
Expressive Pulp Painting – Candy Gonzalez
Dates: July 21 – July 25, 2025
Studio: Papermaking
Tuition: Sliding Scale, $450 – $1300
Lab Fee: $150
Class limit: 6
Through demos, embodied inquiry-based investigation and open studio time, participants will expand their papermaking practice by experimenting with contemporary pulp painting techniques. Participants will learn the mechanics of working with various fibers in pulp painting, to make pulp paints from start to finish and to build an expansive pulp paint palette. Participants will learn various pulp painting techniques, and will learn to incorporate stenciling, wet collaging and blowout techniques in their work. During open studio time, participants will have the opportunity to create a series of work that serves as an exploration of pulp painting as an expressive art form. This workshop is intended for people who have made paper before.
In order to reserve your space in the class, we require a $250 nonrefundable deposit. WSW offers a sliding tuition model for the Summer Art Institute, and you can pick your desired tuition level from the drop-down menu at check-out. For assistance in selecting your tuition level, see this guide. If you are in a position to pay full tuition or more, we request that you do so. The pay-as-you-can model is not based on tax returns or documentation, rather your self-determined capacity to pay. Registration is on a first-come first-served basis, and you can read about our refund and cancellation policies here.

Present Bodies: Papermaking at Dieu Donné, presents the work of Swoon, Noel W. Anderson, Lesley Dill, Candy Gonzalez, Lina Puerta, Paul Wong, Saya Woolfalk, and Tricia Wright. These eight visual artists, all working in hand papermaking, draw upon paper’s connection to ritual offerings, to the body, and to paper’s role as a keeper of memory. Paper’s historic use in communicating personal memory, collective history, and spiritual beliefs manifests more deeply when we reflect on its ancient history–before it became a substrate for the written word or images. The earliest recorded reference to paper dates back to A.D. 105 in China, where paper acted as a votive or offering, a material used in faith-based ritual practice as an aid to speak to deities or to ward off evil spirits. Much of the artwork in this exhibition takes the form of shrines, altars, or reliquaries, alluding to connections between ritual practice and our contemporary understanding of what holds collective memory and its ancient antecedents. All of the works in this exhibition were created in the studios of Dieu Donné, finding their forms in handmade paper. For more than four decades, Dieu Donné has worked at the forefront of a movement to forge this powerfully subversive medium.This storied institution was founded in New York in order to explore the untapped potential of hand papermaking as an art medium. Artists participating in this exhibition include master papermakers like Paul Wong and long-time hand papermaker Lesley Dill, who have worked with paper for over 30 years, as well as artists that have recently learned the papermaking process through the Dieu Donné Workspace or through their professional studio programs. These programs pair artists from a wide variety of practices with master papermakers to explore the creative possibilities of hand papermaking, fostering experimentation and innovative processes. Present Bodies honors this mix of artists at various stages in their creative
Present Bodies: Papermaking at Dieu Donné, presents the work of Swoon, Noel W. Anderson, Lesley Dill, Candy Gonzalez, Lina Puerta, Paul Wong, Saya Woolfalk, and Tricia Wright. These eight visual artists, all working in hand papermaking, draw upon paper’s connection to ritual offerings, to the body, and to paper’s role as a keeper of memory. Paper’s historic use in communicating personal memory, collective history, and spiritual beliefs manifests more deeply when we reflect on its ancient history–before it became a substrate for the written word or images. The earliest recorded reference to paper dates back to A.D. 105 in China, where paper acted as a votive or offering, a material used in faith-based ritual practice as an aid to speak to deities or to ward off evil spirits. Much of the artwork in this exhibition takes the form of shrines, altars, or reliquaries, alluding to connections between ritual practice and our contemporary understanding of what holds collective memory and its ancient antecedents. All of the works in this exhibition were created in the studios of Dieu Donné, finding their forms in handmade paper. For more than four decades, Dieu Donné has worked at the forefront of a movement to forge this powerfully subversive medium.This storied institution was founded in New York in order to explore the untapped potential of hand papermaking as an art medium. Artists participating in this exhibition include master papermakers like Paul Wong and long-time hand papermaker Lesley Dill, who have worked with paper for over 30 years, as well as artists that have recently learned the papermaking process through the Dieu Donné Workspace or through their professional studio programs. These programs pair artists from a wide variety of practices with master papermakers to explore the creative possibilities of hand papermaking, fostering experimentation and innovative processes. Present Bodies honors this mix of artists at various stages in their creative
Candy Alexandra González is a Little Havana and Philadelphia-based multidisciplinary visual artist, poet, and trauma-competent art educator. Candy received their MFA in Book Arts + Printmaking from the University of the Arts in 2017. Since graduating, they have been a 40th Street Artist-in-Residence in West Philadelphia, a West Bay View Fellow at Dieu Donné in Brooklyn, NY, the 2021 Linda Lee Alter Fellow for the DaVinci Art Alliance and the 2024-2025 Leeway x Fleisher Artist in Residence. Their visual art and poetry practice is rooted in the liberation of fat, brown, immigrant, queer and trans people. Candy is currently an Art + Art Education doctoral student at Teachers College, Columbia University.