About
Workshops in Wild Places
“True elders can hear the Earth whisper her guidance.
Bill Plotkin
In this time of great crisis and transition, it is the Earth’s guidance we most need.”
About WiWP
Workshops in Wild Places is an invitation to step out of the “studio mind” and into a more participatory way of painting—one rooted in attention, presence, and relationship with the living world.
Unlike many workshops, these eco-painting retreats unfold in remote landscapes, where each participant has a private ensuite room. Most meals are shared, nurturing a sense of community, and the group is kept small—no more than nine artists—allowing space for attentive, individual guidance.
Rather than focusing on producing finished work, the emphasis is on learning to listen: to the land, to light and weather, to our own bodies and responses. Through quiet walking, attentive looking, simple colour studies, and slow painting sessions, participants are guided to loosen habits of control and expectation, and to allow the work to emerge through response rather than intention.
Painting becomes less about imposing an idea and more about entering into conversation—with place, with materials, and with one another embarking on the same journey.
Details
Workshops are held in small, character-filled accommodations where participants live, eat, and work together, fostering a natural sense of community. Shared meals, conversation, and unhurried time support a slower, more attentive creative rhythm.
In addition to painting, each workshop includes opportunities to learn more deeply about the place itself. This may involve a visit to a site of ecological or cultural significance, or time with a local storyteller, artist, scientist, or naturalist. These encounters help situate our work within the larger story of the land, reminding us that we are guests in a living, storied world.
The emphasis throughout is on presence over performance, process over product. Finished paintings may emerge, but participants often leave with something more enduring: a renewed trust in their own perception and a deeper sense of connection to place.
About Janice Mason Steeves
Janice Mason Steeves has been painting and teaching for over four decades. Her work is grounded in deep attentiveness to landscape and a belief that painting can be a form of listening—an act of relationship rather than representation.
She is the author of Bloom: On Becoming an Artist Later in Life and leads small, immersive workshops internationally. She is currently working on a book exploring wildness, creativity, and our relationship with the living Earth. Janice’s teaching emphasizes presence, generosity of attention, and the quiet intelligence that emerges when we slow down enough to notice what is already here. Learn more at janicemasonsteeves.com.