THERE are many free drop-in activities at the Ellen Hutchins Festival for adults and families taking place this weekend.
On Saturday (17th) at Future Forests in Kealkil, there will be a family trail before author and broadcaster Anja Murray speaks about her book, Wild Embrace. On Sunday 18th, at the Bantry Agricultural Show, there is a heritage special on seaweeds and traditions.
There will also be a range of botanical arts and crafts workshops providing a variety of ways of getting closer to nature – focussing on plants and learning more about them. The workshops need to be booked in advance.
In her workshop, Wild Botanical Colours, eco-artist Kathy Kirwan will lead participants through the process of foraging for the plant material and then creating dyes. The workshop takes place in the Garden of Re-Imagination in Glengarriff.
There are two Green Sketching workshops – one for adults and one for families with Anne Harrington-Rees. Green Sketching is a fairly new concept involving sketching nature for our well-being – learning how to doodle, not as an artistic practice, but as a tool to see and enjoy the beauty in the natural environment, helping participants to relax, unwind and reconnect with nature. Anne is one of Ireland’s first Green Sketching ambassador/trainers.
Weaving willow is a traditional craft practice for both useful and decorative item and Ciara Strange will guide visitors through making a willow flower to take home.
Clare Henderson will lead two workshops outdoors and also in the new workshop space in William Street, Bantry on ‘Drawing from Life on the Shore’ and ‘Printing from Life on the Shore’.
The workshop programme is designed for adults and most listings give an indication of age for young people to attend, either alone or with an accompanying adult.
See www.ellenhutchins.com under ‘festival’ for more.
New book is a tribute to Ellen
A NEW book, Holdfast, a tribute to the work of nineteenth-century Ballylickey botanist Ellen Hutchins, will be launched next week as part of the Ellen Hutchins Festival.
Author Annette Skade combed local archives and the landscape near her home in search of connection to the celebrated botanist when she was confi ned by the Covid lockdown to her home near Bantry Bay and witness to its environmental degradation. Hutchins, tied to Bantry as a carer for her mother and brother, had collected hundreds of seaweeds, lichens, mosses and liverworts and discovered several new species in the course of her short life.
This is the first book by a single author to be published by Channel, a literary journal founded in 2019 to build a community of writers, artists and readers grounded in shared ecological concern. The cover and interior are illustrated with artwork from Marina Dmitrik’s photo series Seaweed, first exhibited as part of IMMA’s eco-art festival Earth Rising in 2023.
Holdfast will be launched as part of the Ellen Hutchins Festival at Bantry Library on Friday August 23rd from 6pm to 7.30pm.
Author and publisher Mary Noonan, who wrote Stone Girl and The Fado House, is the guest speaker.
