of them liked that approach!

Look at that concentration!

As always, I provided some materials to help jumpstart projects

It gets a bit messy when we're working, but we always clean up afterward

That may be too many people at one table – spread out!

Using natural light through a window as a makeshift light table

It's always wonderful to see how workshop participants take to a new medium

Husband and wife cutting paper, side by side. How sweet!