Ornament is a language. Learn to speak it with your hands.

School of ornament

Workshops, lectures and classes in the decorative arts — from paper cut-outs rooted in folk tradition to ornament for the digital world. Based in London. Travelling to you.

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The school

Ornament has never belonged to a single material. It has travelled from stone to wood, from cloth to ceramic to print — every time humanity found a new surface, ornament followed and made it beautiful.The School of Ornament keeps that tradition alive in both directions: backwards into the hand, forwards onto the screen.We teach pattern, composition, symmetry and decorative logic as a living language — one learned through physical practice and carried into everything you make. No experience is needed, only curiosity. What you will find here is your own visual language, and the quiet pleasure of finding beauty in the everyday.The School is led by Zuzanna Suchon — artist, designer and educator (Camberwell College of Arts, visiting lecturer in Barcelona), known for intricate paper cut-outs, drawing, pattern design and animation.The School travels: workshops arrive at your venue with everything needed — papers, blades, mats, templates and stories.

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Workshops

Practical sessions in the decorative arts — a tradition, a technique, or a method, taught properly and made by hand. Paper cutting, pattern construction with ruler and compass, folk motifs, block and fabric print, wallpaper design. If there’s an ornamental tradition you want to learn, I will research it and build the workshop around it.Every session is hands-on, beginner-friendly and complete in itself: you leave with a finished decorative work and the skill to continue at home. All materials provided. I come to your home, studio, office, school or community venue anywhere in London.

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Lectures & workshops

Theory and practice in one session. The nature of ornament, symbolism in pattern, the power of crafts and embodied knowledge — followed by a table, tools, and the making of the thing just discussed. Ideas you can hold in your hands.

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ORNAMENT FOR THE DIGITAL WORLD

Live, online, worldwide.The screen is the newest surface ornament has ever been offered — and most of it is bare. Classes in pattern, texture and decorative logic for digital environments, taught over video link at hours that suit London, Asia and the Pacific alike.

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Community

The School of Ornament is also a gathering place. Join our community on CLIQ for exhibition visits, discussions and drawing sessions.First gathering: Frida at the Tate.Frida: The Making of an Icon is at Tate Modern until 3 January 2027. We will visit together, then sit down to draw and to argue with each other kindly: is suffering a necessary conduit for creative expression — or is that the most persistent myth in art? And how would Frida’s journey unfold today?

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The School exists to carry the decorative arts forward: to keep endangered skills in living hands, and to teach ornament as a language fluent enough to speak on any surface — paper, cloth, wall, or screen.

1 to 1 session

£110

A focused hour and a half at your table. We choose a tradition, work through composition and cutting together, and you leave with a finished piece and the confidence to keep going alone.

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Group up to 6

£240

A small circle around one table — friends, family, a team.
Intimate enough that everyone gets guided attention, large enough for the pleasure of cutting together.

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Group up to 12

£320

The full workshop. A room of hands, a chosen tradition, and twelve finished works by the end — ideal for team days, celebrations and community events.

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Lectures & Talks

From £150 per hour

Ornament as ideas, not only objects. Talks on the nature of ornament, the power of crafts and embodied knowledge — standalone, or paired with a practical session to make theory tangible.

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Workshops

PAPER CUT-OUTS

A blade, a sheet of paper, and centuries of tradition. Choose a theme, or let us mix them:
• Polish Wycinanki — Gwiazda stars, the Leluja good-luck tree, layered Łowicz flowers
• Chinese Jiǎnzhǐ — the oldest paper cutting tradition in the world
• Mexican Papel Picado — festive, rhythmic, joyful
• Freestyle Ornamental — your own designs, guided by composition and pattern principles

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Broaden perspectives

Lectures & workshops

For universities, institutions, festivals and organisations that want to think as well as make:
• The Nature of Ornament — what ornament is, why every culture makes it, and what it knows that we have forgotten
• The Power of Crafts — why manual skill matters in an automated age
• Embodied Knowledge — what the hand knows that the screen cannot teach
Talks can stand alone or pair with a practical workshop for a full session of theory made tangible.From £150 per hour. Enquire for bespoke programmes.

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"Each age must find its way to beauty, since we seem to have lost sight of it completely.
One cannot simply hope to survive
a hundred-year obsession with fracture and fragment by accident.(...) so much has been destroyed that to have any hope of repairing it,
we must learn a forgotten language, make it new and speak up until we are heard."

Lars Spuybroek

1 to 1 session

£110

A focused hour and a half at your table. We choose a tradition, work through composition and cutting together, and you leave with a finished piece and the confidence to keep going alone.

• Buy now

Group up to 6

£240

A small circle around one table — friends, family, a team.
Intimate enough that everyone gets guided attention, large enough for the pleasure of cutting together.

• Buy now

Group up to 12

£320

The full workshop. A room of hands, a chosen tradition, and twelve finished works by the end — ideal for team days, celebrations and community events.

• Buy now

Lectures & Talks

From £150 per hour

Ornament as ideas, not only objects. Talks on the nature of ornament, the power of crafts and embodied knowledge — standalone, or paired with a practical session to make theory tangible.

• Buy now

Broaden perspectives

Lectures & workshops

For universities, institutions, festivals and organisations that want to think as well as make:
• The Nature of Ornament — what ornament is, why every culture makes it, and what it knows that we have forgotten
• The Power of Crafts — why manual skill matters in an automated age
• Embodied Knowledge — what the hand knows that the screen cannot teach
Talks can stand alone or pair with a practical workshop for a full session of theory made tangible.From £150 per hour. Enquire for bespoke programmes.

• Enquire