Enrich your child's life today.
For more information Click Here.
Camp Location
St Paul’s Gathering Place in Warkworth and Kennedy Park/Rotary Hall in Campbellford
artworthcamp@gmail.com
Instructors 2026
Our 2026 Instructors
In Alphabetical Order…
Alex Lowe
Alex Lowe is an illustrator, author, and art instructor from Northumberland County, currently completing a one-year art therapy program in Kitchener. Alex has a passion for storytelling and book illustration and has been creating her own stories and characters from the moment she could hold a pencil.
She is a graduate of the Honours Bachelor of Illustration at Sheridan College. She illustrated her first published book at the age of 18 and went on to write, illustrate, and publish several more. Her work consists of a varied mix of traditional and digital media, with a current preference for watercolours and ink. Alongside her illustration practice, she enjoys teaching classes for children and families in her community.
Alex will be teaching cartooning and watercolour painting in the junior and senior camps in Campbellford (July 13-17).
Angelica Ottewill
Storytelling & Music
Angelica Ottewill is a retired music and drama teacher as well as a freelance harpist, vocalist and storyteller. She has performed at numerous local events, including the Lilac Festival and Art in the Park. She is a frequent performer at St. Paul’s United Church and has performed for students at Campbellford Public School. You can find her on you-tube: Sir Orfeo, Ghost Fetches, Tales and Tunes of Edith Fowke and The Faithful Wife.
At Artworth, Angelica is working with the juniors in Warkworth. She is teaming up with Sarah Brown who will facilitate lots of creative movement in small groups to accompany the storytelling. The children will also learn the instrumental accompaniment for a song connected to the story using the Orff instruments (xylophones and glockenspiels). The children will have opportunities to sing, play music and act out scenes from the story in tableau.
Jen Scriven
Health & Fitness
Jen Scriven is a fitness instructor and personal trainer with 25 years of experience as a Registered Massage Therapist. Her deep understanding of anatomy, movement mechanics, and how bodies adapt over time informs a thoughtful, body-neutral approach to strength and mobility training. She specializes in helping people move with more confidence, build sustainable strength, and better understand their own bodies.
Jen joins Artworth for the first time this Summer to grow the capacity and confidence of Artworth staff and volunteers to build more mindful movement into their activities with the campers. Jen will also support movement and dance activities in the Campbellford junior camp (July 13-17).
Joshua McKay
Mural Project & Painting
Joshua hails from Havelock, Ontario, and we are very excited for them to be joining Artworth as our painting teacher and mural painting facilitator again this summer!
Joshua believes in art as a tool for unity and communication. Joshua has been working with different mediums over the years and continues to develop new skills in various media, combining them in unconventional ways. Joshua has started to combine their skills as an Education Assistant in the public school system, with being an artist by organizing and facilitating paint nights for the Havelock-Belmont Youth Committee and Intergenerational paint courses through the Havelock Seniors Center.
Joshua will be facilitating a large mural project with the senior and junior campers at the Rotary Hall (July 6-17). The mural will once again be designed by former painting teacher Jeffrey Weekes. The mural project is being planned in partnership with the Rotary Club of Campbellford. The Rotary Hall outdoor mural is part of Artworth’s commitment to growing youth’s sense of belonging to the community through public art. Joshua will also bring their passion for painting to the junior campers in Warkworth ( July 20-24).
Kimberly Davidson
Culinary Arts
Kimberly Davidson, crunchy mom of 2 young girls and long-time city dweller turned country star-gazer, graduated with Honours from Toronto’s leading school of nutrition, The Institute of Holistic Nutrition. Now the Coordinator for the Trent Hills School Nutrition Program.
Once a costume maker for Cirque du Soleil, Kimberly loves bringing that creativity to the kitchen, adapting her techniques to the many skills she learned at school as well as the Authentic Thai Cooking program in Chang Mai, Thailand. She has since worked for many of the great caterers of Toronto, adding healthy twists to the cooking techniques gained from each of them. Kimberly is bringing her healthy and artistic cooking skills to Artworth’s senior and junior campers this Summer with a focus on culinary herbs abd spices. Her program is aimed at heightening all of our senses, especially smell and taste!
When Kimberly is not in the kitchen, you’ll likely find her running Water and Wood, a healthy lifestyle cold plunge and sauna business in Campbellford or adventuring through Ferris with her 2 girls and their 3-legged dog, Charlie.
Kira Mees
Exploring Scents for Your Senses
Kira works as the Community Development Manager at the Municipality of Trent Hills. In her free time, on a sailboat or off, Kira is a craftsperson who works with fleece and needle felting. She also has a long background in the healing arts and knows a lot about essential oils.
At Artworth this Summer she will lead a session on exploring our senses through scents with senior campers (July 13-17). The campers will learn about the properties of some plants as essential oils, and create their own custom blends for waking up or going to sleep, having better focus or feeling calmer. Kira will cover scents like Lavender, Rosemary, Orange and Rose Geranium. Each camper will take home a roller-ball with their own creations.
Lawrence Cotton
Singing & Music
Award-winning actor, director, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist Lawrence Cotton has been exploring these expressive art mediums since his youth. An original cast member of the multi-Tony Award-winning Broadway revival of Show Boat, he was later cast in an International touring company of Phantom of the Opera. For close to a decade, Lawrence worked as an artist in education, creating and performing ‘Opera for Young Audiences‘ shows and leading storytelling workshops across Quebec and Ontario. He is currently the music director at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Campbellford and is very excited to share his accumulated experience with the youth of Trent Hills through Artworth.
This year, Lawrence is leading two days of singing and sonic explorations with the senior campers (July 13th – 16th).
Lindsay Gosse
Song Leader
Lindsay is a community song leader, doula, and mother with a deep belief in the power of nature connection and community. She is the founder of Singing In Full Bloom and believes that singing together is one of the most authentic expressions of a thriving community, which is why she is devoted to serving her community through song. Lindsay was a high school teacher for nearly 20 years, where her experience teaching Outdoor Education deepened her understanding of the importance of sharing song with youth and nurturing their connection to nature.
Lindsay will be joining Artworth for the first time and working with camp staff and teen volunteers to include singing throughout the junior camps. She will also lead song circles with junior campers in Warkworth (July 20-24).
Lucas Donald
Wood Carving
Lucas Donald lives on the Giving Well Farm near Hastings and works in Peterborough at the Rowan Tree Children’s School. He has over a decade of experience as an outdoor education facilitator for children and teens through The Pine Project.
Lucas is coming back for a fourth year to lead senior campers in wood carving and this Summer he is introducing spoon carving (July 6-10). Lucas is a gifted nature connection teacher and shares his passion for the outdoors through stories about the intricate lives of plants, animals and all living beings. Lucas has a special way of supporting the campers however they need throughout their experience.
Nicholas Reynolds
Environmental Education
Nicholas is an Environmental Education Technician with Lower Trent Conservation.
He will facilitate the exploration of nature through the senses and help campers build an even deeper connection to the natural world around them. Through hands-on games and activities, Nicholas will facilitate learning about what makes a habitat for both humans and animals and how we can work together to meet the habitat needs of all living things. The campers will once again dive into the amazing role that healthy and unique environments, such as wetlands, play in managing natural hazards like flooding and erosion. They will explore the animals in the wetland habitat from Deer, Otters and the Great Blue Heron to painted turtles, frogs and giant water bugs. This program highlights how healthy watersheds truly make healthy communities
Sarah Stoner
Sarah Stoner is the owner and operator of Into the Unsewn in Warkworth. She has over 10 years of experience in both hand and machine sewing, with a particular focus on garment mending, alterations, and hand embroidery. She is passionate about teaching practical sewing skills in a supportive and engaging environment. At Artworth this Summer she will emphasize safety, creativity, and skill-building, helping each camper develop confidence while learning techniques they can continue to use beyond camp. Each child will create and take home their own personalized sewing kit, empowering them to continue practicing and building their sewing skills after camp!
Shannon Gerard
Printmaking and Zine Making
Shannon Gerard is joining Artworth for the first time to teach printmaking. Her work spans a wide variety of media. She grows herbs, writes and draws books, crochets (a lot), makes prints, quilts, protest banners and produces site-specific textile installations and wheat-pasted animations.
On her Stirling Ontario herb farm, Plant Parenthood, Shannon runs a radical Seed Subscription Club and makes and distributes zines about herb production. Shannon is also an Associate Professor in Printmaking and Publications at OCAD University.
With the senior campers this Summer, Shannon will teach a range of printmaking techniques including lino stamping, screen printing, cyanotype and more to create zines (little magazines) and fabric banners. The junior campers will collect treasures from the natural world and learn to eco-print them and create their own handmade booklet/field guide to bring home.
Skyler Hayes
Ceramic Arts
Skyler Hayes is a Western University graduate who studied medical science, but always had a passion for art. A ceramics class in university solidified her love of sculpture, inspiring her to work on large and small pieces of contemporary ceramics. She creates primarily non-functional sculptural pieces out of stained porcelain, as well as hand-sculpted collectable figurines. She got her start in the medium at an art camp in her youth and has experimented with many art forms over the years.
Skyler lives just outside of Campbellford. She is looking forward to inspiring the next generation of young artists at Artworth again this summer. Skyler will be working with the senior campers (July 13-17) and making a hanging imaginary creature out of fabric and polymer clay.
Skye Morrison
Skye is silk-screening and decorating t-shirts with all the camps and silk-screening with the Teens during the leadership program.
Skye Morrison is a Canadian educator, researcher and designer with a lifelong interest in traditional crafts. She received her Ph.D. in Folklore Material Culture) from the University of Pennsylvania. Her MA in Design and Environmental Analysis from Cornell University, and her Diploma in Design (Textiles) from Sheridan College, Canada. She was a professor at Sheridan College School of Crafts and Design from 1978 to 2002 when she left full-time teaching to pursue research projects. Skye Morrison has been an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Fine Arts at Concordia University, Montreal, since 2000.
Onyx Uriarte
Expressive Arts
Onyx lives in Campbellford and is a sound bath facilitator as well as a Registered Massage Therapist and Acupuncturist with many years of experience in the healing arts. Onyx originally graduated in theatre direction from York University and enjoyed a few years in the theatre world. Theatre experience naturally evolved into a deeper focus on the mind – body connection with the arts, which led Onyx to study Expressive Art Therapy at the Create Institute (Toronto) and yogic movement and meditation at Glass Lake Studio (Albany N.Y). These studies opened the door for Onyx to work within a research project, with a focus on empathy, connected to the Clarke Institute, the Toronto School Board and George Hull Centre. Onyx partnered with grade school teachers utilizing drama and the arts to include a diversity of children in creative group activities, and encourage overall positive group cohesion in the classroom.
Separately and together Onyx and Lawrence Cotton will facilitate a variety of artistic disciplines including: drawing, movement, music and drama. Every child will have fun opportunities to explore their individual strengths and interests and be encouraged to share what lights them up in their small groups.
The campers will be supported to bring what they have shared of their unique ideas into the group co-creations. The final presentations will offer a glimpse of the process and be a celebration of the individual campers and the collective constellations of stars.
Lise Varrette and Matt Stearns
Lise and Matt have once again invited junior campers in Warkworth (July 21-25) to walk over to Feather Farm at the edge of the village to meet all the creatures. Here the campers will interact with Pearl, a 6-year old wild Pinto from Chincoteague, and a herd of mini-horses (pictured here) as well as three very friendly sheep and numerous cats. The campers will groom and feed the mini horses, pet the sheep and hear stories about all the members of the herd including 2 big horses and 8 mini-horses. The campers visit in small groups and have lots of time to make friends with the animals and experience all this magical little farm has to offer.
Suzanne Schwenger
Music Education
Suzanne Schwenger is an experienced, creative and passionate music educator, with more than 25 years of experience at the Jackman Institute of Child Study Lab School (University of Toronto) teaching early years music (Nursery, JK and SK). Using her piano and singing skills, she encourages all children to move to music, share their singing voices, play instruments, and listen to music from around the world. For the past few years, Suzanne has worked as a certified Smart Start teacher and mentor at the Oscar Peterson School, Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.
annais linares
Song Writing and Improvisation
annais linares is an improviser, musician and eco-social practice artist studying at the University of Guelph’s Critical Studies in Improvisation program. She is curious about arts-based community + kin making with animals and nature, and how these practices can converge into playful rituals leading to collective creation, well-being and delight. annais lives in Campbellford and is looking forward to singing and playing with the campers this summer and co-creating songs together
Aubrey Dayle
Music Education
Aubrey Dayle received his formal music education at McGill University and Manhattan School of Music in classical and jazz percussion and has performed in various musical styles and situations. He has toured with James “Blood” Ulmer; Hassan Hakmoun and Zahar (support act for Peter Gabriel); God Street Wine; the John Popper Band; Sam Rivers; Ernest Ranglin; and several other artists. While living in New York City, he continued to perform in diverse situations, including two years as the drummer for the Broadway show Bring in ‘Da Noise Bring in Da Funk. As a member of the John Popper Band, he appeared on Late Night with David Letterman and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Aubrey also performed at the famous Carnegie Hall with the New York Metro Mass Choir.
Aubrey is returning to teach at Artworth this Summer by popular demand as part of our twentieth-anniversary celebration. Aubrey will be teaching African jembe drumming in Campbellford (July 14th to 18th) with collaboration for the final performance on July 18th with Lawrence and Onyx.
