Artist Antonia A. Perez leads this workshop inspired by the Crochet Coral Reef: TOXIC SEAS and Josh Blackwell: Neveruses Report Progress, both currently on view at the Museum. Appropriate for makers of all experience levels, visitors will learn to up-cycle plastic bags into something new and useful. Learn to crochet them into sculptural forms or utilitarian objects such as wall sculptures, rugs, or tote bags.

Perez is a mixed-media artist who collects discarded household detritus and repurposes it into sculpture, works on paper, paintings and site-specific installations. Her work focuses on the transformation of materials, especially plastic bags, which she crochets into a range of forms representing domestic objects or abstract structures referencing the environment, the home, textile design and culture, and hand-made traditions. In addition to making objects she participates in socially engaged activities centered on crocheting and the environment. She is a 2016 recipient of the EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop Studio Immersion Fellowship and the 2011 Marie Walsh Sharpe Space Program Award. She has exhibited her work locally and nationally, including at the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling, El Museo del Barrio, the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, No Longer Empty in Jamaica, Cuchifritos Gallery, the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, and the Queens Museum. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from Queens College, CUNY.