Sharing our Garden:
Creative workshops for unpaid carers
Care Makers is back for 2026! This year we are inviting adult unpaid carers, young carers and families to take part in Care Makers Club, a series of dedicated therapeutic art workshops using earth-based materials such as clay, metal, wood, paper and textiles which look into the more-than-human microworlds and ecologies within the garden.
You will investigate species, micro-organisms, trees and plants and look at how they are living, talking, caring for each other. You will explore what magic and lore surrounds them, and what we might discover and learn from them. Drawing upon this knowledge, participants will create a series of artworks which offer us new perspectives and tools to see, engage, play and interact within the garden.
Reserve your place below on each block of workshops.
Access costs for all attendees are supported, this might include travel, fuel, or other care costs, for example. Please chat to Ruby to find out how we can make it possible for you to join in: community@forganartscentre.co.uk. we will do all we can to support your participation.
This activity is possible thanks to Inspiring Scotland’s Communities Fund.
It can be hard to recognise that you’re a carer. You might see yourself as a partner, friend or sibling to the person you care for, rather than their carer.
If you look after someone because they are ill, disabled, or frail, and you do it unpaid, then you are a carer.
Carers Garden Social, Saturday 15 August 12pm-3pm
The Carers Garden Social invites the Care Makers group, their friends and family to come and celebrate the artworks and the carers who have so passionately, lovingly and joyfully made them collectively with dedication from Spring through Summer this year! The carers will also have the opportunity to pit fire their clay sigil symbols and everyone will have a chance to participate in some workshops making botanical dyes, inks and watercolour drawings using plants found in the garden.
Through a series of therapeutic art workshops the Care Makers group engaged with the garden’s “more-than-human” microworlds. Working alongside invited artists Rhona Warwick Paterson, Coral Brookes and Slaghammers Collective they co – created clay and metal artworks which investigate the symbiotic languages of microorganisms, flora, ancient trees and pondered ways in which these permeate within ourselves in relationship to each other.
The works hold elements of mindfulness and magic in action, containing sigil symbols which embody forms of language which connect to personal inner states, desires and intentions including ;
BRIGHTNESS
CONNECTED
TRANQUILL
EMBRACED
PROTECTION
CHERISH
SHELTER
A sigil is a symbol that represents a magical intent, signature of a spirit. The word comes from the Latin word sigillum, which means a little sign or seal.
The objects have been made for the garden at Forgan Arts Centre and each piece will exist in relationship to/with the surrounding ecosystems and micro-organisms that are found there.
For more information on this project or how to get involved please get in touch with Ruby community@forganartscentre.co.uk.
Care Makers Club: Winter Workshops
Six Weeks on Tuesdays, 11am-1.30pm
10th March to 14th April 2026
During this workshop block we will ‘meet the garden’ and zoom into its more-than-human parts; ecologies, micro organisms, flora and fauna.
WK 1 + 2 + 3 – Drawing, Painting, Poetry & Play. WK 4 + 5 + 6 – Drawing with wool (Weaving) and Clay Meditations.
All places for this block have been reserved. Please get in touch with Ruby community@forganartscentre.co.uk to reserve a place on the next block.
Care Makers Club: Spring Workshops
Six Weeks on Tuesdays, 11am-1.30pm
12 May to 30 June 2026
Using the ideas gathered in the garden we will begin to design and develop garden ceramics and metal sculptures.
WK 3 + 4 + 5 will be metal sculpture workshops that includes welding with Slag Hammers. These are longer sessions running 11 – 3pm. All gear and materials provided.
Wk 1 + 6 are Ceramics sessions with Coral Brookes developing ideas around ceramics for the garden.
The rest of the block will focus on large scale ceramics and making.
All adult unpaid carers are welcome to join us but capacity is limited. Please get in touch with Ruby community@forganartscentre.co.uk to reserve a place on this block.
Family Garden Play+Make Sessions at Forgan Arts Centre
Friday 24 July
Friday 7 August
Friday 16 October
Friday 23 October
11.30am-4.30pm, lunch provided
