Judita Vivas

I’m a Fleet-based Craft Business Strategist, multidisciplinary maker and creative facilitator, with a specialism in textiles and yarn-based crafts and over 25 years of making & business experience. I work with craft & creative business owners to build sustainable income through smarter visibility and multiple revenue streams. I also run art and craft workshops, I call Creative Wilding™️ , helping busy adults find calm & fulfilment by reconnecting & nurturing their creativity through slow crafts & art making. I’m a qualified primary school teacher with a Textile Design degree from Winchester School of Art and have worked in educational publishing alongside my craft business, creative practice and arts facilitation.

I am an artist living on the edge of The New Forest. I use folklore, folksong, old customs, games and rituals to explore contemporary issues particularly social and economic disparity. Country living can be a strange mix of bounty and hopelessness but when people have access to their own strong and sinuous roots, their own history and stories they have anchorage and hope. I seek the stories that connect us and as an artist I’m thinking of different ways of pinning them up on the metaphorical village hall notice board for all to see. Alongside my own practice I run drawing workshops as The Village Hall Draw and community workshops around the New Forest working with Culture in Common and Hampshire Cultural Heritage amongst others.

I am a community archaeologist & wellbeing facilitator. I love to discover and tell untold stories from the past & to help people discover history & engage in cultural heritage. I help heritage organisations with community engagement, co-creation, education, outreach & interpretation. I offer public historical walks and talks. I am passionate about the role heritage can play in wellbeing & communities. I enjoy taking heritage into care settings & groups, with through reminiscence & object handling. I have completed the Green Dementia Care programme am looking forward to offering Elders of the Woods sessions very soon. In community venues, I run Arts, Crafts & Archaeology workshops & work with social prescribers.