When I am on the move, I find that the rhythmic sway puts me in a meditative flow that attunes me to the diverse life energies that surround me. My mind becomes animated with a dynamic fluxus of thoughts and ideas.
Dwayne Donald, The Documents of Contemporary Art, Walking
The Wandering School of Art is a new, artist-led school inspired by my experience as an artist and Senior Lecturer in Fine Art. I have set up The Wandering School of Art as an independent space for shared learning, drawing on a long and wonderful history of free-thinking, radical art schools, where we can make up our own rules.
The manifesto for The Wandering School of Art is about openness, slowness, being in place, feeling and responding to what rises to the surface. It speaks about idleness and the profound states of creativity to be found in doing nothing. Something can start to deepen and shift when we allow ourselves to be immersed in idleness as a state of being. We will embody learning through walking, sitting, and being in the ancient landscape of West Penwith, responding creatively to the energy that arises.
I am inviting a group of participants to take a leap into the unknown and go on a creative journey with me. I will hold the space and provide a structure through intensive weekends, 1–1 tutorials, inspiring lectures from experienced academics, seminars, and reading material, allowing a shared experience to unfold. It is for those who are tired of feeling they must continually push themselves to achieve more, for those who want to carve out time to wander, to question, and to be curious about finding new ways of approaching life imaginatively and creatively.
The Wandering School of Art will take place in the ancient and beautiful landscape of West Penwith, Cornwall as well as online allowing those who live in other parts of the UK to participate.
I am launching this new art school with Walking, Making and Thinking a year-long art course (January 2027 – January 2028) for a small group of 8-12 artists and creative practitioners seeking to awaken, expand, deepen and sustain their practice.
This course is for creative practitioners working in any medium (drawing, sculpture, painting writing, performance, film, sound) who want to free their practice to work with greater intuition and depth. Through workshops, briefs, prompts, one-to-one tutorials, and guidance, you will be encouraged to consider states of idleness as a positive way to connect with your creative voice. Your practice will be nurtured to help develop an individual path where you will discover your own visual language using ideas drawn from time spent immersed in the landscape of West Penwith.
Wandering invites us to slow down, to enter a state of idleness so that we can hear and respond to the feelings and sensations of a place. Together, we will roam in the ancient landscape of Sancreed, full with depth and mystery. You will be invited to think poetically and to find metaphors that mirror and your own experience as we meander through woodland, across moors and mossy places. We will visit the holy well and enter the fogou at Carn Euny, a womb-like chamber that echo's the divine feminine.
As we walk and spend time in these places, we will intuitively draw, play with film, sound, or words in response to how we sense them, how we belong within them, and how they move through us.
COURSE STRUCTURE
This course is structured to provide a framework for your own individual experience and practice to unfold. You will be embarking on your own creative journey whilst being held, supported, challenged and guided through a series of suggestions, prompts, briefs and workshops. We will work as a collective of practitioners with no hierarchical structure. My role as artist and facilitator is to design the course content in a way that allows us to share a powerful unified group experience whilst nurturing individual practices.
Starting with a three-day intensive (one of three in person gatherings), we will explore intuitive approaches to art making. Sancreed village hall will become an artist studio. We will transform it into a place for testing, thinking, reflecting and learning from each other. Materials will be provided, paper unfolded across tables. We will embark on a process of exploration, both individually and collectively. We will hold workshops, peer to peer discussions, artist talks and share inspirational texts that connect to our making practice.
Following on from this you will receive a 1-1 tutorial, a focused conversation on ways forward and how to develop your practice. There will be four 1-1 tutorials throughout the year.
Through a series of online lectures, Foot Notes, we will explore the deep mythologies held in the land and consider how our inner experience meets the outer world.
Between sessions, you’ll receive fortnightly briefs, prompts, and suggested reading or viewing to help you stay connected to your work. These act as gentle structures to support momentum, particularly when things feel uncertain or stuck.
Online lectures from artists and academics will offer fresh perspectives and new ways of thinking.
COST: £1,900 PER PERSON
Places are limited to twelve participants. Applicants will be selected to create a committed, generous and thoughtful group. Shortlisted applicants will be invited to an informal online conversation to ensure the course is the right fit and that the group dynamic inclusive.
