Events Calendar

Visitors of all ages are invited to come by the Bubbler Room and work with TetraPAKMAN on engaging, tactile art-making out of recycled materials. Whether we’re building a large-scale, community-generated social sculpture or creating the unthinkable through cardboard construction we need your help!

Some of his ongoing projects include painting bedsheets for a upcoming installation, creating messages out of old keyboard keys or using everyday objects like lids, boxes, and twist-ties to make larger than life sculpture forms.

Many of TetraPAKMAN’s projects scale up or down based on age and timeframe — so come by for 5 minutes, an hour, or more and we will be Doing Something. We’d love your creative additions as he works to transform the Bubbler Room at Central Library!

About the Artist: TetraPAKMAN is a Madison-based artist who has long considered concepts around conservation, and often creates using repurposed/recycled materials. TetraPAKMAN’s practice is focused on community-generated social sculpture projects. His work is about the future, and the challenges we face today as a community. He explores the role of art as a mechanism to generate awareness about the climate crisis.

Bring your favorite hot drink and we'll provide a yummy treat for you to enjoy while your little one plays with a variety of interesting, open-ended materials. Connect with other caregivers in a warm, safe environment.

READ and PLAY together with children ages 5 and under! Engaging with books, songs and playful experiences all help children develop communication skills, patience, empathy, and pre-reading skills. It also helps to build a lifelong love of reading. Library programs are always free. Siblings and childcare groups are welcome.

Free hour-long one-on-one computer and tech assistance.

Marcus can help you with:

• Becoming comfortable with your laptop, cellphone or tablet 
• computer basics 
• Safely browsing the internet
• Creating and using an email address
• Basic understanding of apps and their usage
• help filling out online applications 
• help with creating resumes and cover letters

...and many other computer- and technology-related topics.

Free hour-long one-on-one computer and tech assistance.

Marcus can help you with:

• Becoming comfortable with your laptop, cellphone or tablet 
• computer basics 
• Safely browsing the internet
• Creating and using an email address
• Basic understanding of apps and their usage
• help filling out online applications 
• help with creating resumes and cover letters

...and many other computer- and technology-related topics.

Free hour-long one-on-one computer and tech assistance.

Marcus can help you with:

• Becoming comfortable with your laptop, cellphone or tablet 
• computer basics 
• Safely browsing the internet
• Creating and using an email address
• Basic understanding of apps and their usage
• help filling out online applications 
• help with creating resumes and cover letters

...and many other computer- and technology-related topics.

Visit the Dream Bus to browse books and other library materials, place or pick up holds, and sign up for a library card.

Learn more at dreambus.org

Join local artist Amy Mietzel for hands-on art projects!

Play Minecraft in both creative and survival worlds! Gaming devices will be provided and participants will take turns so that everybody can get their turn to create and explore! Recommended for ages 8 and up.

Visit the Dream Bus to browse books and other library materials, place or pick up holds, and sign up for a library card.

Learn more at dreambus.org

Join Pinney Library's 2024 Artist-in-Resident, Phil Hassett for weekly Open Studio letterpress printing!

Bonus December Open Studios with Phil!

Title: Call & Response

"Taking inspiration from jazz and improvisational musical practices, this residency will use letterpress printmaking to explore many levels of interplay and collaboration between text & layout, word & image, letter & ornament, color & form, and artist & community. Over the course of the residency we will work with wood & metal type and ornaments to print at a variety of sizes—from buttons to posters, and we’ll explore layering, iterative collaboration, and ways that the rigid grids of letterpress type can be used as a foundation for both carefully planned and improvisational prints. We’ll explore the use of letters to create images and the use of ornaments to create letterforms, how communities shape words and stories and how words and stories shape communities. Along the way we’ll get a little inky, and have a lot of fun."

About Phil: 

He is a letterpress printer living in Madison, WI, where he maintains a small collection of historic printing presses and a growing collection of historic and modern printing type. A lifelong musician, he named his print studio Washboard Press because of the sound one of his presses makes, and because he enjoys doing by hand what is now more usually done in a more automated way. 

Visit his website https://www.washboardpress.com/about/

Join The Kids Chef, Lily Kilfoy, for a series of cooking classes for school-age kids, tweens, and their families. Participants will learn about different foods, where they come from, how to follow recipes, and how to use a variety of tools.  Registration is not required, but participation will be limited to the first 25 attendees. 

Food generously provided by Willy St. Co-op North.

Visit the Dream Bus to browse books and other library materials, place or pick up holds, and sign up for a library card.

Learn more at dreambus.org

Cross stitch and needle arts have undergone a really cool revitalization and transformation over the past few years. With amazing patterns ranging from traditional-style samplers to Pokemon to fungi to robots and beyond, there's something for everyone in this slow art form. 

Come see how the craft might interest and benefit you - it's enjoyable, meditative, and fun. And at the end of a project you have something unique that you created yourself! Whether you're just beginning this journey or are an experienced stitcher, join us for inspiration, creative ideas, and community.