At Pittenweem Art Festival 2023, I ran a series of workshops and demonstrations on making paint from the earth.
First up is “Sense of place through symbols”, with WHALE Adult Art Group, Edinburgh in 2022. I ran this workshop during the Alan Davie: Beginning of a far-off World exhibition at Dovecot Studios, starting with an exhibition tour focusing on Davie’s interest in repeated symbols, jazz music and intuitive way of making.
Looking at images of Alan Davie’s Celtic Spirit rug made collaboratively at Dovecot Studios, each participant created symbols or signs that reminded them of home. These were symbols related to their culture, signs they walked past everyday, a childhood toy or a domestic object that held significance for them. The group were encouraged to think about scale, as these symbols were transferred onto a large collaborative drawing.
For the exhibition Scottish Landscapes: A New Generation, also at Dovecot Studios, I partnered with The Ripple Project to run workshops and tours looking at landscape and ecology. Reflecting on the work of the 10 contemporary artists in the exhibition, we experimented with earth pigments to create images of remembered landscapes.
In December 2021, I facilitated a workshop for young Climate Activists during COP-26 with Zero Carbon Campaign. The aim was to provide a space for youth activists and organisers to meet each other, exchange perspectives and reflect on the first few days of the conference through creativity. Thoughts and messages were drawn and painted onto patch-worked material I sourced from the Glasgow Circular Arts Network, to create banners for the strike/march the following day.