Journeys

Five distance delivery students from The Learning Connexion (TLC) have come together in Feilding to share their creative journey.

For some, enrolling at TLC was the catalyst that started their journeys. For others, it was an opportunity to grow and explore an already burgeoning creative practice. The Journeys exhibition traverses the paths taken by each of these five fantastic artists, showing what is possible by enrolling with TLC. With bronzes, wax, felt, acrylic and mixed media works on display, the Journeys exhibition may inspire you to carve out your own creative path.

About the artists:

Victoria Armstrong
Victoria is interested in the relationship between our imaginations and the world around us. Her journey at The Learning Connexion has led her using collage and zines to build a creative community that fits pandemic life. During the TLC exhibition, she will display Meet The Strangers, a series of zines created to build the feeling of community with her fellow Screaming Monkeys (@ilovescreamingmonkeys) during the pandemic. Victoria asked for music suggestions and listened to the music while she created the collages though out the zine, each stranger than the last.

Sandra Douglas
Art is Sandra's happy place. As an artist who is mostly self-taught, studying at The Learning Connexion was Sandra's first tertiary art course. She entered Level 5 with two goals: to learn to create art for herself and to find her voice. After less than two years of part-time study she achieved both of these goals. Sandra's works include highly detailed graphite work, pieces from encaustic wax workshop at TLC, and several other newer 'round' pieces. Sandra thanks her mentor, Alan Poole, for challenging her to continually improve herself and master new skills

Jeannette Henderson
Jeannette recently qualified from a 3-year Diploma in Creativity from The Learning Connexion. According to Jeanette, enrolling with TLC unlocked her inner artist and opened endless possibilities, "when you give yourself permission to be creative and allow your creative juices to flow, boy do they flow!" On her journey, Jeannette explored many different mediums and art forms, and pushed the boundaries of her imagination. Her works crosses multiple mediums and represents a thirst to learn more.

Lee-Anne Stone
Having grown up in a household that valued hard work and logical thinking, engagement in the arts didn't always appear on Lee-Anne’s radar. In 2018, she discovered art and quickly enrolled at The Learning Connexion. Throughout the TLC course, Lee-Anne engaged in a range of techniques, working across multiple different media. Her focus now is on painting with hot wax. Lee-Anne uses both styles of encaustic wax painting, one that uses an iron and stylus, and the other with hot brushes. However, she considers herself a lifelong multidisciplinary artist and aims to incorporate a variety of techniques into her wax painting, so as to create unique pieces that speak to the subconscious.

Margaret Willard
Margaret enrolled with the Learning Connexion in 2017 with few ideas of how her creativity would develop, and ended up getting hooked on eco printing. Soon after, she took part in a cyanotype workshop at Thistle Hall and has been experimenting ever since. Margaret has incorporated eco printing and cyanotype on the same work, and continued developing her cyanotype technique. She looks forward to continuing her creative adventure and remains a distance student with TLC.