OUR TUTORS
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Evangeline Armstrong
Evangeline Armstrong is a figurative artist and designer who graduated with First Class Honours from Central Saint Martins in 2015. Her career started in jewellery design winning awards and collaborating with global companies, including Topshop, Theo Fennell, AZVA and the V&A. Life drawing has been at the heart of her creative practice and the foremost means of learning to truly see and draw. Life drawing informs Evie’s artistic endeavour and she sees it as 'going to the gym' for any creative!
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Lucy Berridge
Lucy has always loved handwriting and all things stationery, so discovering the new version of calligraphy means it is no longer exclusive and achievable by a select few. It can be learnt, practised and enjoyed by anyone. When not writing, Lucy is a Lifestyle Stylist and Art Director.
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Joanna Charlotte
Joanna is a professional artist with over 20 years painting experience working across many genres and mediums. She has exhibited internationally and has notable collaborations with Osborne & Little and renowned German porcelain producer Goebel. Her original artworks, prints and bespoke wallpapers can be found in Luxury hotels and cruise ships as well as private collections worldwide. Her repertoire is mostly inspired by nature, depicting birds and botanical subjects, often simple and pared back compositions and gold leaf artworks. Joanna’s aim is to instil a sense of calm and serenity and to convey her reverence and love of the natural world.
www.joannacharlottedesign.com
Instagram: @joanna.charlotte -
Zoe Davis
Zoe has worked in graphic design for publishers and advertising agencies worldwide including Penguin in London and JWT in Shanghai. Her travels and life overseas have inspired her love of colour and pattern. She understands the connections between colour and our moods and energy levels. Zoe channels this passion and knowledge to bring warmth, happiness and joy to her company, Zobo's, unique collection of fabrics and wallpapers.
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Katy Donaldson
Katy is a photographer with over 25 years of experience as a portrait, lifestyle and beauty photographer. Her work has taken her around the world and has been featured on the covers and inside many magazines in the UK and the Middle East, has been exhibited internationally.
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Sue Gaisford
Sue Gaisford is a journalist and a teacher. She has written features, interviews and reviews for many newspapers, including The Economist, The Independent and the Financial Times, and for magazines, principally RadioTimes and Harpers. Woman and Home and Country Living. A former Literary Editor, Sue is also on the judging panel for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award and is currently writing two memoirs simultaneously, which may be unwise.
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Evie Holdcroft
Evie is a London based fibre artist, whose work utilises weaving, knitting, needle felting, crochet, embroidery, and sewing. Having been taught many of these skills as a young child by her grandmother Evie celebrates how these practices link us to previous generations and aims to shed light on an area of the arts, which has been traditionally overlooked as ‘womens work’.
Evie has working extensively in the arts, an specialises in creating bespoke pieces for theatre and immersive experience. Some of the companies Evie has created pieces for are Nkuku, Sky Sports, Kew Gardens, Ardman, and the Crystal Maze Live Experience.
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Dani Humberstone
With a background in fashion and publishing, Dani is now the curator and artist in residence at Wing Gallery in Wadhurst. Her work is much respected in the art world. She frequently exhibits at the RA Summer Exhibition, and The Florence Biennale regularly features her show representing the UK. Until recently Dani was Vice-President of the Society of Women Artists for many years, and she has also written books on painting for Search Press Ltd.
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Sally Hunter
Sally has worked in Art related environments, more recently for Art Logistics in London. Following many well received commissions for collaged people, pets and places, she now focuses on running her Collage Workshops.
Instagram: @sallyhunter_creativecollage
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Anne Kelly
UK based textile artist Anne Kelly is an award-winning artist, author and tutor. Her multi-layered and densely stitched textiles have been described as ‘small worlds’. Trained in Canada and at Goldsmiths College in London, she creates wall hangings and objects using a mixture of mixed media collage and hand and machine embroidery. Her inspirations are taken from travel, memory, nature and especially folk art.
Anne tutors and teaches fine art and textiles to a variety of groups in the UK and abroad. and is a member of the Embroiderers Guild UK, the Crafts Council Directory and the Society for Embroidered Work. She also exhibits and curates group exhibitions nationally and internationally. Her four books for Batsford are widely collected and studied by students of all ages around the world.
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Jane Mccall
Jane has a degree in Visual Studies and History of Art. Much of her work is influenced by her love of Charleston Farmhouse and the Bloomsbury Group. As a naturally loose and painterly artist, obsessed with colour Jane’s style is expressionist and she inspires confidence to just get the paint down! As a result of teaching at Curious House, Jane is now the artist behind ‘Bloomsbury Revisited’ painting individual lampshades that grace some of the best homes in the land.
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Dominic Parrette
Dominic is a Sussex-based basket maker, willow grower and teacher specialising in traditional frame baskets, organically woven willow forms and beautiful strong plant supports. His clients include The National Trust and Kew at Wakehurst.
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Isobel Spence
A countryside childhood developed Isobel’s relationship with the local plants and through her curiosity, she has acquired safe knowledge about foraging plants and fungi for edible, medicinal and creative purposes. On completion of a History of Art degree at Edinburgh University, Isobel trained as a gardener, learning first at Perch Hill and Charleston Farmhouse, she now works as a gardener for Sissinghurst Castle Garden. Conscious of the impact humans have on earth, Isobel’s approach to foraging is not about consumption but connection, focusing on slowing down and appreciating the often-overlooked beauty in nature.
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Victoria Threlfall
Victoria trained at Camberwell College of Art and is a professional painter. She teaches art courses in London and Italy and leads guided walks on the 19th-century landscape painter Samuel Palmer. As an artist, her work is both figurative and abstract. Recently she has begun to combine her interest in meditation with the practice of drawing.
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Alison Trask
Alison studied at Rochester and then later at Brighton University where she graduated with an MA in Sequential Design and Illustration. She currently paints and teaches from her home studio in Sussex and regularly exhibits her work in the South East.
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Sebastian Tribe
Seb started Terrapy to share his love for terrariums with others, and as a catalyst for positive change addressing some key issues we face as a society; chiefly mental health, social equity and climate change. After training as a lawyer and spending several years working in the city, Seb’s passion for plants and all things nature grew into a full-time hobby and eventually a career. His terrarium workshops help people to reconnect with nature and appreciate the measurable impact of plants on wellbeing. You can read more about his mindful terrarium ethos on his website.
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Michael Wachter
Michael is a hunter, fisher, forager, and primitive skills practitioner based in Hastings, and the founder of Human Keystone. Having travelled the world Michael is an expert on this subject and passionate advocate of natural systems and humans role in the ecosystem. He lectures on habitat restoration, rewilding and foraging and teaches Wales, Scotland, Norway, and Southern UK. Currently Michael is involved in several biodiversity projects including the restoration of wildflower meadows within several communities across East Sussex.
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Mandy Wheeler
Mandy is an award-winning writer and workshop leader who has spent her career working in the creative industries. For a couple of decades, she was a radio director running one of the top audio production companies in London . Nowadays she teaches creative practice, facilitating workshops that encourage the development of professional skills through the exploration of creative talents. She teaches at Lincoln University and the London Film School as well as a wide range of corporate organisations. As a writer she works across commercial and creative writing: prose, scripts, ads, non fiction—she’s done the lot. Her workshops draws on her training in improvisation, clowning and storytelling, with a focus on developing spontaneity and removing blocks to creative expression.
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Melissa White
Hastings based designer and painter, Melissa creates bespoke pieces for domestic, commercial and heritage interiors including the fabulous wallpaper in our classroom at The Bell in Ticehurst. Her love of surface patterns has drawn her towards diverse projects including The Queen’s summerhouse at Buckingham Palace. Melissa has collaborated with many prestigious brands resulting in award-winning wallpapers and fabric for Lewis & Wood, Zoffany and Kit Kemp. Her style is imbued with a historic, artisanal, and painterly feel that has its roots in wall painting of old.
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Em Williams
Em Williams is a sign painter and artist specialising in hand-painted lettering, reverse glass signs and gilding (a fancy word for applying gold leaf, which looks similarly fancy). She combines traditional methods of painting by hand and various gilding techniques with the highest quality materials to produce beautiful handcrafted typographic signs.
Em not only paints but also holds a Masters’ degree in Typeface Design and has fifteen years of experience working commercially as a Brand, Print, Graphic and Typeface Designer. The love of letters has always been at the forefront of her work — only now it’s applied with paint, gold leaf, and precious materials like mother of pearl, making it even more of a joy.
lettersbyem.studio
Instagram: @lettersbyem.studio -
Caroline Zoob
Caroline is a self-taught embroiderer with no formal art training. After school, she trained as an opera singer and then qualified as a solicitor. She discovered antique textiles and took up stitching in her late 30s when her work was spotted by Country Living magazine. Her first show in 2000 sold out and now her delicate, painterly embroideries and collages made from antique papers are much sought after.
Caroline is the author of Childhood Treasures, The Hand-Stitched Home and Virginia Woolf’s Garden, a book inspired by the garden she and her husband restored and maintained on behalf of the National Trust. Her most recent endeavour is as editor and publisher of The Stitcher’s Journal.