Open Experimental Studio: Sustainable Tote Design with Damien Mitchell

Open Experimental Studio: Sustainable Tote Design with Damien Mitchel

Bring a tote to modify or select a tote pattern to create with found and recycled textiles. Free and suggested for 18+. Pre-registration required. Drinks and light refreshments will be served.

About the Open Experimental Studio:

Designer and Assistant Professor of Industrial Design Damien Mitchell and LSU School of Art MFA ‘26 printmaker Nicholas Roberts will set up open studios in Glassell Gallery, located in the Shaw Center for the Arts, throughout the month of June. From June 1–28, the gallery will offer open studio space for visitors to design and make, scheduled workshops, and collaborative projects that will be facilitated by the artists over their month-long residency.

The gallery will feature a design and sketch station, a mend and repair station, and a cardboard construction station. Damien Mitchell will set up a mend and repair station welcoming participants to learn to creatively mend their own textiles. His tapestry will invite collaborative interventions and welcome found materials to support his own 3D-printed and handcrafted footwear designs. Nicholas Roberts will mine memory and domestic spaces inviting the community to collaboratively construct a life size cardboard fort, materialize and memorialize shared spaces and structures, make zines, and print with Legos. Together, Mitchell and Roberts’ make sessions invite participants to use domestic materials to explore the poetic and industrial through soft and structural design.

Open Experimental Studio seeks not only to activate the gallery but to activate creative experimentation. It offers visitors the opportunity to experiment with artmaking, community building, and contributing their work to the space. The Open Experimental Studio values process over product, experience over outcome, and communing over consuming. It seeks to create a supportive, open space for playful material exploration through making that is open and welcoming to all.

The 2025 Open Experimental Studio is supported by the Charles Lamar Family Foundation

About Damien Mitchell:

Damien Mitchell is an Assistant Professor of Industrial Design at the University of Louisiana Lafayette. He is a native of Louisiana who has worked as a multidisciplinary designer and entrepreneur in the fields of industrial design and graphic design. He obtained a Bachelor of Industrial Design from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and later a Master of Fine Arts degree from The University of California - Davis. His current work explores the intersection of craft and design technology to increase the accessibility and sustainability of product making. He is dedicated to empowering individuals to become designers by using craft as a tool for creativity and innovation. Learn more about Damien Mitchell