Automata Making Workshop: Tinned Automata

Tutor: Stephen Guy
Level: Suitable for all
Date:  A half day course, Saturday 17 May 2025, 10:30am–1pm
Price: £10

This taster workshop is part of West Dean: Craft Here, Craft Now and London Craft Week. The interactive West Dean: Craft Here, Craft Now exhibition presents a collection of crafted objects and shares the hidden stories behind their making. The series of bookable taster sessions and more in-depth workshops including bookbinding, automata, patchwork and leatherwork, find out more at westdean.ac.uk

Course details
Get a taste for the craft of automata-making using a regular food tin, alloy rod, cork, card and other materials.  In two hours, you should be able to construct a hand-turned tin-based creation to take home.  Creative play is at the heart of the process.

You will be introduced to a basic mechanism and its construction, and how the movement itself can be harnessed for curious moving designs.  Successful automata making combines a need for precision and accuracy with a wacky imagination.  The first stage of the workshop is the engineering element where everyone makes the basic mechanism.  Once this is achieved, you switch from engineer to artist and play around with ideas for the moving parts.

You are also welcome to bring any odd decorative things (they must be lightweight) that could contribute to the design.

Materials and Equipment provided
All necessary materials and equipment will be provided for use on the course.

About the tutor
Stephen Guy is an artist-maker specialising in mechanical art or automata. His workshops focus on the mechanical movements themselves as inspiration for artistic creativity, rather trying to design and build a preconceived idea. The creative process is playful experimentation with motions and materials, found objects and old toys. He teaches how simple mechanisms work and can be made, the necessity of accuracy in crafting reliable mechanisms, and to see automata-making as a playful pursuit.

For his own work Stephen - who is also known as Fire the Inventor - spends a lot of time hunting down curious bits and pieces. He has had commissions from CMT, the Crafts Council, Compton Verney Art Gallery, and was a design consultant for the Craft Council’s A Curious Turn exhibition. His work was exhibited at Craft Central, London, and he was Artist in Residence at Bow Arts RAW Lab.

General information
Short courses are open to anyone aged 18 and over.
The course fee covers tuition and materials where stated. You will need to bring all other items listed under the ‘Materials to bring’ section.

Refunds and cancellations

Please note, West Dean: Craft Here, Craft Now London Craft Week workshop bookings cannot be exchanged, transferred or refunded.

We reserve the right to cancel a class in unusual circumstances. We try to avoid this where possible, but sometimes it is unavoidable. In this situation, a full refund will be given. We’re sorry that we cannot be financially responsible for extreme weather conditions, travel disruption or any other situations that are outside our control.

Access
If you have any specific access needs, we will need to know about your access requirements in advance. Please tell us about your needs in confidence by emailing: bookingsoffice@westdean.ac.uk

This venue has steps to the front reception, with limited access via a side gate to the ground floor. There is a small lift to higher floors or stairs.

Safety
Short course students are required to sign a safety compliance form as part of West Dean Health and Safety regulations.

Disclaimer
The information given is accurate at the time of publication. However, West Dean College reserves the right to cancel or amend courses if circumstances require.