2025/6 schedule
1. Mentoring - Monthly two hour zoom group sessions. Ongoing.
2. Weeklong Workshop - Abstraction in the west of Ireland at The Ballinglen Arts Foundation. July 2026.
1. A Creative Community - mentoring group
If you are you an artist looking to build genuine confidence in your creative practice and career this group is designed to support you while you work.
We will focus on strengthening your skills and maintaining your voice, both in the studio and the world.
My role as your Facilitator: Anyone who has taken a class with me knows that I am not generally prescriptive. Instead, through discussion, an artist's individual direction is revealed. I then help find the next right steps for you to take.
One of the best comments I ever got after a workshop was that I had not merely helped an artist how to paint but I had helped her be a painter. I will facilitate the group so that no matter what you are working on you will receive support from me and each other to clarify and achieve your goals.
What we will cover:
- Working together helps to clarify ambitions, whatever they may be, from simply having regular studio hours to larger art world goals. Support of peers dispels lingering doubts and helps to unstick areas so that actions can be taken.
- Developing your creative practice, means creating a cohesive body of work, knowing what you want to make and why.
- Creating a productive studio space and making time to work acknowledges the reality of busy lives and family commitments. This group is a two-hour appointment for you to check in, hear yourself, be inspired by others, and renew your creative energy.
- Understanding and working with materials, trying new ones and getting to know what works best for you.
- Preparing for exhibitions, finding out when and how to show your work.
- The business of being a professional artist, creating artist statements, titling and pricing work, making an inventory, and photographing your work.
- Presenting and selling your work with confidence.
My role as your Facilitator: Anyone who has taken a class with me knows that I am not generally prescriptive. Instead, through discussion, an artist's individual direction is revealed. I then help find the next right steps for you to take.
One of the best comments I ever got after a workshop was that I had not merely helped an artist how to paint but I had helped her be a painter. I will facilitate the group so that no matter what you are working on you will receive support from me and each other to clarify and achieve your goals.
What we will cover:
- Working together helps to clarify ambitions, whatever they may be, from simply having regular studio hours to larger art world goals. Support of peers dispels lingering doubts and helps to unstick areas so that actions can be taken.
- Developing your creative practice, means creating a cohesive body of work, knowing what you want to make and why.
- Creating a productive studio space and making time to work acknowledges the reality of busy lives and family commitments. This group is a two-hour appointment for you to check in, hear yourself, be inspired by others, and renew your creative energy.
- Understanding and working with materials, trying new ones and getting to know what works best for you.
- Preparing for exhibitions, finding out when and how to show your work.
- The business of being a professional artist, creating artist statements, titling and pricing work, making an inventory, and photographing your work.
- Presenting and selling your work with confidence.
This group is a place to get support to progress in a friendly environment.
Join a small group of six to eight intermediate-level artists
for a two-hour online (zoom) meeting on the first Tuesday of each month.
The cost is €80 (approx US$93) per month with a 3 month initial commitment.
Join a small group of six to eight intermediate-level artists
for a two-hour online (zoom) meeting on the first Tuesday of each month.
The cost is €80 (approx US$93) per month with a 3 month initial commitment.
2. Abstraction Workshop
Weeklong Painting Workshop: 6 - 14 July 2026Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Ballycastle, Co. Mayo, Ireland
This is a painting workshop focused, not on a particular technique, but on exploring the world of abstraction.
Immersed in this unique environment, delve into the real unseen.
Ballycastle and the surrounding rural area is steeped in history, mythology and natural wonder. An immersed experience of it all enriches creativity. Abstraction, as a form, allows for the expression of a myriad of situations and energies. To step into this unknown territory we will gather sensory information, loosen up the hand and get inspiration flowing.
The requirements are curiosity and openness to experimentation. It is especially useful for those in transition, those facing a creative block, anyone who would like to expand horizons or those, like me, truly passionate about abstraction!
Daily morning group sessions will address and answer the big and small questions we have about making work. The aim of the weeklong immersion is to create a situation in which you gather precious internal resources, prompted by the group working environment and experimental atmosphere, and possibly unearth the impetus for a lifetime of work.
There will be an emphasis on collection of information, flights of fancy, profound realisation. The resulting work can take any form; painting on paper, notebook work and drawing will be encouraged as starting points.
The week will be comprised of morning meetings, walks, time to work in studio, slide presentations and communal dinners.
Immersed in this unique environment, delve into the real unseen.
Ballycastle and the surrounding rural area is steeped in history, mythology and natural wonder. An immersed experience of it all enriches creativity. Abstraction, as a form, allows for the expression of a myriad of situations and energies. To step into this unknown territory we will gather sensory information, loosen up the hand and get inspiration flowing.
The requirements are curiosity and openness to experimentation. It is especially useful for those in transition, those facing a creative block, anyone who would like to expand horizons or those, like me, truly passionate about abstraction!
Daily morning group sessions will address and answer the big and small questions we have about making work. The aim of the weeklong immersion is to create a situation in which you gather precious internal resources, prompted by the group working environment and experimental atmosphere, and possibly unearth the impetus for a lifetime of work.
There will be an emphasis on collection of information, flights of fancy, profound realisation. The resulting work can take any form; painting on paper, notebook work and drawing will be encouraged as starting points.
The week will be comprised of morning meetings, walks, time to work in studio, slide presentations and communal dinners.
Travel Information:
- travel to Ballina, Co.Mayo from Dublin Ireland
by bus (buseireann.ie)
or train (www.irishrail.ie)
The workshop fee does not include bus/rail transport, but does include transport to and from Ballina for your arrival and departure.
Additional Details:
Ballinglen Arts Foundation is located in the rural town of Ballycastle, County Mayo.
There are obvious marks of continuous habitation for 6000 years in this part of the country. see Ceide Fields (a 6000 year old Neolithic site)
The beach is about a mile from the town and there are numerous loop walks that are easily accessed.
you can email me with questions about class content or materials.
email: nualaclarke@gmail.com
WEATHER! There is no bad weather only the wrong clothes for the weather we have! Layers, hat, scarf, gloves, a waterproof jacket, trousers makes life easier. wool socks if you have them. the average temp in June is 70 degrees F. The centre and the workshop building are well heated but outdoor weather can be "changeable" !
