top of page
Screenshot 2026-01-18 at 14.37.31.png

Rewild & Renew: Find Your Voice
with
 Kathryn Dundas

🗓️ June 21st to 27th 2026

🎨 Art, Presence & Longevity Retreat

Healing through horses, art, nature, food, community, and presence.

Full Board Accommodation: 1710€ to 2480€ for 6 nights based on room choice & single or shared occupancy.

Tutor's Fee: $1,250 USD

Early Bird: $1,000 USD (by March 31)

Partners & family may join the trip as non-participating guests without the teaching fee.

Alberta, Canada
 

Course Description

This immersive retreat is an invitation to return to yourself— to reconnect with who you are, rediscover your creative voice, and allow your body the space to rest, regulate, and repair.

 

Through guided textile-based artmaking, daily presence practices, longevity medicine conversations, and optional equine experiential work, creativity becomes not a performance—but an embodied, biological pathway to truth, regulation, and vitality.

 

A Different Way of Learning

 

People often ask how I make what I make.

Not in a technical way—but in a how did you arrive there? way.

 

This retreat is where I open that door.

 

I don’t teach patterns or rules.

I teach how to listen, translate, and trust what’s already moving through you.

 

My role is not to shape your work—but to help you access your own voice, without being held captive by sewing “rules,” perfectionism, or inherited ideas of what art should be.

FPAT9447.JPG

About Kathryn Dundas

I am an internationally exhibiting, award-winning modern textile artist, working under Studio Dundas, known for an improvisational, embodied approach to quilting that prioritizes rhythm, intuition, and presence over pattern or rules.

 

My work has been exhibited internationally in museums and galleries and is held in both public and private collections. I am represented by Galería de las Misiones in Jose Ignacio, Uruguay and the Textile Art Gallery in New York City. My work is in Color Improvisation 3, a touring, curated exhibition led by Nancy Crow.

 

I maintain studios in Canada and Uruguay, where my practice continues to evolve at the intersection of art, embodiment, and biology.

 

Alongside my work as an artist, I am also Dr. Kathryn Dundas, MD, CCFP, a physician specializing in longevity, functional, and I ntegrative medicine, and the founder of Sublime Life—a multidisciplinary wellness ecosystem integrating medicine, nature, creativity, and experiential healing.

 

My retreats and creative intensives draw on:

• over two decades of clinical medical practice

• nervous-system–informed longevity medicine

• somatic and presence-based practices

• and my certification and clinical experience in equine-assisted therapy

 

This retreat reflects the convergence of these worlds.

 

I don’t teach quilting as a technical discipline alone.

I teach how voice emerges when the body feels safe, regulated, and free enough to listen.

My role is not to shape your work—but to help you access your own way of working, without being held captive by inherited rules, perfectionism, or expectation.

 

Who This Retreat Is For

 

All levels welcome.

This experience is intentionally designed to meet you exactly where you are:

• Those curious about beginning—learning to sew or quilt and inviting creative practice into daily life

• Experienced and professional artists ready to loosen control, deepen embodiment, and refine voice

 

Many participants arrive technically skilled—but creatively constrained.

 

Here, we gently unlearn habits that mute expression and explore how intuition, repetition, and sensation can lead the work—without chaos or overwhelm.

 

Finding Your Voice (Without Being Held Captive by Rules)

 

Traditional instruction often prioritizes correctness.

This retreat prioritizes coherence.

 

You’ll learn:

• how to break rules without losing integrity

• how to work intuitively without losing structure

• how constraint can become freedom

• how sensation and instinct translate into form

I share the techniques, prompts, and quiet studio “tricks” I use myself—not as formulas, but as doorways you can return to again and again.

 

This is not about copying my style.

 

It’s about understanding how voice emerges, so you can access yours.

 

The Creative Structure (What You’ll Make)

 

• Final piece: one 40 × 40 textile artwork

• Constructed from: four 20 × 20 panels

• Each panel corresponds to Days 1–4

• Day 5: integration, assembly, reflection, and presentation

 

No perfection.

No finishing pressure.

The work is a record of process—not performance.

Course Schedule:

Daily Rhythm (Monday–Friday)

 

Each day includes:

• 8:00– 8:15am Morning Intention setting with the animals

• 815am–9:00am Italian Breakfast

• 9:00–10:00am Morning Anchor Hour (creative + longevity talks)

• Spacious studio time with individual guidance -10-1pm & 2:30-4:30pm

• 1:00pm–2:00pm Lunch

• 7:00pm Wine Aperitivo followed by dinner

• Optional equine experiential sessions or 1:1 longevity consults

• Shared meals and community integration

 

Day-by-Day Flow

 

DAY 1 — ARRIVAL INTO THE BODY

Theme: Safety before voice

 

Before expression, there must be safety.

 

We begin by settling the nervous system, releasing outcome and comparison, and letting the body arrive before the work does.

 

Longevity thread:

Creativity as regulation—how rhythm, repetition, and slow making downshift stress and support repair.

 

Sewing prompt — Panel 1: Arrive

Felt outcome:

Nervous systems settle. Trust begins.

 

DAY 2 — INTERRUPTING THE INNER CRITIC

Theme: Unlearning control

 

We explore how training, “good taste,” and perfectionism can override intuition.

 

Longevity thread:

Stress, cortisol, and creative shutdown—why play restores flexibility, especially in midlife.

 

Sewing prompt — Panel 2: Disrupt

Felt outcome:

Freedom through limits. The inner critic softens.

 

DAY 3 — LISTENING FOR VOICE

Theme: Intuition over intellect

 

We shift from planning to responding—from thinking to sensing.

 

Longevity thread:

Interoception, vagal tone, and embodied decision-making.

 

Sewing prompt — Panel 3: Listen

Felt outcome:

Confidence in intuition grows. Less explaining, more knowing.

 

DAY 4 — CLAIMING VOICE

Theme: Expression without apology

 

Voice is not volume—it’s honesty.

 

Longevity thread:

Expression, meaning, identity, and long-term health.

Sewing prompt — Panel 4: Declare

 

Felt outcome:

Ownership. Clarity. Integrity.

 

DAY 5 — INTEGRATION & WITNESSING

Theme: Being seen

 

The four panels are assembled into one 40 × 40 piece.

We close with a quiet presentation circle—

no critique, no fixing—only witnessing.

 

Closing thread:

How to take this way of working home.

How presence becomes the protocol.

Accom Kathryn

Accommodation & Inclusions

Bedroom with shared bathroom:

Single occupancy: €1,970

Shared occupancy: €1,710 per person

Bedroom with ensuite:

Single occupancy: €2,220

Shared occupancy: €1,880 per person

Superior bedroom with ensuite:

Single occupancy: €2,480

Shared occupancy: €2,130 per person

What's included

  • 6 nights accommodation

  • Daily breakfast, 5 lunches &             5 dinners

  • Daily Aperitivo

  • Pizza making experience

  • Daily group instruction (Monday–Friday)

  • Individual guidance on technique, process, and voice

  • Daily presence & somatic practices

  • Longevity medicine conversations (women’s health, mitochondria, autophagy, immune regulation)

  • Final presentation and closing circle

  • Infinity pool

  • Tennis court

  • Wifi

  • Laundry facilities

  • VAT tax

happy animals copy.JPG

What's not included

  • Materials

  • Transfers

  • City tax (€2.50 per person per day to be paid in cash on arrival)

Optional Add-Ons

  • Individual experiential sessions (booked ahead)

  • 1:1 longevity consultations with Dr. Dundas

  • Massage

  • Wine tasting

An Invitation

 

This retreat isn’t about becoming someone new.

It’s about remembering how to listen—

to your body, your intuition, and your work.

 

If you feel the pull, trust it.

-Kathryn

 

To inquire or reserve a spot: kdundas@asublimelife.ca

FPAT9482.JPG

Informativa sulla privacy

Villa Rignana, Via di Rignana 7, 50022, Greve in Chianti, Firenze, Italia                    

Palazzo Cavalcanti Sas. PI - 06599340483        

CIN: IT048021B4KM9X7YL7 CIN: IT048021B4M8VSC2VY  

bottom of page