This is a custom made wooden milking stool, hand painted in a small group workshop for a special person’s unique birthday gift. The design was thoughtfully created through group discussion and their feelings around their relationship with the person for whom it was to be gifted.

This is a family project painted by children and adults and represents their sense of place and connection to their environment and larger family. The workshops were held for 1.5 hour periods over 4 weeks to allow for the small children’s attention spans. The project began in a brain storming and sketching workshop, progressing to hand drawing the design and then painting it using acrylic paints onto the internal door.

This was a large group project for a school garden. The poles were chosen to represent the different elements of earth, water, plants, summer harvest and community. All the students in the school made their own unique marks on the poles. The project changed as the workshops were undertaken as each artist worked according to their feelings and sense of place in their world.

The pictured school mural was created through a collaboration of connecting to country and place through a spiritual workshop and then a process of brainstorming, mapping and drawing by the year 6 students involved in the project. As it was a gift to the school by the students and P&C an important aspect of the visual representation was that it illustrated the landscape surrounding the small town of Canowindra NSW. Through several workshops with students and the professional artist involved the mural was painted onto panels and after completion was installed onto a chosen external wall.

In the winter of 2021 The Wholehearted Project was able to host a workshop for creatives to explore how our connection to country and place effects our process of creating and our understanding of creation. Set in the bushland of Gaahna Bula near Orange NSW, our incredible course facilitator- Jen Ringbauer introduced a series of contemplative exercises, poetry and song to the group. Through drawing, painting, sketching, writing and journaling each artists recorded their response and inspiration for further works. A camp fire, coffee, tea and shared food made the workshop a very special event.

This felting workshop was hosted by the wholehearted project and taught by the talented and generous Pam Whitty to a group of children in the age range of 6 - 10 years. Each child enjoyed choosing the fibres and colours to make their felt pictures and the hands-on process of wetting, soaping and rolling the fibres to make felt. The photograph shows the unique designs each artist created in the 4 hour workshop.