I create safe spaces where you can rest, relax, and begin to uncover yourself: places which invite deep listening, and a careful exploration of your most intimate and precious findings.

❤️

“I have had such a huge shift in my soul and am now able to be creative without the anxiety. I can now flow into expressing my inner world through all sort of materials and movement and colour and voice and words. You have linked me to the whisp of thoughts and feelings and shown me how to connect with the Me who has always been with me. This is so deeply meaningful and so very important for my life. A thousand thank yous for being all that you are Veronique: vulnerable, joyful (I love your laugh) your gentle feedback, your quiet moments, your silence, your steel, your real interest in others, your passion …” Sue Cleasby, Artist

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“Thank you Veronique, so much for this three day course. I really feel that I have made some big steps forward in my healing journey, and to understanding myself better. You are so genuine and open which helped me to feel safe and understood.” Julia Engelhorn, Artist

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“As a successful and pretty sceptical business woman, I was hesitant about attending a course at West Dean purporting to help me reach the ‘authentic me’ and develop my creativity. How glad I was that I went nonetheless! Within a very short time, I had total trust in the course leader, Veronique Maria, and had already discovered an aspect of myself I did not know existed. By the end of the day – quite a roller coaster for myself and the other attendees – I knew I had indeed explored a crucial part of myself barely acknowledged before. When asked to express my reaction at the end of the course, all I could say was a hugely heartfelt ‘thank you’ to Veronique.

This is one very talented lady – deeply caring and empathetic – who knows exactly how to create a safe and welcoming place for all on her courses. She is extremely well trained and qualified (I do urge anyone considering Veronique’s courses to check her out …and nothing phases her. Since taking Veronique’s course, I am much more self aware – and more genuinely confident of my own skills and abilities. It’s so easy to go through life (especially perhaps as a woman) feeling you are not the real McCoy. What the course did for me was put me in touch with a deep seated strength and optimism that I know will help empower the next phase of my life. As anyone reading this can see – I simply cant praise Veronique’s courses more highly and hope that she manages to reach a good many others on this planet who are sorely in need of her services. This is not New Age mumbojumbo. It is a unique form of counselling cum spiritual leadership (non religious) that goes straight to the universal core in each one of us. NOT TO BE MISSED is my sincere advice.” Patricia Kerr, Managing Director: Kerr-Ingram

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SHORT COURSES AT WEST DEAN COLLEGE, West Sussex UK.

14-15 March 2026 Finding Your Creative Self – Suitable for all

20-23 August 2026 The Creative Self – Finding Your Power

To check availability and book – call West Dean College 01243 818300 (9am – 5pm Monday – Friday)

email: bookingsoffice@westdean.org.uk https://www.westdean.ac.uk

HOME RETREATS in West Sussex UK

Veronique’s Garden, Worthing, West Sussex

2026 Dates – yet to be decided.

About the course leader:

Veronique Maria is an artist, artist’s mentor, & creativity coach, who is passionate about the importance of creativity. She instinctively enables authentic self expression in others, helping people build confidence in themselves, as they open to the fullness of their own unique creative expression.

Veronique originally trained as a transparency re-toucher; ‘altering’ photographic images by hand on light boxes, & in dark rooms. Since then, she’s worked in art & design, initially making craft objects; turning & carving wood, & hand building in ceramics, and as her confidence grew, she relocated her work within a fine art context, making sculpture, installation, heavily textured paintings, artist’s moving image (video), & live art performance for camera. Since the late 1990s she has worked both independently & collaborated with dancers, musicians, writers & performance artists.

Veronique has a relentless determination to learn, grow & explore, both personally & artistically. This leads to a diverse & ever changing professional & creative practice.

Currently her personal studio work leans towards textiles, painting, pattern, and ceramics, her consultancy work leans towards property development: interiors, landscapes & gardens, & in her mentoring, Veronique’s primary focus, leans towards skill sharing, enabling, encouraging and supporting others in their creative lives, both in, and beyond all art arenas.

Veronique is on a mission to pass on the knowledge she’s gained over fifty years of working in the arts, design & psycho-spiritual psychology.

After studying at Brighton University, (BA (hons) art & design – wood, metal, ceramics, plastics), she studied psychotherapy & applied psychology at the Institute of Psychosynthesis, London. She has an MA (Masters Degree in Arts) in Applied Psychosynthesis (applied to fine art practice, from Middlesex University, UK) & her professional trainings (which she calls upon when needed but does not work exclusively as) include Psychosynthesis Psychotherapy, (Institute of Psychosynthesis, London) Life Coaching & Leadership, (CTI Coaches Training Institute UK, Spain & USA), Energy Healing (Dinah Lawson UK), Living Tantra (LTT14, UK) & Business Development (UK & USA).

Veronique mentors individual artists, 1-2-1, in her Hot House Mentoring Programme, and, leads short courses for adults at West Dean College of Arts & Conservation. Previously she has taught in schools, colleges, & universities.

Veronique’s own art mentors include Professors; Danny Rolph & Michael Tucker, Sir Antony Gormley, Simon Grennan, Paul Carter & Alexandra Zierle (Zierle&Carter), & Janine Antoni. Since 1994 she has consistently received numerous grants, awards, sponsorship & funded residencies, Nationally & Internationally. She has creative & academic work published in ‘Psychosynthesis Theory and Practice’, her art work in private & public collections worldwide, & her permanent, site specific earth & fibre work, ‘Mound’ in Hampshire UK, was featured on BBC2’s Gardeners world in 2008.

Veronique had been practicing Buddhism since 1980’s, Tantra since 1990s, & has been teaching meditation and mindfulness for over 45 years. She is currently training for ordination with the Triratna Buddhist Order, & recently graduated in Living Tantra (LTT14). Buddhism, Tantra and Psychosynthesis are integral to all aspects of Veronique’s work and life. She is committed to ‘relationship’, & regards the way we relate; to ourselves, our creativity, others and all things, as being both an art form, and a devotional practice. Her personal aspiration is to live life creatively; in full devotion, and in love. And from that place, she aims to support others to live ‘confidently creative’, in their own unique and particular way.