Out on the wild westcoast is a secret garden nestled in among the tall ancient trees called Cougar Annie's Garden, we will take a rich and artful journey to a remote retreat location and spend time sketching, drawing, painting, photographing, journal writing, barefoot mapping and celebrating the poetry of being together, being in wild nature!
Join acclaimed biologist, writer, artist and map-maker Briony Penn, well loved painter Joanne Thomson, American nature photographer Nirvan Hope and ecopsychologist, Hilary Leighton and other kindred souls for an artful journey into the garden. This is the time when the gardens are in full bloom leaving us with full evidence that the universe fully expresses its joy through the blush of the azalea. Everyone welcome! No background in art required.
About the Garden: In 1915, Ada-Annie Rae-Arthur, later known as “Cougar Annie”, settled a homestead with her husband and three children in Boat Basin, 50 or so kilometres north of Tofino in Clayoquot Sound on the far reaches of the west coast of Vancouver Island. There, having pre-empted 120 acres within the traditional lands of the Hesquiat peoples, she lived for seventy years and created a garden that is a centre of beauty and interest.
Today, Cougar Annie’s Garden is owned by the Boat Basin Foundation, a non-profit foundation. Surrounded by rainforest and mountains, this wilderness property offers highly unusual educational opportunities to students and to small groups of visitors. Along with Cougar Annie's Garden and the Temperate Rainforest Field Study Centre, the site is very remote, accessible only by boat or float plane.
*This area is not intended as a tourist destination and those who visit must be motivated, physically fit and independent. Rustic but beautiful and comfortable room and board will be included with registration fees. Marshalling at Middle Beach in Tofino, we will take a water taxi to the Stewardson Inlet and a “crummy” to Boat Basin.
For more information please visit the Boat Basin website: http://www.boatbasin.org/ and we recommend you read Margaret Horsfield’s wonderful book, Cougar Annie’s Garden
Facilitators: Joanne Thomson is a professional Artist and Illustrator with a passion for helping adults discover their own creativity through painting and drawing. With a Master’s degree in Adult Education and training as a Registered Nurse Joanne spent many years teaching Nurses and Care Aides. Now she turns her teaching skills toward assisting adults to use art-making for self-discovery or just for the joy of it.
Dr. Briony Penn is a geographer from Saltspring Island. She has lived most of her life on the shores of the Salish Sea. She is an adjunct professor in the Environmental Studies Program of the University of Victoria and a writer and illustrator with illustrated columns in several regional newspapers. She has been creating maps and teaching community mapping for many years around the province. A founding director of The Land Conservancy of British Columbia, she has been involved with community stewardship initiatives ranging from landowner contact programs throughout B.C. to teaching for the Wetlands Institute and has written and illustrated various books and educational publications.
Nirvan Hope has been an artist all her life. After studying Experiential Aesthetics at Portland State University, she spent many years travelling, painting, meditating and take photographs around the world. As a painter she had her own studio/gallery on Canyon Road in Santa Fe. Wanting to reach a wider audience with her work, she switched to nature photography. Her work intends to inspire others to seek out their own unique relationship with nature. Reaching deep into connection with nature through the bliss of visceral perception, one can record and bring back images of that journey to share and inspire others. Nirvan owns a successful nature photography business in Western Washington: "Earth Rhythms Photography", and is author of the book "Three Seasons of Bees and Other Natural and Unnatural Things.
Hilary Leighton’s early deep and vivid resonance of living processes and universal patterns in wild nature rooted in her a belief that all teaching is an act of love and remembering – this infuses her writing, teaching and learning She is a natural educator, a perennial learner, a tireless advocate for well-being and a wild poet at heart! Hilary holds a MEd, Curriculum and Instruction from SFU, has studied Ecopsychology (EP) at Naropa University, and is completing a three year program in Integrated Body Psychotherapy Practitioner Training, and not least of all embarking on a doctoral program in EP. She is a certified Laughter Yoga Leader, a certified Myers-Briggs facilitator, and although she spends most of her days imagining and designing ways to bring pedagogical spaces of possibility as the Director of Continuing Studies at Royal Roads University, Hilary derives the most satisfaction from the generosity of teaching and encouraging others - especially out on the land.
Seating is extremely limited so please register early to avoid disappointment!
Date: Friday, May 28 through Sunday, May 30, 2010
Length: 2 nights – 3 daysTimes: various – field trip
Cost: $695 + GST
Please Register By: Friday, May 7, 2010
* Note: cost includes water taxis and transportation to Boat Basin from Tofino, room, board, learning activities, lectures, and tours. Participants responsible for their own transportation to Tofino
