Sustainable Living Arts School

At the Sustainable Living Arts School, we wish to close the gap between those with particular skills in the sustainable arts and those wishing to hone their abilities, by providing learning opportunities, existing landscape samples, and time for networking.

The Sustainable Living Arts School will assist learners to be better equipped to deal with changes (both chosen and those that may be thrust upon them) in their lives and environment, that they may be confident in living a healthy and happy life within the restrictions of what the planet can actually offer, and capable of creating a new standard of normalcy within their own communities.

Benefits

• Students will meet others with common dreams and ideas and will take home a new networking base.
• Today's students are tomorrow's instructors.
• Save money on food and utilities.
• Feel good about using your new skills to reduce environmental impact.
• Experience working models of sustainable landscape design.

Why a School of Sustainable Arts?

Peak oil, anyone?  And has Free Trade Agreement got you nuts?  Megalomaniacal leaders to the South who also control most of Canada's food supply?  A world gone mad with consumerism and debt?  It seems like a sensible time to re-learn simple, low-tech skills that will reduce our local footprint, decrease our impact on others in the world, and to permit breathing space and time for connection with our landscape.

Why on the Sunshine Coast?

The Sunshine Coast, with its proximity to small farms, forest, and quiet retreats, and its wonderful population who have spent years developing their country crafts and abilities , is an ideal location for city folk and newcomers alike to inherit those skills. The Edible Landscape property is an experiment in low-tech, low finance forest land that now carries examples of permaculture, winter gardening, Chinese and western medicine gardens, native plant stands and annual vegetable gardens.

Why This Shape and Form?

What shape should humans learn in? Once we took away the four walls of a classroom, some basic truths unfolded. Humans learn well in short bursts, before thirst, hunger and a full bladder distract us. We learn well when we are happy, unafraid, and are using all our senses to absorb information. We learn well when we can laugh and ask questions and take time to absorb a particular truth.

At the Sustainable Living Arts School you'll experience:

• Happy, well-informed and confident instructors
• Hands-on activities, appealing to all the senses
• Theme days on diverse topics such as herb culture and water management
• Intensive weekend sessions-perfect for city folk and newcomers to the Coast to get the basics

Custom made classes, full days or weekends of your choice of material - put together a group of five or more people - and we can advertise for more people to make your group happen if you are a couple short.

Our classes are generally one and a half hours, intensive and often hands-on - with as many sensory components as we can provide, with instructors who we know to be good at what they do and enthusiastic at passing knowledge on to others.

Topics Covered

So much knowledge has been lost, even in the past 50 years! Our grandparents could feed themselves out of a garden, preserve food for winter, medicate an infected animal and tend a woodlot. These were simple but crucial arts that kept their footprint small, and their dependence on outside forces minimal.

You will learn skills you can put to immediate use:

• winter gardening
• herbal medicines
• long term storage of foods
• seed saving
• water management
• plant propagation
• bee keeping
• fowl rearing
• woodlot management
• garden planning
• mushroom cultivation
• and more!