Expand Your Practice

This page will link to resources from RēTA sessions. Each time we meet we will post here so you can get easy access to the materials, artists and practices we share with you.

Making an Accordion Books

Accordion books are a great way to engage creative strategies that support learning and ongoing reflection, allowing learners to play with ideas in a safe, open-ended way and making learning visible. Download the handout here.

Arzu Mistry Accordion Book Project

Learn more about the power of accordion books as a thinking tool here at the Accordion Book Project. Arzu is an artist, a book maker, and a Professor of Education at Columbia University. See her series of short videos to learn more about what accordion book practice can do for your thinking, and the how to's of creating and building our your accordion book.

See step-by-step instructions for extensions and flaps

See step-by-step instructions for pockets

Turkish Fold/Bookmaking Process

The Turkish Map Fold is a unique and sculptural book form made from a single piece of paper, with an optional cover. As you open the book, the piece of paper unfolds so you can see the entire sheet. This book is great to use for a reference worksheet, as it folds down nicely and opens up in an unexpected way. It can also be added to your main accordion book as a pop-out.

People and Places

Maija Peeples-Bright

Life is Just a Bowl of Terriers

"Maija Peeples-Bright is one of the few women artists associated with Northern California’s Funk Art movement of the late 1960s and ’70s. Peeples-Bright’s wildly inventive practice comprises robust compositions bustling with animals of all kinds—her “beasties” as she calls them—forming surreal, imaginative landscapes in audacious impasto. Her zoological arrangements represent alternate realities, infusing exuberance and a sense of the absurd into impossible scenarios." SVMA, 2026

Theresa Harlen

Land-back movement in Sonoma County

Theresa Harlan is the founder & director of The Alliance for Felix Cove, dedicated to celebrating and honoring her Coast Miwok family’s life at Tomales Bay. The Alliance aims to re-indigenize the ancestral homelands of the Felix Family—the last Tomalko family to live on the western shores of Tomales Bay at Felix Cove known as Laird’s Landing. The Alliance for Felix Cove was intentionally built and led by Indigenous women. Their leadership draws from a long tradition of Támal-ko matriarchs.

Candice Lin

Realms of the Real (Art 21)

In her research-based practice, Lin works with a wide variety of materials driven by a deep interest in their histories and offers alternative understandings of society and ourselves. Equally engaging historical fact and speculation, the artist gives voice to overlooked perspectives, creating visceral and sensorial experiences through sculptures, videos, texts, paintings, and installations. To see more about Candice and other contemporary artists with studio videos, curriculum and more, check out Art 21!

Alebrijes

Linares Family

All across Mexico, fantastical creatures can be found dotting the streets, covered in bright colors, giant wings, bulging eyes and viper tongues. These are alebrijes, papier-mâché creations that have become a staple of Mexican folk art. But how did these beautiful monsters come to be? That’s all thanks to one man with a dream. As history has it, after falling into an unconscious state, Pedro Linares dreamed up a series of horrific creatures. Upon waking, he created his first sculpture. Today, his family continues to carry on the tradition of monster-making, keeping Pedro’s visions alive.

Julia Marshall

Creative Strategies from Contemporary Art

Julia Marshall was a professor of Arts Education, a educational theorist, artist and writer. She lectured and published widely and contributed to national and international conferences and journals on arts education. She produced three books for Columbia University’s Teachers College Press of New York; these include Studies in Art-Centered Learning Across the Curriculum (with David M. Donahue); Integrating the Visual Arts Across the Curriculum; and Teaching Contemporary Art With Young People (with Connie Stewart and Anne Thulson), as well as The Illustrated Guide to Integrated Learning. In 2017 she received the lifetime achievement Lowenfeld Award from the National Art Education Association (NAEA). Although Marshall professed “teaching is my art form,” she worked as a studio artist in media including painting, wood sculpture and bronze and exhibited regularly in galleries and community centers.

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