My 2025 Bali High
It seems to be a crazy world out there these days… and how is your 2025 going so far?
My new year started with a travel adventure to Ubud, Bali in Indonesia where I attended a Creative Breaks linocut workshop instructed by well known Australian artist and printmaker Shana James. This took place at the beautiful ARMA Foundation Museum and Resort.
This serene retreat with its gorgeous traditional Balinese décor and focus on preserving Balinese arts and culture, is where we stayed - where we had our breakfast and lunches and where the workshop took place. The ARMA Museum and Resort is an absolute oasis just on the edge of Ubud.
The island of Bali in Indonesia has long been recognized for its many traditional art forms. Balinese music and dance, stone and wood carvings, and visual art are all celebrated for their distinct cultural contributions to our world heritage. The ARMA Foundation in Bali, Indonesia, was established in 1996 to promote and preserve Balinese art and culture. The Arma Foundation is the administrative arm for a complex that includes a world class museum, a center for visual and performing arts including a dance and music Sanggar (informal school). Hundreds of children, teenagers and adults have benefited from the ARMA Sanggar, which ARMA makes available without cost to local families. Many of these children have gone on to perform in their communities as skilled dancers and musicians. The Arma Foundation relies on donations along with tourism dollars to support their ongoing efforts of preserving Balinese traditional arts and culture.
The ARMA Museum and Resort is set in six hectares (almost 15 acres) of stunning grounds, with gardens, sculptures, walking paths, rice fields and a river running through the property. There are two restaurants, an arts museum, a performing arts open theatre, a visual arts pavilion, a spa, a book shop and a gift shop filled with hand-crafted artisan works. They also offer a variety of half-day workshops including silversmithing, batik, wood carving, balinese cooking and more.
The great thing about this week-long creative workshop was that all supplies, accommodation, breakfasts, most lunches and a welcome dinner were included. All we had to do was book our flights and the rest was taken care of.
Shana provided us with a complete supplies kit packed up in a beautiful hand-woven storage case – it included everything needed for lino-cutting - carving tools, a palette knife, pencil, eraser, sharpener, pieces of lino, sharpie marker, an exacto knife, sketch book, apron, brayer, and a sarong.
While at the workshop I got the chance to mingle and acquaint myself with the other dozen workshop participants – all lovely folks from down under! We learned a number of linocut techniques including how to make the “chatter” work for us and colouring paper for “chine colle” to apply to our hand-pulled linocut prints.
Here are some of the pieces I worked on while there and some of the prints I made from my carved designs. The snake one was a collaborative piece created by Shana’s talented assistant Ebony - I carved the tail insert that went back into the multi-piece plate before it was inked and printed.
Did I mention how delicious the food was, and the iced lattes and the Balinese wine? Bali has just in the last few years been developing their own wine-making industry, I found their wine quite delightful.
During my time there I toured the multi-level Arma art gallery museum, an incredible collection of traditional Balinese and contemporary art.
I Also chatted with the onsite artists at work in their pavilion, saw youngsters taking their dance lessons, and visited the gift shop… The free range roosters were too elusive to get a good photos of.
I also took part in an offering making workshop, a silversmithing workshop and enjoyed a wonderfully relaxing massage session at the spa.
This was my second time taking Shana’s Creative Breaks workshop and staying at Arma. The first time was back in January 2019 and I’ve wanted to do a repeat ever since. Now I have and it was just as rewarding and enjoyable the second time around! Thank you Shana James and Arma Museum and Resort for such a wonderful creative and immersive experience!
In closing, I wishing you all the very best during these turbulent and uncertain times…
“Where flowers bloom so does hope.” ~ Lady Bird Johnson