Veteran origami artist Wilma Alvarez meticulously folded the green paper she was making into a stem for the flower she was making.
“I’ve been to these before,” said the 12-year-old Tommie Kunst Junior High School seventh-grader at Santa Maria Public Library’s makerspace program on Saturday. “I like origami art, the things you can do with it.”
With her father and sister Jaylin, 3, Wilma was one of more than a dozen participants, both children and adults, at the five-hour session from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Edwin and Jeanne Woods Learning Center.
“The word ‘makerspace’ means different things to different people, but it’s basically a physical space where people can be creating and tinker with things,” said Dawn Jackson, Librarian III.
“It encourages creativity and critical thinking, things our society is moving away from,” she said. “It’s a movement that…