We are an arts space and print studio based in Cardigan, West Wales. We offer a range of courses in painting, drawing and printmaking plus hold regular exhbitions and events. Our beautiful Grade II listed building ‘The Old Sail Loft’ is located in the historic town centre a short walk from Quay Street car park and from the Highstreet. With views overlooking Mwldan Woods and walks straight out of the door into the beautiful surrounding countryside, we are well placed to enjoy the beautiful scenery, and also the coffee and cakes of Cardigan!
Walden Arts first opened its doors in September 2021 and has since welcomed countless students and visitors for workshops and events. Our fully equipped print room and art studio offer a unique space and atmosphere that allows people to work on their own, but together. This provides a rare opportunity to share ideas and company while going on one’s own creative journey.
Tutors
Elvira Rose Oddy
Rosy is a painter/ printmaker whose subject is broadly landscape. Through her personal experience of wild places, gardens and edgelands she uses drawing to evoke a feeling about a place. She often then works from these drawings fused with memory to take them further in the studio. She is interested in capturing a sense of the vitality of nature and a certain exhilaration of seeing and feeling through her handling of materials, working intuitively, exploring where painting and drawing meet. Concerns of weather, light and space recur in her work. Drawn to juxtaposition and contrast, she hunts for subjects that resonate with her and somehow suggest a microcosm of our experience and hint at the mysterious.
Rosy regularly shows her work and takes part in residencies. Shows include the Best of The Drawing Year at Christies, the Lyn Painter Stainer Prize, Critics Secret show at Mall Galleries, Contemporary Watercolour Prize, Beep painting Prize, The Royal Academy Summer Show. Rosy’s teaching experience includes faciltating painting and drawing workshops at galleries and community centres in Southampton and London. She enjoyed teaching on the Young Artist’s Programme for many years at The Royal Drawing School.
Spike Gascoigne
Spike is an artist/ printmaker specialising in letterpress, relief-printing and screen-printing and runs Walden Press , a letterpress studio on the ground floor of the Old Sail Loft. Walden Press was first founded in London in 2013 and specialises in limited edition runs of books, zines, LPs, prints and posters. Spike’s work ranges in content and style, from figurative to abstract, from the mystical to the absurd, stretching across various formats always with a view to the beauty of the hand-made. Walden Press has exhibited at numerous print and book fairs, including Whitechapel Art Book Fair and Small Publishers Fair. Spike taught printmaking at Hertfordshire University for several years before moving to Wales.