Spring Equinox 2024 News
From Found and Ground
Welcome to the Spring Equinox newsletter
I feel like I haven’t had a moment to write, and I will keep this brief, as perhaps like me, you have a mountain of things to make and do. Thanks so much for signing up to this newsletter, I appreciate it. It currently seems to go out every 3 months. I had planned for more, but then my to-do list expanded before my very eyes…
I have a good reason, I have been writing my next book, which will come out in April 2025. Next week we’ll do the photoshoot at Search Press’ studios, so I have been gathering the last urban odds and ends today, red crumbly bricks, smashed roofing slates, garden bamboo, willow sticks from windfall boughs… What will these become? pastels, holders, charcoal and more, as the next book will be about wild, ancient, foraged and repurposed drawing materials. More about it next newsletter, including some of the great artists I will feature in it.
You can find my current book, Found and Ground, on natural paints here.
Courses and Events
USA
I’ll be doing a demo and short class on making natural paints on Friday 19th May 2024 at Georgia Bushcraft Spring Camp Out. Amazing red earth left, right and centre. I love The South for many reasons, and the bright orange dirt is one of them!
I will be teaching a one-day pastel-making course at In Situ Poly Culture in Vermont USA on 1st May 2024. Come and spend may Day with bright earths and me. Booking here.
Theresa Emmerich Kamper and I will be giving a free talk about our materials and work. Light refreshments, Q&A, fabulous materials, Friday, May 3rd 2024 at 6:30pm at the Putney Public Library. 55 Main St. VT 05346. Details here.
UK
I will return to Schumacher College 1-5 July 2024 for the third time teaching my fully residential signature course Found and Ground Natural Art Materials. We cover so much: foraging, ethics, pastels, paints, inks, tools, sketchbooks, cordage, and so much more. My special guest teacher will be the incomparable Rima Staines, who will join us for an evening talk and a daytime ‘paint along’ with the materials we make. Booking here.
(Rima and I are planning a course for 2025 on painting with natural paints. We were too busy to host it this year but newsletter readers will be the first to hear about it.)
France
I will be teaching a one-off painting on leather day in France on 17th August 2024, after 2 days assisting Theresa teaching how to make a fur hat. The 3 day course features patterning, sewing and decoration. Further details and booking here.
Italy
My Easter classes at Artisans of Now sold out in 2 weeks, but I will probably return there in the autumn, and put details in the newsletter as soon as dates are set.
Coming Soon
Online
Plants and Colour is the home for all my online classes. After my courses on pigments, making paints, pastel-making, next up will be a ‘paint on everything’ course! Ever wondered what you could adorn and decorate, and how? You can find out how to do it with me using plastic-free paints and inks. The course will run on 9th and 16th July 2024, and the details should go live in April. For now, peruse Plantsandcolour.co.uk and see all the beauty Flora brings to the world.
Devon, UK
Isla MacLeod, Elizabeth Crawford and I will be running Landscapes of Making at Embercombe, Devon, UK, 7-11 August 2024. Sadly, the fully residential course is not yet up on their website, and I wanted to get this newsletter out now, so I will send a short extra email when it goes live. The course is brand new and will work in deep connection with the landscape at Embercombe, the bounty of Lammastide, and each other. Using basketry, paint and ink-making, ceremony and mindful crafting, plus fireside stories and time to relax in the beautiful woods, we will weave ourselves back into the Earth. You’ll go home with a basket of beauty, made in reverence of, and reciprocity with, the land.
121 classes In Bournemouth, Dorset, UK
I teach 121 classes at my home for people who want to deepen their earth arts practice or who want to learn and of the methods and techniques I practice. If you see something on my Instagram that you want to learn, get in touch. Several people have applied for and received Art Council DYCP grants to come study with me, to make their art practice more sustainable. Get in touch via my webform if you’d like to discuss topics, timings or prices.
News
After a great spring tanning hides with Theresa, researching ochre use and demonstrating at the University of Exeter, and teaching at Turps art school, plus a busy summer ahead, it’ll be time to refresh my own reserves this coming autumn. So I have some wonderfully rich time planned with friends, with land and with books. I mention them here in the hopes it will inspire you to remember to give yourself time for rest and renewal, too.
Residencies. I have been invited to East Anglia for a residency in a fallow field in September. It will be an opportunity to let the land speak, and respond in an improvisational way with art, language and movement. I am excited to bring my personal art practice to a part of the country and to land, the Fens, that I do not know well.
In the autumn I will return to USA to stay and make plans at Sand River Community Farm. If you don’t know the incredible work they do, make yourself a tea and go have a look. Then I will head to In Situ Polyculture for my own residency, reading, writing and drawing, most likely.
My website, bless it, is so out of date and will not get updated until May at the earliest. Apologies! Online, I seem to live on Substack for writing and Instagram for art and materials teaching. I do plan to have a decent, relevant, streamlined site again, but it is not a priority as this newsletter has become the best way to tell people about my work.
In lieu of an up to date website, If you’d like to see my ‘a word a day for things I am grateful for’ sketches which I am posting every day for Lent, then you can go here.
Re-store and re-story
I have planned to meet with Isla and Elizabeth for crafting together in September, to better learn each others’ processes, so we can plan some more future courses. When did you last get together with fellow makers and artists, and share you work and materials?
I’ll be seeing friends and have a ‘can I read the books in your library?’ pilgrimage this winter. When wondering what the most relaxing, convivial (inexpensive) thing would be, I realised it would be to have the time and space to read all the amazing books my friends have that I don’t have on my shelves. And to drink coffee and have slow meals with these loved ones when not being a library mouse. I am happy to say all five I have asked so far said yes! So, reading glasses and notebook will be travelling with me to Sweden, Ireland, Scotland, Devon and Sussex, at least. It will be a dream come true. Time to actually read… I hope this inspires you to do something similar, or a studio swap, perhaps.
Wishing you a wonderful spring and a creative year ahead. Thanks for reading, Caro.