July Newsletter
News, Exhibitions and Events...
🌾 July
July has blown in on a dusty southerly wind; a welcome, cooling breath after a punishing canicule that had us hiding indoors, sheltering from temperatures well over 40 degrees. Many garden plants bear the scars of heat damage and some have perished entirely. The horses have suffered too — we’ve been hosing them down throughout the day, trying to offer a little relief.
Now that the air has softened, we’re reclaiming the early mornings and late evenings for work outside. Summer always brings extra tasks on the land — watering, tending, repairing, harvesting — and this year, with everything running ahead of itself, it feels as though the days are full before they even begin. There’s a quiet weight to the season, a sense of carrying more than usual, yet the rhythm of daily work has its own kind of steadiness.
Creative time is scarce, but creative thought is not. Ideas arrive while I’m carrying water, or watching the horses flick their tails, or noticing the first glow worms in the borders. Even when hands are busy and the heart is stretched thin, the mind still wanders toward colour, shape, story.
Warm weather has coaxed out the summer visitors: hummingbird moths darting like tiny spirits, salamanders slipping through damp corners, spiders weaving industriously in every sheltered nook. In the fields around us, harvest is already underway. It seems to creep earlier each year. I remember harvest as an end‑of‑summer event when I was a child, just before the school holidays ended — but no longer, it seems. The seasons shift, and we shift with them, carrying our thoughts forward even when time and circumstance pull us in other directions.
🌾June in Review - what we’ve been creating.
🌾Class availability.
🌾Summer Project.
🌾Upcoming Expos & Creative Gatherings.
🌾 Class availability
Autumn term dates will be available in the next newsletter - be sure your place is booked!
🌾June in Review — What We’ve Been Creating
Across several groups we have painted a lot of puffins! We’ve also painted cold drinks, giraffes, insects, bird nests, birds and various individual projects.
🪨 Summer Project: Standing Stones
This summer, our creative project turns toward the ancient stones — the circles, avenues, menhirs, and burial chambers scattered across Brittany and Great Britain. These monuments are never far away, yet they remain mysterious, atmospheric, and deeply rooted in the land.
A perfect excuse for summer days out, quiet observation, and gentle research.
1. Choose a Site
Select a site that interests you — famous or obscure.
Look for:
Historical information
Archaeological notes
Local folklore or legends
Old maps or drawings
2. Visit & Record
Spend time with the stones. Notice:
How they sit in the landscape
Weathering, erosion, lichen, texture
Light at different times of day
Human interactions over the centuries
The mood of the place — solemn, wild, peaceful, eerie
Sketch, photograph, write, or simply sit and absorb.
3. Create Your Artwork
Over the summer, develop an individual artwork inspired by your chosen site.
This may be:
A drawing or painting
A textile piece
A sculptural study
A mixed‑media work
A written reflection paired with imagery
We’ll share these pieces in class at the start of the Autumn term.
🪨If you fancy a guided walking tour of local ancient sites contact www.timetrailsinbrittany.fr
🎨 Upcoming Expos & Creative Gatherings
🎨 Le Voyage à Nantes (Late June – Late August)
Although technically just outside Brittany, this major contemporary art trail is one of the region’s biggest summer draws. The city becomes an open‑air gallery filled with installations, sculptures, architectural interventions, and guided artistic routes.
🎨 Festival des Vieilles Charrues — Carhaix (16–19 July 2026)
Primarily a music festival, but it has strong cultural and artistic programming, including visual arts, scenography, and large‑scale creative installations across the festival grounds.
🎨Cornouaille Festival — Quimper (23–26 July 2026)
A major celebration of Breton culture featuring traditional arts, costume parades, embroidery workshops, dance, theatre, and craft exhibitions. A wonderful place to see regional artistic heritage.
🎨Sound & Light Show at the Abbey of Bon Repos (29 & 31 July; 1, 5, 7, 8 August 2026)
A spectacular historical fresco performed outdoors with hundreds of volunteer actors, elaborate staging, lighting, and visual storytelling. Not an “exhibition” in the gallery sense, but a major artistic event.
🎨 Festival du Bout du Monde — Crozon Peninsula (31 July – 2 August 2026)
A world‑music festival with strong cultural programming, artisan stalls, and creative installations in one of Brittany’s most beautiful landscapes.
🎨 Festival Interceltique de Lorient (31 July – 9 August 2026)
Begins at the very end of July. A huge celebration of Celtic culture with music, dance, costume, craft, and cultural exhibitions from Celtic nations.
Do let me know if you attend any of these — I’d love to hear your thoughts.
🌾With the longest day behind us, summer stretches ahead with long evening shadows and warm, lingering light. The garden is entering its busy season: fruit and vegetables already cropping, herbs at their fragrant peak. I’ll be spending many afternoons processing and preserving produce, indulging my new passion for canning edible supplies for future use. There’s something deeply satisfying in the thought that jam made on a hot July day will be opened on a frosty winter morning — a small act of care sent forward through time.
Lately I’ve been thinking about how our creative work does much the same. The drawings, paintings, stories, and small handmade things we create now become quiet gifts to the future — something that may be held, read, or rediscovered long after the moment of making has passed. In difficult seasons, this feels especially important: the knowledge that what we shape today can offer comfort, beauty, or connection to someone in a time we cannot yet see.
Preparing for the future isn’t only about jars on shelves or vegetables stored away; it’s also about tending hope, leaving traces of ourselves, and believing that gentler days will come. Making art is one of the ways we keep that hope alive — a way of saying, softly but firmly, there will be a future, and it will still need creativity.
Time to make provision for future days, in every sense.
A+
Elizabeth
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That’s a great project for summer, Liz. I love ancient megaliths and look forward to painting some!
Nice read, thanks Liz!