We believe in the Arts – any creative moments which excite the soul and allow the mind to wander… We work on the basis that creativity can be nurtured from the smallest of seeds. An ember within us all might not seem significant from day to day, yet at RAW-i we cherish it. We provide the space and guidance to build this ember into a glowing beacon of personal vision. Through ongoing support, challenge (direct and remote) and a professionalism which seeks to equip individuals with skills, language, knowledge and passion we develop an inspirational place that we all may flourish within.
Creativity To The Core
Wendy Connelly
I was born surrounded by Art and Artists. I am by my own admission a painter trying to tackle the quintessence of a landscape, the hidden but core feel and meaning that impacts upon my presence. Through my work I seek a relationship that is a combination of time spent in a landscape observing and waiting for something to appear that cannot be seen.
Paint is a passionate medium that I test and explore pushing it to its raw qualities. Mixed media is always a consideration and I am constantly feeling the need to push and find new ways of visualising my work. I try to find unease within the mediums and colours that I use. The vastness and wealth of a landscape is powerful and takes time to filter to something that feels instinctive.
I have been a member of the Chelsea Arts Club since 1991 after receiving an honorary membership during my degree show at Central St Martins, London. My work appears in both of these institutions’ collections and many other private collections.
Travel is a key component of absorbing new landscapes and through receiving the Boise travelling scholarship my extensive travelling began with a three month trip to paint in Spain. Subsequent trips to the Iberian peninsula have yielded several series’ of work. Asian landscapes have been explored with a protracted journey to SE Asia. This has been contrasted by the cold climates of Michigan and Chicago’s cold winters to the wet and wind swept Atlantic coastline of Ireland. And of course, my feet are never too far from Snowdonia and the Lake District.
I have been represented by major galleries nationally and internationally, most notably the Bernard Jacobson Gallery off Cork Street, London and recently the Lakeside Gallery, Michigan, USA.
Wendy Connelly
Artist, educator, wanderer and co-founder of RAW-i Studios.
Robin Bailey
The bosom of the landscape lifts and falls, with its own leaden tide [Jacquetta Hawks]
I am something of a wanderer, both in mind and body. I have always been drawn to the landscape, its natural features, the openness, the feeling one gets when the elements greet you. “To know fully even in one field or one land is a lifetime’s experience. In the world of poetic experience it is depth that counts, not width. A gap in a hedge, a smooth rock surfacing a narrow lane”. We spend a lot of of our time in a kind of stasis of regimental patterns. As way of catharsis I will amble over hill, along a stream to its source, I will watch how the mountains affect the passing clouds. In an almost playful manner the sharp peaks, ridges and steep faces disrupt, then reform the fragmenting clouds.
My love for the outdoors was cemented and I embarked on reading Physical Geography for my undergraduate degree. It was here that I was introduced to [Rachel] Carlson, Lovelock [Gaia theory] and [Roger] Deakin, [Nan] Shepherd and [Barry] Lopez, to name a few whose words penetrated deep into my psyche. The words of Kavanagh reverberated “..it is depth that counts, not width..”
I had permission to sit still and to watch, to observe the passing of a day and how the landscape responds. Sitting in a basic shelter watching flocks of sea birds head in land ahead of an encroaching maelstrom or eyeing the silken bodies of rainbow trout in acid-clear water of a mountain river gave me a deeper connection to Nature.
I combine this love of the natural world with my desire to respond to it through words. Poetry and prose has been a growing, oft times frustrating relationship but one which requires time. Beyond the pages of some literary greats I delved into education.
I have been a teacher, trainer and school leader for over 17 years. Bringing my passion for my subject to the reach of thousands of young people (many of whom have gone onto enjoy their own explorations into the natural world). One of the constant features of the education profession is the desire to be better, to grow and to always be willing to learn. As we entered a period of uncertainty as a result of a global pandemic the role of technology was suddenly and, I hope, irrevocably thrust into the forefront of the profession.
I have spent my entire career so far embracing new ideas and employing the latest technology to assist (never to replace) the ultimate goal of making education and learning accessible and acceptable to those ‘consuming’ it. I firmly believe that our use of technology should always have the learner at the centre of consideration and that the technology be used in such dynamic ways as to almost feel invisible.
Robin Bailey
I am a poetic-trampo-geologist-bot-ornith-natural, wanderer, observer’
