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Making Windows Bird Safe

1 Day Workshop | Available

Adult: All Levels
2025-03-08 (one day)
10:00 AM-3:00 PM on Sun
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$160.00 CAD

Making Windows Bird Safe

1 Day Workshop | Available

In Canada, we lose about 25 million birds each year to glass collisions. In this playful workshop, you will learn to design and create beautiful, effective decors and patterns on glass that can prevent bird collisions with windows and glass railings. We will look at examples that show the beauty and individual appearance of treated windows while drawing inspiration from patterns from a variety of sources, such as ornamental and  fractal patterns, shapes in nature, Art Nouveau, etc. with a focus on creating  your own ideas.

Note: We will use plexiglass panes (12” x 12”) that students can take home

Base Tuition: $120 + Material Fee: $40 = $160 Total
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  • What You Will Learn:
    - Design and apply decorative, durable vinyl patterns for making windows bird-safe
    - Explore ways to treat windows temporarily using oil sharpies and wax-crayons
    - Learn about handwriting or calligraphy with oil sharpies on glass-surfaces
    - Learn about DIY designs using burlap-string, fabric, and wax crayons
    - Learn about the background information of this course: how glass reflections of buildings in the urban-and rural environment pose a threat to migrating birds
  • Additional materials will be supplied by the instructor.

    - Sketching paper, 12"x12"
    - Pencils
    - Sharpie
Häussler, Iris
Iris Häussler

Iris studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, Germany and immigrated to Canada in 2001.Iris Häussler has explored many ways to offer art experiences at the fringe or outside the White Cube. She is interested in creating inclusive art environments open to everybody, rather than catering to the art market only. This has a long history: she created her very first site specific art-installation for a group exhibition at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich in 1988, choosing the women’s toilets of all places. Since then, she has exhibited in basements, trailers, garages, coach houses, apartments, churches, chapels, stores, hotel-rooms, industrial buildings and historic houses as well as in international museums, galleries and Biennials.


Häussler’s work is found in international collections including the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; the Städtische Sammlung im Lenbachhaus, Munich and the Goetz Collection, Munich, Germany. She also held a guest professorship at the Academy of Fine Art in Munich in 1999 and has given talks about her work in universities and art institutions in Canada, the USA, and Europe. Her work received awards and grants including the Karl-Hofer Prize (Berlin), the Kunstfonds Fellowship (Bonn), the Toronto Arts Council, the Chalmers Arts Foundation, the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.