We are a collective of artists, makers, and creatives who come together each year to open our studio doors. Please come along and meet us, explore our creative practices, and purchase beautiful, locally made artwork. Our studio trail is based in and around the pretty coastal village of Aberlady, East Lothian, Scotland. We look forward to welcoming you.
9th & 10th May 2026
We are a collective of artists, makers, and creatives who come together each year to open our studio doors, inviting you to meet the artists, explore our creative practices, and purchase beautiful, locally made work. We are all based in and around the pretty coastal village of Aberlady in East Lothian, Scotland. We look forward to welcoming you.
9th & 10th May 2026
Poetry & Mixed Media
I write poems and make images inspired by my surroundings in East Lothian. I am inspired by linking my thoughts and feelings into seasonal changes through my observations of local wildlife and nature.
Illustration, Writing & Mixed Media
Rachel Stewart is a mixed-media illustrator, writer and community activist whose work spans children’s storytelling, creative community engagement and heritage crafts. She also runs the local community choir, The Aberlady Singers, which brings people of all ages together through shared voices and creativity.
Currently, Rachel is stepping outside her comfort zone to work on an adult novella drawn from personal experiences. When she’s not writing, she can usually be found experimenting with paper and exploring new ways to let stories take shape.
Rachel is the project lead for the Aberlady Wild Goose Chase Art Trail, a proposed permanent public art trail of ceramic tiles depicting geese. The trail will invite residents and visitors to explore Aberlady through playful discovery while celebrating the village’s natural heritage—particularly the Greylag and Pink-footed geese that gather at Aberlady Bay Nature Reserve.
The craft de-stash stall, held at The Old Aberlady Inn as part of the Aberlady Open Studios weekend, is raising funds to support this new community art initiative. Come along to find out more and thank you for your support.
Painting
Julie is an award-winning artist and visual storyteller whose work draws on imagination, memory, and lived experience. She reveals the extraordinary within the ordinary, creating narratives that engage both visible and unseen worlds. Her paintings explore themes of wonder and hope, balancing personal intimacy with universal resonance. Each work invites stillness and reflection, expressing her deep connection to nature and solidarity with all living things. Julie’s work is held in private collections and has been widely exhibited, including the John Ruskin Awards, Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize, Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Exhibition, and all four Scottish exhibiting societies. She completed a large-scale permanent public commission and was selected for the inaugural Scottish Landscape Awards.
Printmaking
Kate is a print and pattern maker. She is inspired by the natural world and her work is a celebration of the native flora and fauna of the British Isles and in particular Scotland (where her studio is based). Sustainability and craft are at the heart Kate's design ethos. Her work is stocked in galleries and shops throughout the UK, including TOAST and John Lewis, and has been featured in Contry Living Magazine several times. Kate studied art and design at Central Saint Martins and Wimbledon School of Art.
Printmaking
Eve is an Artist & Printmaker. Based in her garden studio, Eve’s work takes two forms, botanical linocut prints and pen & ink landscapes, both are inspired by the local East Lothian landscape. Eve also produces a wide range of greetings cards based on her linocut designs. Her prints and cards are stocked in a number of local galleries and art shops.
Metalwork Sculptures
I grew up on the Isle of Lewis and, after 4 years at Camberwell School of Arts, lived on Orkney for 19 years. This enabled my love of fishing, diving and the sea to combine with my developing skills in metalwork. I use traditional, age-old metal work techniques with pewter, copper, bronze and goldleaf, to produce contemporary and unique pieces of art, mainly of fish and the marine environment. My artistic endeavour is to observe and capture fleeting moments of nature, from the calm and tension before a trout strikes to the pure excitement of the sudden, synchronised turn of a mass herring shoal. I express an emotional response to something very private, a moment shared between human and nature, suggesting a balance and a suspension, using the brooding colours of the background to saturate the work with a contemplative stillness.
Patchwork, Printing & Painting
I'm a linocut printmaker and patchwork quilt maker. I also enjoy watercolour painting especially when travelling and often use my sketches as inspiration for prints. I'm also fascinated by the nature around me and am currently trying to paint all the small creatures I find in my garden. In the dark winter evenings my love of colour translates well to handsewing and creating patchwork quilts. 75% of any proceeds from my sales are divided equally between the charities Scottish Refugee Council and Children First.
Photography
I am a photographer using mostly a large format camera with transparency film. Reflecting on my aims early on, I summed them up with the phrase: I make images with the landscape not of it. Much of my work has been in the Highlands and especially in Glen Etive. I aim to make images capable of various levels of interpretation. 75% of all my proceeds will be donated to the RNLI.
Knitting
After a career in drug development I have revisited my first love of art and design. I was taught by my mother to hand knit and sew at an early age and this has never left me. Throughout my life I’ve never been far from a pair of knitting needles.Inspired by the beauty of East Lothian I always knit with sustainable wool in landscape colours. My favourite colour is green … any shade of green. My favourite yarn is hands down Rowan felted tweed, but I also love Spindrift from Jamiesons of Shetland. 75% of sale proceeds are donated to Crisis Homelessness in Scotland.
Printmaking
David is a printmaker, poet and photographer. Based in East Lothian he draws inspiration from the landscape locally and internationally, often combining images with words in a single creative response to the landscape. He has exhibited previously as part of the Aberlady Open Studios and has published poetry in a range of periodicals and collections.
Painting
I have lived in East Lothian for 20 years. A great deal of my work is inspired by the astonishing woodland and ponds of the Gosford Estate where I am lucky enough to live. Most of my work is semi abstract and concerns trees though I love to paint landscapes with lots of light and weather! I trained at Glasgow School of Art in the early 70s after which I focussed on music and working in art therapy. Eventually I trained in Social Work. I came back to painting and drawing with real enthusiasm and joy about 20 years ago and that is still happening l am delighted to say! I work in acrylic, ink, charcoal, oil and often draw with home made goose quill pens. I am delighted to be part of the Aberlady open studios project and to meet fellow artists!
Illustration
East Lothian based artist who illustrates Scotland in a bold, colourful, fun fashion. Products guaranteed to make the receiver smile. From cards, mugs, chocolates to gorgeous textiles. If you're after a beautiful Scottish gift, she's got you covered.
Architect
Jones Robbins Tobin are a design led residential architecture practice, committed to delivering contemporary, contextual and ecologically considered high-end residential projects.
Painting
Having retired as a Chartered Design Engineer and following my love of art, I have taken up painting in acrylics focusing on the geometry of shapes, which, combined with colour, I hope will leave the viewer with pleasant, positive thoughts and – if I’m lucky – a smile on their face.
Painting
After completing my degree in Fine Art as a mature student, and now retired as a School Business Manager, I have continued to paint in water colour, acrylics and oils, experimenting with all subject matter; be it portraits, landscapes or abstractions. I have long been a realist painter but as of late I am trying to loosen up and be freer in my approach to painting, generally, and now experimenting with collage.
Weaving
Kirsty is a handweaver, who works from her garden studio as Hopipola Handwovens creating fresh, contemporary pieces predominantly for use in interiors and accessories on traditional looms. The seasons are often reflected in her work, whether influencing colours, textures or yarns. Come Spring, the bright, light airiness that flourishes tends to prompt her to play with a brighter colour palette, giving rise to joyful fabrics.
Digital Artwork
Graham explores the boundaries between generative systems, data visualisation and machine-drawn abstraction. His work focuses on the emergence of pattern and the interplay of geometry and texture. Graham blends a technologist's eye for structure with an artist's intuition for form, challenging the viewer to find order in the abstract.
Magic Little Letters
I love painting portraits, illustrating, fairies and magic, so I have combined them all to create magical letters that appear to be sent from mythical creatures. I aim to make the letters as authentic and 'non-computery' as possible. Father Christmas has helped me and written some lovely letters, and now the fairies want to write letters too. So exciting!
Collage & Mixed Media
Chloe Gardner is principally a collage artist working in feathers sticking down layers and layers of feathers to make animals. Favourites include penguins, elephants, puffins, a robin, a bear and a labrador. However Chloe also does work in flowers, leaves and paint and was the artist of the very first multicoloured highland cow picture. She also paints lots of lovely contemporary stripy stags and has a wide range of gift and homewares including the best mugs!
