Get ready to fold, glue, imagine, and create! Join Harriet Runkle for a Paper Sculpture Workshop on Saturday, June 6, 2026, from 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. in the Studio at Frame Gallery Gifts and Art in downtown Sewanee, Tennessee. 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.
Pay and Register for the Workshop
About the Artist
Harriet Runkle is the owner of Frame Gallery Gifts and Art in Sewanee. Her appreciation for art began in childhood, inspired by a family of makers—both her mother and sister were artists in their own right. Visits to museums and galleries throughout her life led her to study Art History and Museum Studies at the University of Tennessee.
After college, Runkle spent the next decade working as a museum educator, gallery director, and art consultant before earning a Master of Arts in Teaching from Mary Baldwin University. She then spent more than twenty years as an elementary school teacher, where the arts became central to her classroom culture. Music, dance, crafts, and hands-on creativity were woven into everyday learning experiences.
A hallmark of Runkle’s teaching was the use of recyclable and found materials in open-ended art projects. Her “Creation Station” in her classrooms encouraged experimentation, imagination, and joyful making, reflecting her belief that the creative process matters as much as the finished product.
In 2018, Runkle purchased Frame Gallery as a frame shop with a small space for local artists to show and share their work. Local art sales flourished alongside handmade crafts by artisans from around the world, leading to the expansion into the neighboring space now known as The Studio, which provides additional room 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. "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.”
Runkle has explored many different art forms over the years and is currently creating whimsical faces from clay and cardboard, several of which are on display at Frame Gallery.