English Residency for Creative Professionals
Advanced English practice through art, making, and place
A micro-residency-adventure for professional artists & makers needing to scale up their English for presenting work, collaborating and reaching their dreams.
This Maker Takeover is an invitation to step temporarily into a different rhythm — one where English develops through practice, presence, and shared creative work.
For two weeks, our hub becomes a working residency space. Artists move in, take over the room, and use English as part of their daily making: talking through ideas, shaping decisions, and reflecting on work as it evolves.
English is supported quietly and attentively, responding to real moments that arise through practice rather than following a fixed syllabus. There is time to work, time to think, and space for language to settle without pressure.
This is practice-led English development — slow enough to be meaningful, focused enough to matter, and deliberately temporary.
A two-week Maker Takeover — a temporary, practice-led English residency for creative professionals who already use English in their work and want to develop greater ease, precision, and confidence through making.
This residency is built around practice-led English development. Rather than separating language from creative work, English is used as part of daily practice — talking through ideas, describing process, collaborating, and reflecting on work as it develops.
During the residency, artists temporarily take over our hub as a shared creative space. It functions as a pop-up residency environment: focused, contained, and deliberately time-limited. English support is woven into this takeover, responding to the real conversations and decisions that arise through practice.
This is not a general English holiday or a creative taster. It is a structured residency for artists ready to work seriously with both their language and their practice.
September 2027
Run once during the year, as a single two-week residency.
The Maker Takeover is not offered on a rolling basis and does not run at other times of year.
This residency is for practising artists, designers, and makers who:
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already have an active creative practice
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use English professionally or semi-professionally
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want to develop their English through practice, conversation, and collaboration
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are comfortable working independently and sharing space with peers
It is best suited to people who are no longer at beginner level in English and who are interested in practice-led English development, rather than classroom-based learning or short creative experiences.
This residency is not designed for beginners, casual learners, or those looking for a general English holiday.
Perthshire, Scotland.
The residency is based in and around a small Perthshire town. Our hub becomes the shared residency space for the two weeks, with time spent working on site, visiting local studios, and engaging with the surrounding area.
Accommodation is with local homestay hosts, allowing participants to live locally and experience everyday life in English alongside the residency. All English coaching and residency activity is centred locally, supporting a focused, walkable rhythm throughout the takeover.
Why English Feels More Comfortable Here
For creative professionals, English is not something to be learned in advance and then applied later. The language they need emerges through their practice — through the specific decisions, questions, and tensions that arise while they are making their own work.
During this Maker Takeover, English development is practice-led. Participants work on their own projects, and the language support responds directly to what that work demands: explaining process, articulating intention, negotiating ideas, responding to feedback, and collaborating in real time. No two artists require the same language, because no two practices are the same.
This means English is not imposed, generalised, or rehearsed in abstract. It is discovered. Vocabulary, structures, and ways of speaking emerge from the work itself, shaped by what each artist is trying to say, do, or resolve.
Because language grows from meaning rather than performance, it feels more stable under pressure. Participants learn to speak while ideas are still forming, to tolerate imperfection without self-censoring, and to trust that their voice can stay present even when the work is unfinished.
In this context, English becomes part of practice — not a separate task — allowing artists to be heard as peers, not students, and to exist fully in the room while the work is alive.
Price per person
per week, 2026
The Story of this Holiday
Experience English unfolds at a steady, human pace.
Your days are shaped around being out in Scotland — walking through landscapes, visiting places with character and history, sharing meals, and spending time together in ways that naturally invite conversation.
English is the long-term aim of the week, but it’s worked in deliberately and in many different ways — through conversation, shared experiences, and everyday moments. Support is present without being intrusive, and the week adapts as it goes — what you notice, explore, or enjoy early on often shapes what follows.
Rather than following a fixed programme, the week is held with intention and allowed to respond — shaped by the people there, the conversations that emerge, and what feels most alive in the moment.
Because groups are small, there’s room for different rhythms. Some moments are lively and social; others are quiet and reflective. Both are part of the week, and both matter.
You stay with welcoming local homestay hosts, so evenings are calm and comfortable — a natural continuation of the day, with space to rest, reflect, and let English stay gently present.
By the end of the holiday, the week feels complete rather than rushed — like time well spent, not something to recover from.
Week 1
Maker Takeover | A Creative Residency for English Skills
This is a CREATIVE BREAK: time & space with immersive English, a pencil in one hand and your ideas flowing.
Art is your priority but English will follow.
How many sketchbooks can you fill?
What intervention will you make in our town?
What object you are going to leave behind?
What’s the strange tool you’ll master?
What place will change your vision forever?
Meet the Makers
Find inspiration exploring Crieff, Stratheran and Perthshire while growing fluent in presenting your creative work for artist talks, job interviews and meeting peers.
Adventure along a different Perthshire Open Studios 2026 art trail, visiting studios, local towns & beautiful countryside.
Quality Peer-to-Peer Art Talk Every Day
Relax and chat with artists in their studio.
It’s your inspirational, cultural immersion in contemporary Scottish art – all wrapped up in bespoke English coaching.
Week 1 | Language Goals
Target Language: English for Creative Careers, including Presentations, understanding ‘Fast’ English (native speakers), Making Introductions, Socialising, Describing Art and Design Work, Expressing Opinions, and Asking Questions.
Week 2
Mini-Artist-Residency
Get a daily maker’s challenge set by a local Perthshire artist.
Collaborate or fly solo, we’re here to make your idea happen.
Week 2 | Language Goals
Particular focus on English for collaboration and making, discussing and describing ideas.
Week 2 is less English-intensive (expect around 2 hours of English coaching per day, scattered throughout your day of art making).
What to Know About Our English Holidays
Before you decide if you want to book a Zoom chat, you may find it helpful to explore how we design our English holidays and support your experience.
→ Real-World English
How English develops through lived experience, conversation, and everyday moments — not classroom performance.
→ Discover the Mix that Makes a Blue Noun Holiday Unique
A simple visual diagram showing how activities, schedule and support combine across a week.
→ What’s Included
Practical details, support, and what your holiday fee covers.
About the Artist & Designer Festivals
September 2026 | Perthshire Open Studios
This is the 5-day public event our Mini-Residency is framed around.
Perthshire Open Studios is when 120 Perthshire artists open their studios to the public.
Perthshire UNESCO City for Craft
Perthshire, designated in 2021 by UNESCO for its importance to craft – and the only UK city/region with this title, is home to 100s of contemporary artists, designers and craftspeople.
For 5 days across the second week of September, many of their studio doors are open…
Dundee UNESCO City for Design
Dundee Design Festival
We use this public event to workshop your English for design.
Enjoy exhibitions, workshops, talks and events with an Englsih coach by your side.
Find inspiration in the work of more than 180 designers all under one roof, in the UK’s only UNESCO City of Design, Dundee.
What People Notice By The End Of The Week
By the end of the residency, you will notice a sense of creative spaciousness that often feels hard to access in everyday life. Time spent making, thinking, and talking without pressure creates room for ideas to settle and develop.
You will experience a deeper connection to place and culture — through shared meals, studio visits, local conversations, and the everyday rhythms of living and working together. English becomes part of these moments, rather than something separate from them.
Collaboration will feel more natural. Conversations around work flow more easily, ideas can be shared while they are still forming, and it becomes possible to speak without waiting for thoughts to be fully polished.
Perhaps most importantly, you will develop a quiet sense of belonging in English. Not fluency as a goal, but the feeling of being present, recognised, and understood as yourself while working, sharing, and connecting with others.
These are the kinds of experiences that tend to linger — helping you remember who you became in English during the residency, long after the work has travelled home with you.
A Simple Next Step
If this Maker Takeover feels relevant to your practice, the next step is simply to stay in touch.
You can join the mailing list below to be notified when booking for the September 2027 residency opens. This is not a commitment to apply or book, and places are never allocated without a prior conversation.
Being on the list simply means you’ll receive clear information when dates, details, and next steps are confirmed — so you can decide, in your own time, whether it’s something you’d like to explore.
