Carrie Fertig is delighted to be participating in North East Open Studios at St. Margaret's Saturday 13th - Sunday 21st September, 2025. Carrie is an interdisciplinary artist working in performance, video, sculpture, and installation and also a metalsmith and maker in flameworked glass, the latter often getting incorporated into her performances and videos.
On display will be a selection of sculpture, including a life-size glass sheep, similar to the one currently on display at Perth Art Gallery's GLASS exhibition, videos, and glass icicles like her bespoke ones for The Fife Arms Shop, only in jewellery, much smaller, and for windows, much larger. These huge icicles are from her installation Ausklingen (Fade Away) at The Veste Coburg, the castle Prince Albert is from in Germany, and there will also be glass feathers from Homing, an installation of a six meter pair of glass dove wings at Chichester Cathedral. She'll be showing glass and hand wrought copper Highland and mythical creatures, Christmas ornaments, and blown glass sheep. NEOS is Carrie's only selling show in the UK this year.
Since 2022, Carrie has led Health of the Sublime, a Creative Scotland supported project mapping the lived experience of wellbeing in the natural world through the lens of climate change. She will be on hand every day 10am-5pm to explain the project and ways to be involved, as well as her processes, and the stories and legends behind her wee and large scale works. In life and art, Carrie is fueled by deep immersion in nature, our connection to it and each other. She looks forward to warmly welcoming you in September for NEOS.
Workshops
Health of the Sublime is a creative arts programme focusing on the lived experience of wellbeing in the natural world through the lens of climate change. Supported by Creative Scotland and in partnership with Mearns and Coastal Healthy Living Network.
All events are free and no experience is needed for any of them.
Map Making Workshop: 14th September 6-9pm
Health of the Sublime, in partnership with St. Margaret's Braemar and North East Open Studios, invite participants to help make a multimedia handcrafted textile map, based on the places we most intensely experience wellbeing and the sublime in the natural world.
Please bring a nature-based object from a place where you have experienced heightened wellbeing in nature (e.g. a shell, pebble, branch etc...to be incorporated into a large textile map, all nine meters of which will be laid out in the nave making a giant quilt of wellbeing. We will incorporate text, poems, textile skills including embroidery, and other objects, and will engage in a discussion of the meaning of these, their connection to wellbeing, and how making and being in nature affect our outlook. Participants from previous map making sessions are very welcome and encouraged to return and continue the journey with us.
The map will be the focus of ritual performances in locations of climate change impact and will be the centerpiece in the Health of the Sublime exhibition at The Barn, Banchory, next year 25th September - 24th October, 2026.
Leading the sessions is socially engaged interdisciplinary artist Carrie Fertig, who works in performance, video, sound, installation, spoken word, and virtual reality. Fertig is also a maker in flameworked glass and metal and will be exhibiting at St. Margaret's Braemar for North East Open Studios 13th-21st September 10am-5pm daily.
Tell Your Story recording sessions
Throughout the run of North East Open Studios, we invite you to make an audio recording of your stories of nature for the online Health of the Sublime Map and the exhibition at The Barn in September 2026. Would you like to share:
1. Your Sublime List: a spoken list of your experiences in nature where you felt awe, moved, grateful, perhaps swept away.
2. Narrative: Where in nature do you feel welbeing? How does being in the natural world impact you? We would love to hear your story wherever it takes place, recording a moment to a lifetime's observation.
3. Future: What are your concerns about and what is your vision for the future of your beloved place?
Recording sessions are one-on-one. Carrie will send you edited versions of your recordings, so don't worry about pauses or coughing. You may then choose to approve them for the digital map and exhibition, but it's always your choice. There are 1-2 slots available on each of these evenings:
5-6:30pm Monday 15th September
5-6:30pm Tuesday 16th September
5-6:30pm Thursday 18th September
5-6:30pm Friday 19th September
5-6:30pm Saturday 20th September
Sign up in person at St. Margaret's or email carrie@carriefertig.com
Embroidery Workshop: 6-8pm 17th September
The 9 x 2 meter Map of Wellbeing in the Nature will be laid out in the nave of St, Margaret's throughout NEOS and is open to drop-in embroidery anytime 10-5, but Wednesday evening we will have a special embroidery workshop where you can learn or teach embroidery skills as we get The Map of Wellbeing ready for performances for Climate Week North East and the Health of the Sublime exhibition at The Barn in 2026. All materials will be provided. No experience needed.
