Gaia Gathering Dunoon – Creative Sessions
Event information
Date Wednesday, 22 Jul 2026
Time 6pm - 8pm
Cost Free Ticket - Donation of £5 at door
Venue Dunoon Bunkhouse, 139-141 Argyll Street, Dunoon PA23 7DD
This will be the first arts and crafts event at Gaia Gathering Dunoon. It is for adults to come together to be creative, get messy and to give preloved items new life. Recycling, repurposing as much as we can, we will explore the environment in which we live in meaningful and expressive ways.
It is a ticketed event with only 10 spaces available so booking is essential.
Creating Argyll Songlines through the repurposing of old playing cards as oracle cards of personal land and sky based storytelling
So what are songlines? –
“Songlines, related to Dreamings or Dreaming tracks, connect sites of knowledge embodied in the features of the land.” Margo Neale Songlines – The Power and Promise. pg. 1.
We will repurpose old playing cards using paints, pages from old magazines & books and other mediums. Drawing upon their new surfaces tales and emotions linked to our home here in Argyll.
What stories can you tell? Meanings captured in the forest, lochs, seas, rivers and hill each form a narrative that binds us together in this location and landscape. Let them flow freely. Have fun, loosen your mind and listen to what your body tells you. You carry great wisdom. In play, in getting messy the stories, the knowing’s can all find expression through you.
How do you feel when you think of Loch Eck? What memories jump to mind? What pictures and words capture what that place gives you? Let it speak through you and on to the creation of your very own oracle card.
We will trace songlines through our imaginings and create tools of storytelling, through our own handmade oracle cards, connecting us to Gaia as she expresses herself here in Argyll and perhaps in the great Cosmos beyond. We do see some amazing skies here!
As we glance through pages of preloved books, we are drawn to words, phrases that give life to our stories within. Writing and painting on our oracle cards we transcribe and guide our connection to the collective knowledge and experiencing of this local community.
Then in a later gathering we will wet-felt a small woollen pocket in which we will keep our growing collection of songs and stories. Meaning will slowly form in the stories and songs that appear on each card. Remembering and sharing weaves together our shared songs.
Do you fancy it? Let’s rediscover the songlines of Argyll together….
A suggested donation of £5 can be made on the day and monies will be donated to our hosts The Gathering Place at the Dunoon Bunkhouse, where a community space is slowly building.
Helen has kindly donated the space for our purposes and some of the arts supplies have been given to us by Josie at R & R Removals. The rest comes from my own art stash at home.