Arts Week
Dates to be confirmed for 2010

PLEASE NOTE: Information on this page currently relates to our 2009 event. Please use this as indicitive only for our 2010 summer schools.

Co-ordinator, Chris Foster
Tutors, Ellen Elmes, Chris Foster, Don Elmes and Bára Grímsdóttir. Visiting artists and other tutors to be confirmed.

Arts Week 2009 will take place on the Isle of Arran. This is a change to the previously advertised programme. PLEASE CONTACT US IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN ATTENDING AND WE WILL DISCUSS THE NEW PLANS WITH YOU.

‘Home is where the heart is’ - A week of arts workshops on Arran Monday 27th – Friday 31st July

Daytime tuition and workshops

In this year of Homecoming Scotland, the beauty of Arran and the meaning of ‘HOME’ will be explored through a unique, week long programme of daytime workshops in painting, photography, mixed media art work and music. 

Painter Ellen Elmes and photographer Don Elmes from the USA will instruct participants onsite at various beautiful locations on the island, and also on a trip to Holy Isle.  They will be working alongside English mixed-media artist & musician, Chris Foster and Icelandic singer & composer Bára Grímsdóttir who will explore the theme of home using a mixture of memories, found and scrounged materials and music. 

Evening sessions.

On Monday 27th Chris and Bára will presenting a concert and slide show celebrating their extraordinary home-place of Iceland. 

On Tuesday 28th Ellen and Don will present a slide show about their fantastic mural work and other arts projects in their home area of the Appalachian mountains of Virginia, USA.

These evening sessions will be open to all.

The Tutors

Ellen Elmes and Don Elmes have been living on the mountain-top of Jewell Ridge, Virginia, in the U.S.A. for the past 35 years.  Ellen is a highly versatile painter, equally at home working on intimate watercolours and large scale community mural projects.  Don is a very fine photographer, who has also worked with Ellen on her large community projects.  They have travelled extensively – painting, photographing, exhibiting, and teaching all along the way.  They lived in Scotland from 1995-96 while Ellen taught and worked as an Artist-in-Residence at Aberdeen College.

Chris Foster is an English visual artist and musician who has worked in the field of Community Arts for many years.  He has led a wide variety of arts projects with all kinds of groups in all sorts of places, often drawing inspiration from oral history, local folklore and traditions.  He now lives in Reykjavík, Iceland with composer, singer, teacher and professional choir conductor Bára Grímsdóttir.  Bára has lived and worked in Norway, Holland and England, but never lost touch with her roots.  As well as being a highly respected composer, she is also regarded as one of Iceland’s best traditional singers. 

All four tutors have been taught at Common Ground Scotland in Ayreshire and Common Ground on the Hill, Maryland, U.S.A. over the past few years.  

The offer

This is an exciting opportunity to share varied perspectives on what the word HOME means to us; with four very experienced international tutors and 12 -15 students from Scotland and beyond.  It promises to be a memorable week of exploration, reflection and learning.  Participants can chose to focus on one or more ways of working during the week. 

Don’t miss out on this special opportunity!

Workshops will be based at The Ranger Centre, Brodick Castle, Arran, and will run from 10am - 4pm each day

Some pictures from the Summer Schools taken by Pete Heywood are available on flickr.com Flickr is a website for photographers. The link will take you to a 'Set' taken by Pete Heywood. You will also find 'sets' of other weeks and other folk related photos of Pete's flickr site. Link to Arts Week 2008 photos on Flickr

This link will take you to some photos from Arts Week 2007. Click here for Arts Week 2007 pictures

Registration is on Monday morning.