Seeing the soul in the aberration: A talk with hands-on art-making

6.30–7pm: arrivals 
7–8pm: talk from Rima Staines
8–8.30pm: dinner
8.30–9pm: guided art-making with Rima
9–9.20pm: feedback and discussion

If you can bring a sketchbook (A3 or A4) and a piece of charcoal or a pencil, that would be helpful. If you can't, that's fine: we'll have some paper and charcoal for anyone who doesn't have supplies. You DO NOT have to have any existing art-making practice, or consider yourself artistic. The point is the process, not the product. Messiness is welcome—is sacred.

"There is a crack in everything / That's how the light gets in" describes a kintsugi-truth that we all instinctively understand. Indigenous makers have always known that an intentional flaw in a piece of craft is a necessary inclusion. In this talk, artist Rima Staines will open up a wide-ranging exploration of why the human hand and the human soul are vital in the making of art. We will explore traditional craft practices that honour that crack, that aberration, and look at the magic that becomes possible when we do. Rima will present examples of her own artworks, which display a trademark sense of uncomfortable yet familiar oddity in the people and worlds she paints, alongside an examination of the necessity of imperfection, aberration and strangeness in the upholding of soul and in the generation of enchantment in the realms of art making and beyond. In wider cultural and philosophical contexts, this part of things left deliberately “flawed” enables a vital doorway for soul in an increasingly homogenising, AI-driven world, and, Rima argues, there is a wild fecundity that grows out of this humility of imperfection, which we would be wise not to abandon.

After the talk, there will be an opportunity to set foot together across the threshold of the Otherworld of the Imagination, and, under Rima’s guidance, make art that forges a stronger, deeper, more spellbound relationship between you and your own well of creative inspiration.

About Rima Staines

Rima Staines is an artist whose work straddles myth, magical realism and the folk arts. Her work explores the edges of culture and consciousness in media from painting, music, writing, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, to clock making, mask making, theatre, puppetry, book arts and animation. Rima’s visual world is steeped in melancholy, story-rich and alchemical. Her detailed paintings are often made with oils on found wood - icons rooted in animism that feel simultaneously both strange and familiar. Her paintings have been exhibited and published internationally and hang in many private collections worldwide. 

Not a “free” event. An event that is offered as a gift.

Although there's no charge for your ticket, it's not “free”. It's a gift—something valuable, offered with love and care, whose worth isn't measured in money. Our hope is that coming together not under a market exchange, but as neighbours, offering and receiving gifts, might change something in the tone of these evenings. Might make it more possible for each of us to be deeply changed by the wisdom shared.

We're only releasing 25 gifted places per event, and each place has been made possible by generous donations of funds and by loving preparation of exactly enough food for the ticket holders. So if it turns out that you can't come along, please return your ticket, so that someone else can receive the gift instead. 

About Edge School

Edge School is a conversation series designed to grow a living culture, and share the kind of wisdom that can help us live in these edgy times. We'll gather once a month, September 2026 until March 2027 (twice in January!) to hear talks, many of them from our neighbours here in South Devon, then have a shared dinner and a whole-group discussion about the ideas we've heard.