by Cindy Tonkin
I have attended more than eight summer schools and three winter schools at Sturt Craft College in Mittagong. They are always an intense, well-managed experience, where you can get obsessed by a new skill or even perfect an old one, in a friendly environment.
The venue, Frensham Girls School, in Mittagong, is beautiful in summer – sculpted gardens, white buildings and areas of bush as well as manicured gardens. Winter is cold for a Sydney-sider, but often quite sunny. Less than an hour and a half drive from Sydney, it feels like a lifetime away.
 The institutional food is reliable (ie it’s the same every year, on the same day), and as long as you’re happy with soup, salad and an occasional ordinary dish clearly created from yesterday’s left overs, you’ll be fine. For the more gourmet, Sturt Café provides beautiful café style lunches and “proper” coffee.
Morning and afternoon teas are provided as part of the Sturt experience and this is your chance to circulate, socialise and find out about the other courses on offer (and plan your next school, maybe!).
Sturt rotates tutors frequently, so there is always something new on the agenda. Different teaching styles, artistic preferences and backgrounds make someone the perfect tutor for you; and if by chance you discover that the choice you made from the short brochure descriptions doesn’t suit, they will bend over backwards to find you an alternative course as soon as possible.
Often you can catch a yoga, tai chi, or one year a singing class before the day starts. In summer there are masseuses on campus. For a fee you can relax those muscles which you didn’t know you had till you started turning pots, knitting, sketching or printmaking all day!
I recommend Sturt’s schools as the ideal place to exercise your right brain (and your muscles). I’m kinda addicted!!
Tuesday 4th until Sunday 9th January 2011
Details of all workshops can be found on the STURT website or by phoning Sturt Gallery on 02 4860 2083.
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