Get ready to fold, glue, imagine, and create! Join Harriet Runkle for a Whimsical Paper Sculpture Workshop on Saturday, June 13, 2026, from 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. in the Studio at Frame Gallery Gifts and Art. This workshop is for all ages, and children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult.
Using just three simple folded paper shapes (the tear drop, the accordion, and the spiral), you can create whatever your imagination dreams up. Start with one idea and watch it transform into something completely unexpected along the way. From abstract designs to figures, creatures, and wild inventions, it’s amazing what can happen with colored cardstock, glue, a pencil, and your own hands.
This is fun art, not fine art — and the process is every bit as exciting as the final creation. There’s no right or wrong way to do it, just experimentation, play, imagination, and discovery.
The workshop fee is $20 for adults and $10 for children 12 and under. All materials are included, and the sky is the limit on how big, small, simple, or elaborate your creations become — or how many you make during the workshop!
Paper sculpture kits will also be available for purchase, so the creativity can continue long after the workshop ends.
About the Artist
Harriet Runkle is the owner of Frame Gallery Gifts and Art in Sewanee, where she combines her lifelong love of art, teaching, and community engagement. Inspired by a family of makers and artists from childhood, Harriet developed an appreciation for museums, galleries, and hands-on artistic exploration that eventually led her to study Art History and Museum Studies at the University of Tennessee.
Before opening Frame Gallery, Harriet worked as a museum educator, gallery director, art consultant, and elementary school teacher. Throughout her more than twenty years in education, creativity played a central role in her classrooms through music, movement, crafts, storytelling, and open-ended art projects using recyclable and found materials.
In 2018, Harriet purchased Frame Gallery and later expanded into the neighboring Studio space, creating a welcoming hub for framing, exhibitions, workshops, and community events.
It was after this expansion that Runkle began to explore her own artistic practice more actively. Runkle says, "My approach is less about 'fine art' and more about fun art—hands-on, experimental, and process-driven creativity." She hopes to provide a place where people of all ages and walks of life can experience art through creativity, connection, and the joy of making. She says, "I want The Studio to feel welcoming and approachable: a place where people can try things, share ideas, make imperfect things, and enjoy the experience as much as the finished product.”
Harriet works in a variety of media and is currently creating playful sculptures and faces from clay, cardboard, and paper, several of which are on display at Frame Gallery. Through her workshops and Studio programming, she hopes to encourage people of all ages to explore creativity in a relaxed, approachable, and joyful way.