Workshops

Alongside delivering a programme of art and performance events St. Margaret’s has a strong commitment to supporting learning and development opportunities for all age groups across music and visual art.

As a venue for workshops, the building provides an inspirational space with excellent acoustics and the necessary facilities. It is conveniently located in the centre of the village of Braemar where break-out spaces can be hired.

NEOS: Carrie Fertig

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.

 Past Workshops

The following is a sample of the workshops we have hosted during the last three years funded by local and national project partnerships initiated and co-managed by St. Margaret’s.