The Artist as Magician: A Conversation with Rima Staines & Terri Windling

Saturday July 26th, 6:00pm – 7:30pm

Once upon a time, art and magic were not merely related - they were the same act: a way of shaping reality, summoning meaning, and crossing thresholds. In our modern world, rationality has taken center stage, and art is too often confined to decoration. But what if we could reclaim its wild, transformative power?

Join artist Rima Staines, known for her mythic, otherworldly creations, and author, folklorist, and artist Terri Windling, whose work dwells in the mythic borderlands, for a conversation about the ancient and ever-renewing connection between art and enchantment.

Together, they’ll explore questions such as:

What does it mean to be an artist working at the threshold between the visible and invisible?

How can creative acts be forms of spellwork, invocation, or healing?

And how might we rekindle our artistic lives with the paradigm-shifting power they once held?

Rima will speak about her current Amulet-making project, which turns her own magic inward, and both women will share insights from lifetimes spent at the intersection of art and folklore.

Come prepared to listen, dream, and perhaps be changed.

Tickets: £7 per person
Location: Green Hill Arts

Crossing Thresholds of the Imagination with Art & Hypnosis

The Otherworld (whether we believe in it or not) is a place we all wonder about, long for and recognise whenever we set foot there. It holds sought-after inspiration and insight for us - both individually and collectively - and the ways there are many and varied.

Join renegade consciousness researcher and hypnotist Danny Nemu and artist-magician of the liminal realms Rima Staines to explore the different mannerisms and mechanisms of the imagination as the powerful threshold-crossing vehicle it is.

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See more of our respective work at:
www.dannynemu.com
www.rimastaines.com

We are excited to be bringing this new offering to Crops Not Shops Sacred Earth Roots & Culture Gathering this Solstice weekend and then subsequently elsewhere. (Follow and sign up to our newsletters for first news of events in your neck of the woods...)

This is a talisman to make your imagination-seeds grow. I painted it in a couple of hours on a piece of driftwood.
As you know I am fascinated by the intersection between art and magic and what questions that threshold throws up about agency, otherworlds, imagination, craft and many, many more things. I am not in the business of making pretty objects for no purpose: for me the act of making imagery is to poke my fingers into the fabric of space-time and tie and untie knots, to move things in the unseen layers that we all feel. If you too are intrigued by this, and want to come and make a rustic painted talisman with me for your own particular wish or protection, I'm delighted to tell you that I will be offering some workshops doing just this at a couple of wonderful forthcoming fairs in Somerset. The first is the gorgeous Green Scythe Fair (www.greenfair.org.uk) on 7th & 8th June and the second is the fabulous @cropsnotshops Sacred Earth Roots & Culture gathering over the solstice weekend 19th - 23rd June. I'll have my little wagon gallery at both and art work on show, and I look forward to meeting you there!
There's much more to come in the realm of art×magic, so do watch this weed-entangled space...

A 5-day course in soulful art-making and paint-making with Rima Staines & Caroline Ross

7-11 July 2025

NB :: POSTPONED :: Please subscribe to newsletter for updates.

Dartmoor, Devon, UK

A weekend of folk crafts, ancestral study and spellbinding arts with Kohenet Rachel Rose Reid & artist Rima Staines.

*** POSTPONED *** please subscribe to newsletter for updates.

Dartmoor, Devon, UK

Rima Staines solo exhibition at Southcombe Barn Gallery 7-21 Sept 2024 transporting folk into the liminal as part of a new season of arts focusing on artist-women and the occult.

If you would like to invite me to come and speak on the beautiful intersections of art, magic, creativity, neurodiversity, and the liminal realms, please get in touch!

I can bring a small exhibition of my work housed in a tiny wagon, or other format to suit your space.

After many requests for online teaching from those of you beyond the shores of my actual studio in South Devon, I've decided to begin offering some remote mentoring sessions to support your artistic practice. These 90 minute sessions are designed to be a one-off deep enquiry into your creative practice or longing. Our aim will be to untie knots, explore visions, find keys for doors either locked or unknown and leave you feeling inspired, revitalized and with fresh direction on your own artistic journey.

Labouring with your ideas and visions as an artist can be lonely, and the way ahead isn’t always clear or easy. With a First Class Honours degree from the London University of the Arts and 25 years of professional practice and experience walking this path in my own way, I hope I will have something unique and refreshingly helpful to share with you. I want to support you to feel less alone on this strange and beautiful road.

A mentoring session with me could suit you if:

❖ You have a particular creative conundrum you are trying to work through, or find yourself stuck in a certain area of your practice - this could be skill, mindset or imagination related!

❖ You have a long-latent love of art that you want to unearth and breathe fresh life into.

❖ You are ready to leap into a full-time art practice and are looking for some fire and momentum to propel you forward. You may be about to step off the ledge into the unknown world of the self-employed artist and wondering how to keep hold of the artist’s non-linear vision in a world of lines and boxes.

❖ You are in the midst of a long-term creative project with dwindling motivation, and need a life-line chat to reinvigorate inspiration, passion and determination.

❖ You have some specific creative or technical questions that you would like to talk through.

I love to talk with people and find great joy in seeing their beautiful particularities. I’ll be warm, passionate and uncompromising when it comes to digging at the deep roots of your own particular and beautiful gift.

Sessions take place on Zoom at a mutually agreed time. I will take time before the session to review your work, either through your website, social media platform, or a portfolio file. I will also send you a list of preparatory questions to think about ahead of our chat. Payment is on a sliding scale to make this more accessible. If you can offer more, you will be enabling another artist to do the work they are here to do. Likewise if finances make this impossible for you, write to me.

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Please get in touch if you are interested. I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

Email me on rima.staines@gmail.com

I look forward to working alongside you as you unearth magic.

I offer one to one drawing lessons to both adults and children (8+). They take place in my Totnes studio, and have a strong focus on learning observational drawing skills as a basis for all other art making. These classes will suit artistically keen people who would like some more rigorous and detailed guidance with their drawing skills. The teaching is individually-tailored as we go along and you will be surprised by how quickly your skills and understanding flourish. I believe that this drawing ability and practice underlies all other creative image-making as a vital foundation.

Bring with you a willingness for hard work and your artistic passion!

I have an up-to-date DBS certificate.

A one day workshop for artists to foster connection with what has been called the imaginal otherworld: the canvas of the soul; with a view to meeting the inhabitants of one’s own archetypal landscape, and painting them.

The day will take a bilateral and reciprocal approach: part traditional teaching of drawing and painting skills, part exploration of how to access and draw from one’s own unique and bottomless well of mythic imagination, offering techniques and practices to hone the heart-rooted elf-sight that we all once had as children. Crucially, we will learn to weave these two threads together so that our work emits power.

The hope in offering this workshop and nurturing these combined skills in artist-seers is to stoke the fire of the collective soul and in so doing reforge and anneal our ladders to that Otherworld from which we can learn so much. The workshop will suit artists who already have a committed visual practice, and who appreciate a quiet, contemplative and private style of magic-weaving.

Taught by artist Rima Staines who has been making her soul-rich, story-infused work for over 25 years.

Day of drawing under the guidance of artist Rima Staines

This voucher [available to purchase in shop] will gift someone one day of expert 1-1 drawing tuition in Rima’s studio in Totnes, Devon.

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It will suit those who already have a love of art and a desire to deepen their practice, perhaps where there’s a wish to build skills that you’ve out on learning, or to underpin your existing art practice with more structure.

We will work on still life drawing and self portraiture, learning the fundamentals of traditional drawing practice - perspective, light and shade, dimensions and measuring, anatomy and observation, using pencil and charcoal. My approach is warm and encouraging, involved and exacting, I will support you throughout the process.

Beginners are most welcome, but you must come with a commitment to work hard!

All materials provided - please bring a portfolio to carry your work home in.

Suitable for those over 16.

(If you are interested in drawing tuition for your child over 8, please get in touch as I offer this also, in shorter sessions.)

Hours 9.30am-3pm with 1 hour lunch break.

Date to be mutually agreed.

Location Totnes, Devon, South West UK - reachable by train and bus, with great local accommodation and artisan food on offer, not to mention the beauty of Dartmoor and the sea not far away.

Please get in touch with any further questions.