Eco-arts +
Art & Wellbeing
For Those Seeking and Walking a Path to Deeper Connections with Creativity, Nature, and Horses
eco-arts
As a Socially Engaged Eco-Artist, Siobhán works within a community setting to foster connection to one another, ourselves and to the natural environment.
Through artist residency and community gardening, Siobhán has been supported by the Wicklow Arts Office and Creative Ireland as part of the Creative People and Places Baltinglass programme.
Siobhán’s residency from September 2024 to the end of June 2025 involved engaging residents at Respond’s First Brain Health Village with their new garden beds by facilitating a weekly Garden Club. Residents chatted over tea & coffee and often some home-baked goods from nature such as elderberry muffins or a healthy smoothie from the garden produce.
All ages were welcome to sow, harvest and create with yarn dyed from the onion skins and cordage created from the wild meadow. Recipes were shared and cooking from the garden produce was encouraged amongst residents. A core group really made the club their own and are continuing their weekly meetups, providing arts and crafts for the children, harvesting and sowing new food. Siobhán is currently putting together her reflective response with the intention that it can promote further engagement for residents with the garden, connection to broader nature and their well-being. Watch this space for more to come.
Siobhán received the SEED funding award at the beginning of the Creative Places programme in 2023 to begin a Community Dye Garden in a Tearmann Community Garden. Through serendipity, or word-of-mouth, a group was formed who meet to weed, plant and learn. An event was also delivered to the wider community involving tie-dye shirts with indigo dye vat, logwood, madder and bundle dye. We also teamed up with a sound bath therapist who treated us with sound waves while our cotton and colour brewed.
Garden Club
"From this experience, it was clear to me that wisdom and knowledge comes from within the group and this is an aspect I encourage. Last summer skills from members were shared of scouring, mordanting, dyeing wool and spinning from the garden plants. We also tried our hands at cyanotype, soap making and sharing knowledge on the medicinal uses of the plants we have. I began a community blog which prompted me to invest in this new website. Now the blog may continue."
Siobhán’s takeaway:
‘Siobhán’s artistic events let people feel close and connected to the land. Her forest events immerse people in the sensory pleasures of nature. People get to make art from natural materials- it could be a tie-dye cotton skirt in real indigo or a painting made with grass and earth pigments.
Fire often features which adds to the buzz of the event. When other elements are added such as the sound bath, you come away with a feeling of peace that is hard to find anywhere else. I look forward to seeing what new classes and art gatherings Siobhán does next.’
–Avril O’Reily- B.ART- Baltinglass Art Group
Tie-Dye in Tearmann Community Gardens (adolescent and adult)
future + funding
This year although we did not meet up as often, we met to tend to the garden, meditate with the flowers and talk about future plans linked with the local folklore.. Watch this space!
We need your support to apply for match funding in order to reach more people and host events in relation to colour, creativity, connection and meditation (whether moving or sitting) as well as our connection to natural and cultural heritage through the environment, folklore and fibre.
The seed project of engaging with dye plants grew in other ways within the local community. For Cruinni Na N’óg 2025, a performance called GIANT DREAMS was put on by the children of the local primary school, Respond Housing, and two Direct-provision centres.
With external and local artists children performed through drumming and parade wearing tie-dyed t-shirts from plants and headdresses with foraged items. They had created a large puppet based on the folklore of the Irish mythical God Dagda who was trying to find his golden harp.
Giant dreams
The role Siobhán took as local artist was in delivering workshops to the school, Respond housing and the direct provision centres where the children got to dye-dye their t-shirts with natural dye, bundle dye the large puppet’s costume and create large and small dreamcatchers from willow and plant-dyed yarn to decorate the garden for their performance.
Are you an artist seeking collaboration with creativity outdoors?
Eco- Arts- Arts and crafts with natural materials to promote dialogue and awareness on sustainable practice and our interconnected relationship with nature
Sharing skills and knowledge with one another
Community Gardens for food, dye/pigment
Wild Meadow- Awareness of plants, sharing knowledge and our stories
Prompts for well-being and creativity
Diversity and belonging
Intergenerational activities
projects like...
5 ways to wellbeing
Siobhán’s practice lies in the intersection of Health and Education. Awareness of the Earth Charter values and principles as well as the application of The 5 Ways to Well-Being and the PERMA model, informs the creative methods chosen to engage with a community.
To Connect
To Keep Learning
To Be Active
To Give
To Take Notice
PERMA
Positive Emotions
Meaning
Engagement
Accomplishment
Relationships
Siobhán can also bring some of her equine learning to the community. Please get in touch if you have the facility and funding for this valuable opportunity for learning, wellness and new perspectives.
Demo with equines for people to witness how animals self-select herbs and oils for self-healing. Medicinal properties of plants. Meditation with plants and equines. Herbal Tea provided.
equine learning
arts & wellbeing
IN SCHOOLS AND ORGANISATIONS
Tailored to the time of the year, these workshops promote festive celebration, the cycles of nature, well-being, community connection. These workshops can be delivered indoors.
Through nature arts and crafts presented in an inviting way, we bring you scent, natural and sensory materials, a theme, prompt or a demonstrated craft for guidance.
These workshops are adapted to suit any age or community group.
They promote the 5 ways to well-being and PERMA.
FESTIVE NATURE ART & CRAFT
Half Day/One Day workshops which centre around the 5 ways to well-being and PERMA.
Taking one of the 5 as the core, one or two art-based methodologies are selected to bring participants in connection to sensory language aimed to celebrate the stories of who they are; their unique journey and nurture a sense of belonging. These workshops also promote playful exploration and can be adapted to suit any age group.
Taking some time to connect to a natural environment, we invite this experience inside with us as we create, or we may remain outside if suitable.
WELL BEING FROM THE OUTSIDE-IN AND THE INSIDE-OUT
