Combined Workshops
Learn. Develop. Grow.
About Us
Come, retreat to the slopes of Whatitiri Mountain, relax and create in a place of outstanding natural beauty.
Classes are available for students at all levels of experience and are kept small to ensure that individual attention can be given to everyone. Students learn in a supportive environment and are encouraged to fully explore their creativity and strive for excellence. Advanced students and professional artists come to the Workshop to learn new techniques and to take advantage of open studio sessions with access to equipment, live models and critique sessions.
Meet Our Tutors:
Janet Hyde
After completing a four year Applied Arts Diploma - majoring in pottery - at Northland Polytechnic, as an adult student in the early 1990,s, Janet Hyde designed and built her own studio, EarthBound Potteries. The EarthBound building was especially designed to be an educational facility as well as a private studio and has on-site accommodation available to students or travellers when needed. Janet established herself as a New Zealand potter and has tutored local people and many travellers from around the world in pottery for many years. Over the last four years Janet’s pottery work life has been interspersed with long sailing voyages. On the way from Florida to Fiji she has been fortunate enough to meet other potters and artists and at times “play” in their studios!
Jane Whiting
Established New Zealand artist, whose work is held in private collections internationally and nationally. She has been painting in predominately oils since the seventies, and enjoys experimenting with colour and texture. Jane has recently been selected for the Important World-Wide Artists' Book, Vol. 1. and invited to exhibit in October 2014 at the International Art Fair in the U.S.A. Jane runs classes at her workshop regularly. Jane is experienced in all mediums, specializing in oils, glazing, texture and colour.
Graham Hughes
Teacher and a dreamer who has been taking photos in one way or another all his life. In Dec 2012 he opened Gallery259 in Maungatapere. This gallery has a working darkroom and is committed to the love of photography as a science involving light, chemicals, emulsions and cameras. Historic processes of the 19th Century and camera technology of that time are a passion of Gallery259. Digital technology can be used on images that have an analogue birth. The analogue birth makes all the difference. As a teacher Graham will work with where you are at and what you want to know and introduce you to the world you will fall in love with or that will impact what you do now with a lens.
Beatriz Restrepo
Founder of the Colombian Ethnic Dance Ensemble, which over fourteen years performed in California, USA. Her training includes Modern, Jazz, Ballet and Ethnic Dance. During three decades of performing and teaching activities she has developed her own unique style of Latin Fusion, rooted in the present, but connecting the spiritual with the physical in a way learned from the ancient traditions of the native people from the Americas and Africa.
Beat Rettenmund
Born in Switzerland, studied theatre with Latin American masters in Venezuela and Colombia, before setting out on a street theatre tour through Central America, Mexico to the US. Originally trained as a teacher and classical pianist he found experimental theatre to be the optimal venue for the personal and social work needed to keep man from degenerating into the realm of organized stupidity. He wrote and directed the theatrical aspect of the annual Colombian Cultural Festival in San Francisco and worked intensively in schools, training young people in creative writing, acting and stagecraft.